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either sole or partial European descent, with a majority of these being Spaniards, followed closely by Italians, and smaller numbers of French, Germans, Portuguese, British (English or Scots), Irish, Swiss, Russians, Poles, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Belgians, Austrians, Croats, Serbs, Greeks and others. There are also smaller numbers of Western Asian (Turks, Israelis, and Lebanese) and Caucasian ethnic groups (Armenians, Georgians, and Azeris). Many Swiss settlements (colonias or "colonies"), such as Colonia Suiza, Colonia Valdense and Nueva Helvecia, were founded in the department of Colonia. Also, there are towns founded by early British settlers, such as Conchillas and Barker. A Russian colony called San Javier is found in the department of Río Negro. There are Mennonite colonies in the department of Río Negro and in the department of Canelones. Many of the European immigrants arrived in the late 19th century and have heavily influenced the architecture and culture of Montevideo and other major cities. For this reason, Montevideo and life within the city are very reminiscent of Western Europe. The rest of the Uruguayan population is Black/Afro-Uruguayan of African descent and about 1 or 2% are of Asian descent, mostly are Lebanese/Syrian Arab, and Chinese or Japanese ancestry. Amerindians descendants make up a small population in the Rural North region, with Mestizos making up 6% of the population. Demographic distribution Metropolitan Montevideo, with about one and a half million inhabitants, is the capital and largest city. The rest of the urban population lives in about 20 towns. Montevideo is about away from Buenos Aires in neighboring Argentina. Uruguay is distinguished by its high literacy rate (97.3%) and a large urban middle class. As a result of the low birth rate, high life expectancy, and relatively high rate of emigration of younger people, Uruguay's population is quite mature. In 2006, the country had a birth rate of 13.91 births per thousand population, lower than neighboring countries Argentina (16.73 births/1000 population)[3] and Brazil (16.56 births/1,000 population). Emigration During the past four decades, an estimated 500,000 Uruguayans had emigrated, principally to Brazil, Argentina and Europe. (Argentina is the main destination for Uruguayans, but they are also drawn to Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany.) Other Uruguayans went to various countries in Europe, Australia and the USA. Neighboring ties and short distances between Uruguayan cities and Argentine capital Buenos Aires, have drawn a path of success for very talented Uruguayans who settled in the neighbor country and became famous and locally accepted. Some famous Uruguayans who excelled in Argentina are entrepreneur and financier Juan Navarro, sports journalist Victor Hugo Morales, singer and actress Natalia Oreiro, soccer players Antonio Alzamendi, Enzo Francescoli and Carlos Goyen, actor Daniel Hendler, actress China Zorrilla, entertainer Carlos Perciavalle and former playboy and journalist Luis César Avilés. Emigration to the United States also rose at the beginning of the century, but remains a small part of the | are also smaller numbers of Western Asian (Turks, Israelis, and Lebanese) and Caucasian ethnic groups (Armenians, Georgians, and Azeris). Many Swiss settlements (colonias or "colonies"), such as Colonia Suiza, Colonia Valdense and Nueva Helvecia, were founded in the department of Colonia. Also, there are towns founded by early British settlers, such as Conchillas and Barker. A Russian colony called San Javier is found in the department of Río Negro. There are Mennonite colonies in the department of Río Negro and in the department of Canelones. Many of the European immigrants arrived in the late 19th century and have heavily influenced the architecture and culture of Montevideo and other major cities. For this reason, Montevideo and life within the city are very reminiscent of Western Europe. The rest of the Uruguayan population is Black/Afro-Uruguayan of African descent and about 1 or 2% are of Asian descent, mostly are Lebanese/Syrian Arab, and Chinese or Japanese ancestry. Amerindians descendants make up a small population in the Rural North region, with Mestizos making up 6% of the population. Demographic distribution Metropolitan Montevideo, with about one and a half million inhabitants, is the capital and largest city. The rest of the urban population lives in about 20 towns. Montevideo is about away from Buenos Aires in neighboring Argentina. Uruguay is distinguished by its high literacy rate (97.3%) and a large urban middle class. As a result of the low birth rate, high life expectancy, and relatively high rate of emigration of younger people, Uruguay's population is quite mature. In 2006, the country had a birth rate of 13.91 births per thousand population, lower than neighboring countries Argentina (16.73 births/1000 population)[3] and Brazil (16.56 births/1,000 population). Emigration During the past four decades, an estimated 500,000 Uruguayans had emigrated, principally to Brazil, Argentina and Europe. (Argentina is the main destination for Uruguayans, but they are also drawn to Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany.) Other Uruguayans went to various countries in Europe, Australia and the USA. Neighboring ties and short distances between Uruguayan cities and Argentine capital Buenos Aires, have drawn a path of success for very talented Uruguayans who settled in the neighbor country and became famous and locally accepted. Some famous Uruguayans who excelled in Argentina are entrepreneur and financier Juan Navarro, sports journalist Victor Hugo Morales, singer and actress Natalia Oreiro, soccer players Antonio Alzamendi, Enzo Francescoli and Carlos Goyen, actor Daniel Hendler, actress China Zorrilla, entertainer Carlos Perciavalle and former playboy and journalist Luis César Avilés. Emigration to the United States also rose at the beginning of the century, but remains a small part of the US population. The majority of Uruguayans in the US live in New York City, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Florida, and urban areas of California. Religion Uruguay has no official religion, church and state are officially separated, and religious freedom is guaranteed. A 2008 survey by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística of Uruguay gave Catholicism as the main religion, with 45.7% of the population, 9.0% are non-Catholic Christians, 0.6% are Animists or Umbandists (an Afro-Brazilian |
and permanent instability (40 revolts between 1830 and 1903), foreign capitalism's control of important sectors of the economy, high percentage of illiterate people (more than half the population in 1900), land oligarchy, etc. Yet Montevideo became a refuge for Argentine exiles fleeing the dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas and maintained a reputation as a welcoming place for ideas of "advanced" political and social protest. In 1842, the newspaper Le Messager devoted a special issue to the memory of Charles Fourier. During the Great War (1843-1852), Garibaldi's red shirts fought in Montevideo even against Rosas' attacking forces. In 1875, workers founded an Internationale. At the beginning of the 20th century, Uruguay became the most politically and socially advanced state on the continent. The liberal José Batlle y Ordóñez (in power between 1903 and 1907, then between 1911 and 1915) was the main architect of this transformation; freedom of expression and the press was affirmed, as well as that of suffrage. A system of proportional representation is adopted to allow for the representation of minorities. It also calls for the abolition of the death penalty, the fight against administrative corruption and the introduction of secularism and women's right to vote. On the economic level, he stated that "industry must not be allowed to destroy human beings, but that on the contrary the State must regulate it in order to make the lives of the masses happier." It thus undertakes an economic policy of a dirigiste nature and nationalizes many sectors of the economy (railways, telephone, electricity, etc.). The "batllism" also takes the form of social measures: institutionalization of free and compulsory primary education, support for trade unions and recognition of the right to strike, maternity leave, an eight-hour day, etc. All this legislation, which was well advanced at the time, made Uruguay a progressive social democracy. Constitution Uruguay adopted its first constitution in 1830, following the conclusion of a three-year war in which Argentina and Uruguay fought as a regional federation: the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Sponsored by the United Kingdom, the 1828 Treaty of Montevideo built the foundations for a Uruguayan state and constitution. A constitution proposed under the military dictatorship government was rejected by a referendum in 1980. Executive branch Uruguay's Constitution of | created a strong presidency, subject to legislative and judicial balance. Many of these provisions were suspended in 1973 but reestablished in 1985. The president, who is both the head of state and the head of government, is elected by popular vote for a five-year term, with the vice president elected on the same ticket. The President must act together with the Council of Ministers, which comprises cabinet ministers, appointed by the president. Thirteen ministers head various executive departments. The ministers can be removed by the General Assembly by a majority vote. The Constitution amendment establishes the requirements for becoming President. Article 151 establishes that the President must be a natural-born citizen of the country, or have been born to an Uruguayan citizen if born abroad. The President must also be at least 35 years old and be registered in the National Civic Registry. The current president since 1 March 2020 is Luis Lacalle Pou, the son of the 36th president, Luis Alberto Lacalle. Legislative branch The General Assembly (Asamblea General) has two chambers. The Chamber of Representatives (Cámara de Representantes) has 99 members, elected for a five-year term by proportional representation with at least two members per department. The Chamber of Senators (Cámara de Senadores) has 31 members; 30 members are elected for a five-year term by proportional representation and the Vice-president who presides over it. Judicial branch The Judiciary of Uruguay is headed by the Supreme Court of Justice, whose members are appointed by the General Assembly through a two-thirds majority and whose terms last ten years. The Supreme Court of Justice is the last instance of appeal and is also in charge of judging the constitutionality of the laws. The judiciary is also made up of Courts of Appeals, Legal Courts and Courts of the Peace. Direct democracy The Uruguayan constitution allows citizens to challenge laws approved by Parliament by use of a referendum or to propose changes to the Constitution by the use of a plebiscite. Political parties and elections International organization participation Uruguay or Uruguayan organizations participate in the following international organizations: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Group of 77 (G-77) Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) International Criminal Court (ICC) International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Red Cross International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) International Finance Corporation (IFC) International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCS) International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) International Labour Organization (ILO) International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Maritime Organization (IMO) Interpol International Olympic Committee (IOC) International Organization for Migration (IOM) International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Latin American Economic System (LAES) Latin American Integration Association (LAIA) Mercosur United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) (observer) Organization of American States (OAS) Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL) Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) Rio Group (RG) Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) United Nations United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) Universal Postal Union (UPU) World Confederation of Labour (WCL) World Customs Organization (WCO) World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) World |
died in 1929. Batlle introduced widespread political, social, and economic reforms such as a welfare program, government participation in many facets of the economy, and a new constitution. Batlle nationalized foreign-owned companies and created a modern social welfare system. Income tax for lower incomes was abolished in 1905, secondary schools established in every city (1906), telephone network nationalized, unemployment benefits were introduced (1914), eight-hour working day introduced (1915), etc. By 1929, 84% of manufacturing was concentrated in a handful of industries: meatpacking, leather and wool. Industrial policies further encouraging migration from rural to urban communities, as well as waves of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Investment in urban infrastructure in Montevideo and a growing economy, was capped by hosting the first 1930 FIFA World Cup. Claudio Williman who served between Batlle's two terms was his supporter and continued all his reforms, as did the next President Baltasar Brum (1919–1923). Around 1900 infant mortality rates (IMR) in Uruguay were among the world's lowest, indicating a very healthy population. Mid 20th century The economy of Uruguay started in the early 20th century (1920s-1950s) with government policy focused on import substitution industrialization, where the government encouraged and protected national manufacturers to reduce dependency on imports. Generally, manufacturing prospered during this period with growth of 8.4% a year from 1945 to 1954. By 1956 the middle class was appoximately 40% of the population, with urban services and culture, like mass media and cinema, flourishing. However, the policy of import substitution industrialization began to collapse in the 1950s, leading to economic and social unrest. Many economic histories describe both the 50s and 60s and dictatorship period (70s and 80s) as economic downturn periods, followed by further economic degradation caused by neoliberalism. The policies of the Colorado Party under Julio María Sanguinetti and Jorge Batlle during the 90s and early 2000s, following global trends of neo-liberalization, faciltated a shift from manufacturing and small-scale agriculture, towards increasing monoculture agriculture and services like finance and tourism. However, these policies faded as the regional economic problems in Argentina and Brazil caused a downturn and unemployment from 1998 to 2003. The economic and social crises that followed allowed for the election of the Broad Front a leftist coalition against the neoliberal policies. Contemporary trends The number of trade unionists has quadrupled since 2003, from 110,000 to more than 400,000 in 2015 for a working population of 1.5 million people. According to the International Trade Union Confederation, Uruguay has become the most advanced country in the Americas in terms of respect for "fundamental labor rights, in particular, freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike". Currency Uruguay has a partially dollarized economy. almost 60% of bank loans use United States dollars, but most transactions use the Uruguayan peso. Today, the Uruguayan peso is minted in coins of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 50 pesos and in banknotes of 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, and 2000 pesos. Sectors Agriculture, Textiles and Leather Throughout Uruguay's history, their strongest exporting industries have been beef and wool. In the case of beef exports, they have been boosted since Uruguay joined the Mercosur agreement in 1991 and the country has been able to reach more distant markets, such as Japan. In the case of wool exports, they have not been doing so well in recent years suffering from other competitors in the market like New Zealand and the fluctuations of its demand during the 2008/09 recession in the developed world. At the same time with timber refining being kept within the country, forestry has become a growth industry in recent years. In 2018, the country produced 1.36 million tons of rice, 1.33 million tons of soy, 816 thousand tons of maize, 637 thousand tons of barley, 440 thousand tons of wheat, 350 thousand tons of sugar cane, 106 thousand tons of orange, 104 thousand tons of grape, 90 thousand tons of rapeseed, 87 thousand tons of potato, 76 thousand tons of sorghum, 71 thousand tons of tangerine, 52 thousand tons of oats, 48 thousand tons of apple, in addition to smaller yields of other agricultural products. Uruguay is also a major meat producer. In 2018, it produced 589 thousand tons of beef. Energy Software During the last decades the software industry has developed considerably. Many start-ups have been very successful, such is the case of PedidosYa. Uruguay also exports software; the similar geographic longitude to that of the United States makes it attractive for companies to outsource software development to Uruguayan companies. Other notable Uruguayan software enterprises are: Genexus, Códigos del Sur, Overactive. Mining Although this is a sector that does not make substantial contributions to the country's economy, in recent years there has been some activity in gold and cement production, and | industry has developed considerably. Many start-ups have been very successful, such is the case of PedidosYa. Uruguay also exports software; the similar geographic longitude to that of the United States makes it attractive for companies to outsource software development to Uruguayan companies. Other notable Uruguayan software enterprises are: Genexus, Códigos del Sur, Overactive. Mining Although this is a sector that does not make substantial contributions to the country's economy, in recent years there has been some activity in gold and cement production, and also in the extraction of granite. Plastics Due to two major investments made in 1991 and 1997, the most significant manufactured exports in Uruguay are plastics. These investments laid the way for most of the substantial exports of plastic-based products which have taken a very important role in Uruguay's economy. Telecommunications Despite having poor levels of investment in the fixed-line sector, the small size of Uruguay's population has enabled them to attain one of the highest teledensity levels in South America and reach a 100% digitalization of main lines. Although the telecommunications sector has been under a state monopoly for some years, provisions have been made to introduce liberalization and to allow for the entry of more firms into the cellular sector. Travel & Tourism In 2013, travel and tourism accounted for 9.4% of the country's GDP. Their tourist industry is mainly characterized for attracting visitors from neighboring countries. Currently Uruguay's major attraction is the interior, particularly located in the region around Punta del Este. Specialties of Uruguay Cattle were introduced to Uruguay before its independence by Hernando Arias de Saavedra, the Spanish Governor of Buenos Aires in 1603. Beef exports in 2006 amounted to around 37% of Uruguayan exports. Wool is a traditional product exported mainly to America, followed by the UK and India. Milk and dairy products. Conaprole, National Cooperative of Milk Producers is the main exporter of dairy products in Latin America (in 2006). The area of the country dedicated to dairy food is located mainly in the southwest. Rice. Fine varieties are produced in the lowlands in the east of the country close to Merin lake on the Uruguay-Brazil border. The national company Saman claims to be the main exporter in Latin America. Countries it exports to include Brazil, Iran, Peru, South Africa, Chile, Senegal, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, USA, Canada and China. Tourism: Several seaside resorts, like Punta del Este or Punta del Diablo in the south-eastern departments of Maldonado and Rocha, regarded as a jet-set resort in South America, are main attractions of Uruguay. International cruises call at Montevideo from October to March every year. Also, Uruguay hosts many year-round international conferences. (The original GATT Uruguay Round concerning trade was, as its name suggests, hosted in Uruguay). Montevideo is home to the headquarters (secretariat) of [Mercosur], the Common Market of the South, whose full members are Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, associate members Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Software and consulting. Uruguay's well-educated workforce and lower-than-international wages have put Uruguay on the IT map. A product named GeneXus, originally created in Uruguay by a company called ArTech, is noteworthy. Other important developers and consultants include De Larrobla & Asociados, Greycon and Quanam. Tata Consultancy Services has its headquarters for the Spanish speaking world in Uruguay. Many of these companies have established in Zonamerica Business & Technology Park. "With a population of only three million, Uruguay has rapidly become Latin America's outsourcing hub. In partnership with one of India's largest technology consulting firms, engineers in Montevideo work while their counterparts in Mumbai sleep." - The New York Times, Sep 22, 2006. Banking Services. Banking has traditionally been one of the strongest service export sectors in the country. Uruguay was once dubbed "the Switzerland of America", mainly for its banking sector and stability. The largest bank in Uruguay is Banco República, or BROU, which is state-owned; another important state bank is the BHU. Almost 20 private banks, most of the branches of international banks, operate in the country (Banco Santander, ABN AMRO, Citibank, among others). There is also a myriad of brokers and financial-services bureaus, among them Ficus Capital, Galvin Sociedad de Bolsa, Europa Sociedad de Bolsa, Darío Cukier, GBU, Hordeñana & Asociados Sociedad de Bolsa, etc. Uruguay has fully recovered from the financial crisis that caused a run on its banks. Public Sector: The state in Uruguay has an important role in the economy, Uruguay resisted the trend of privatization in Utilities and state-owned enterprises in the region. Several Referendums supported the state being in control of the most important utilities and energy companies. Some of the companies have a full monopoly warranted by law (like landline telephony, water), others compete freely with private operators (Insurance, mobile telephony, Banks). Most of them are dominant in the local market. There is strong debate in the Uruguayan society about their role and future. Some of them contributed to the Uruguay state treasury. The most important state-owned companies are: Republica AFAP (Pension Fund), AFE (Railways), ANCAP (Energy), ANCO (Mail), |
capita (December 2019). Domestic system: fully digitalized, most modern facilities concentrated in Montevideo; nationwide microwave radio relay network. Country calling code: 598. Submarine cable systems: UNISUR submarine cable system provides direct connectivity to Brazil and Argentina. Satellite earth stations: Two, Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean). Internet Internet users: 2.7- million (2020). Internet hosts: 1.036 million (2012). Average connection speed (Q4 2016): 8.2 Mbit/s (world average=7.0 Mbit/s) Top-level domain: .uy In Uruguay, one can access the Internet mainly by using: FTTH services, provided by the state-owned company (ANTEL), which covers most of Montevideo; and the rest of the 19 departments' most important cities. ADSL services, provided by the state-owned company (ANTEL). LTE 4G service with high speed connections, about 20 Mbit/s, offered by all the mobile phone companies. 3G mobile Internet, offered by all the mobile phone companies. Wireless ISPs, which have a tendency to be more expensive because of high taxation and radio spectrum license costs. WiMax launched by Dedicado in 2012. WiFi access provided at shopping malls, bus lines and most of commercial business. Fiber to the home In November 2010, ANTEL announced that it would start rolling out Fiber to the home (FTTH) in the second half of 2011. As of September 2017, 49% of the homes with Internet access do so via FTTH. As of January 2019 Antel offers the following fiber to the home plans: Hogar Básico: up to 60 Mbit/s down and 10 Mbit/s up for 1105 UYU (US$34). After 350 GB of monthly data consumption speed reduced to 3 Mbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up. Hogar Plus: up to 120 Mbit/s down and 12 Mbit/s up for 1,470 UYU (US$45). After 500 GB of monthly data consumption speed reduced to 6 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. Hogar Premium: up to 240 Mbit/s down and 24 Mbit/s up for 2,100 UYU (US$65). After 700 GB of monthly data consumption speed reduced to 12 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. Entretenimiento Plus: up to 300 Mbit/s down and 30 Mbit/s up for 2,500 UYU (US$77). After 1,000 GB of monthly data consumption speed reduced to 12 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up. All home consumer plans provide a dynamic IP address only. There are also business plans available with no monthly data consumption limit that provide fixed IP addresses. ADSL ANTEL is the only ISP to provide ADSL service since it enjoys a monopoly in the basic telephony area. Other ISP use other technologies, such as radio, to get to customers. The following are the plans marketed to home users by Antel as of May 2018. All plans require having a corresponding voice phone service with Antel. All prices include VAT. Consumer data plans Internet Básico: 3,072 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up for 955 UYU (US$31) a month. After 350Gb of data consumption speed reduced to 2,048 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up. Internet Plus: 5,120 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up for 1,265 UYU (US$41) a month. After 500Gb of data consumption speed reduced to 2,048 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up. Internet Premium: 10,240 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up for 1,700 UYU (US$55) a month. After 700Gb of data consumption speed reduced to 8,192 kbit/s down and 512 kbit/s up. All consumer plans provide a dynamic IP address. Fixed wireless Most of Uruguay's landmass is too far away from cities to have wired Internet access. For customers in these rural and low density suburban areas, fixed wireless ISPs provide a service. Wireless Internet service has also provided city Internet users with some degree of choice in a country where private companies have not been allowed to offer wired alternatives (e.g. cable TV Internet, fiber to the home) to the state-operated ADSL service. Dedicado is a local wireless ISP. It appeared before or about at the same time as Anteldata (about in 1999), but since ADSL was not available at the same time on every neighborhood, Dedicado had the majority of the permanent Internet connections. As of November 2007, ADSL is available in every neighborhood in Montevideo, and in most other cities, and | Dedicado lost a big market share, both because being more expensive and giving bad service to their users. They started a big advertising campaign, but didn't pay attention to the technical details related to their number of users, so their quality of service decreased. As of 2012, their quality of service issues appear to be on the mend, but their pricing issues continue especially in the rural market where they have no credible competition and have steadily increased prices. Dedicado originally operated Ericsson fixed wireless equipment and later transitioned to Motorola Canopy and Cambium technology. In 2005, they started deploying WiMAX services. However, as of May 2010, the service is not offered nor advertised yet. There are other wireless ISPs, but Dedicado is the main one. Telmex is another entrant in the Uruguayan fixed wireless space. As of early 2012, they were still a tentative player however, with limited coverage of the country and some technical shortcomings (e.g. no Skype connectivity). In February 2012, Antel announced a push to provide fixed wireless Internet service to rural customers using their 3G cellular network. As of November 2012, the service was being actively offered to customers of the company's Ruralcel fixed wireless telephone service. Customers who sign up get the equipment (a ZTE MF612/MF32 or Huawei B660 3G router) and monthly Internet service for free. While the network and router are capable of supporting multi-Mbit/s service, the free offering is throttled back to 256 kb down/64 kb upload speeds and capped at 1 Gbyte of monthly data transfer (except for a small number of customers grandfathered from a previous service). Once that data limit is reached, the customer has to recharge the service using a prepaid card at a rate of approximately US$10/Gbyte. There is an alternative monthly billing plan that offers 2 Mbit/s down and 512 Mbit/s up with a 5 Gbyte data cap for US$15, plus US$10 for each additional Gbyte (up to 5 Gbyte). There is no unlimited data plan, which limits this technology's ability to compete in the non-residential fixed wireless space against vendors like Dedicado. Mobile wireless Internet access via cell phone networks is probably the most vibrant and competitive Internet marketplace in Uruguay. All the Uruguayan cell phone companies (Antel, Claro, Movistar) offer data plans for their smartphone users as well as USB modems for personal computers. Ancel/Antel even offers a bundle of cellular Internet access and ADSL, an unusual but potentially attractive combination for home ADSL users who also want to have Internet access on the go. The speeds delivered by all companies within their areas of coverage keep getting faster, and the areas of coverage keep expanding (as of 2012 Ancel |
of a debt. The programme will cost $30m. Roadways Total roadways: Paved roadways: Unpaved: (2010) National Roads R1 Montevideo - Colonia del Sacramento R2 Rosario - Mercedes - Fray Bentos, border with Argentina. R3 Villa María - Trinidad - Paysandú - Salto - Bella Unión, border with Brazil. R5 Montevideo - Canelones - Durazno - Tacuarembó - Rivera, border with Brazil. R7 Montevideo - Fray Marcos - Melo R8 Montevideo - Minas - Treinta y Tres - Melo - Aceguá, border with Brazil. R9 Horno Mulato - Rocha - Chuy, border with Brazil. R11 Atlántida - Canelones - Eclida Paullier R26 Paysandú, border with Argentina - Tacuarembó - Melo - Río Branco, border with Brazil. Motorways Uruguay has a small network of motorways, owing to the low demand due to sparse population outside the capital. The few highways with 4 lanes are: Ruta 1: Montevideo - Colonia del Sacramento. Length: . Ruta Interbalnearia: Montevideo - Punta del Este. Length: . Ruta Gral. Fructuoso Rivera: Montevideo - Canelones. Length: . Fuel stations The traditional fuel stations were Ancap, Esso, Shell and Texaco. In 2005–2006, Petrobras bought the 90 Shell stations. In 2006–2007, Ancap bought the 90 Texaco stations. In 2011, Bridas bought the Esso stations but kept the brand. Waterways Uruguay has 1,600 km of waterways. Ports and harbors Uruguay has a number of ports and harbors including: Montevideo (its major port), Fray Bentos, Nueva Palmira, Paysandú, La Paloma, Juan Lacaze, Carmelo, Conchillas, Salto, Punta del Este, Colonia del Sacramento, Piriápolis, Mercedes. Airports Uruguay had a total of 94 airfields as of 2012, 11 of which have paved runways. The country is primarily served by the Carrasco International Airport in Canelones Department, next to the limit with Montevideo. Handing just over 1.5 million passengers a year, its operating traffic is significantly lighter than others in | Melo - Aceguá, border with Brazil. R9 Horno Mulato - Rocha - Chuy, border with Brazil. R11 Atlántida - Canelones - Eclida Paullier R26 Paysandú, border with Argentina - Tacuarembó - Melo - Río Branco, border with Brazil. Motorways Uruguay has a small network of motorways, owing to the low demand due to sparse population outside the capital. The few highways with 4 lanes are: Ruta 1: Montevideo - Colonia del Sacramento. Length: . Ruta Interbalnearia: Montevideo - Punta del Este. Length: . Ruta Gral. Fructuoso Rivera: Montevideo - Canelones. Length: . Fuel stations The traditional fuel stations were Ancap, Esso, Shell and Texaco. In 2005–2006, Petrobras bought the 90 Shell stations. In 2006–2007, Ancap bought the 90 Texaco stations. In 2011, Bridas bought the Esso stations but kept the brand. Waterways Uruguay has 1,600 km of waterways. Ports and harbors Uruguay has a number of ports and harbors including: Montevideo (its major port), Fray Bentos, Nueva Palmira, Paysandú, La Paloma, Juan Lacaze, Carmelo, Conchillas, Salto, Punta del Este, Colonia del Sacramento, Piriápolis, Mercedes. Airports Uruguay had a total of 94 airfields as of 2012, 11 of which have paved runways. The country is primarily served by the Carrasco International Airport in Canelones Department, next to the limit with Montevideo. Handing just over 1.5 million passengers a year, its operating traffic is significantly lighter than others in the region such as Buenos Aires-Ezeiza and São Paulo-Guarulhos. Airports - with paved runways: total: 11 over 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 4 914 to 1,523 m: 4 under 914 m: 2 (2013) Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 122 1,524 to 2,437 m: 3 914 to 1,523 m: 40 under 914 m: 79 (2013) National airlines Air Class Líneas Aéreas Amaszonas Uruguay currently not flying because of the COVID-19 pandemic Exctinct airlines BQB Líneas Aéreas ceased operations on Aprio 11, 2015 Uair Ceased operation on 2005 Alas Uruguay ceased operations on October 24, |
divisions. It is equipped with 15 Israeli Ti-67 (T-55) main battle tanks, 17 American M24 and 46 M41A1 Walker Bulldog light tanks, 24 American M113A1 armored personnel carriers, 15 Czech BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles and 130 OT-64 SKOT APCs, 64 German Condor APCs, 15 Brazilian EE-9 Cascavel and 18 EE-3 Jararaca armored cars, and 48 Russian lightly armored GAZ-3937 amphibious vehicles. In 2008, Uruguay also purchased 44 6x6 Canadian-made AVGP APCs rehabilitated by FAMAE in Chile after retirement from the Canadian Army, receiving a second batch of 100 of Grizzlys and 5 Huskys, the recovery version. It has 4 sets of RM-70 multiple rocket launchers. The army operates 40 Land Rover Defender 110SW vehicles, and is looking to buy between 30 and 40 more. The current assault rifle used by the army is the Argentinian-built version of the Belgian FN FAL; it is being replaced by the Austrian Steyr AUG following a bidding contest in 2007 and 2008. In addition, about 300 Russian AK-101s are already used, and the elite airborne, commando, and antiterrorist Battalion 14 (Batallón de Infantería Paracaidista Nro 14) exclusively employ German HK G36s. Being produced locally in Uruguay, the Army will receive the Glock 17 pistol as a replacement for its legacy Browning Hi-Power and M1911 pistols. DIO, an Iranian company, was involved in the bidding to replace the FN FAL with its KH-2002; but since there is a UN embargo banning arms exports from Iran, the company attempted to smuggle the 15,000 test bullets through Venezuela. This failed and prompted an investigation. Uruguay special forces are now fielding an indigenous .50 BMG sniper rifle called the FS50 Peregrino. It is a single-shot bolt-action rifle that was developed in Uruguay for about two years. The Uruguayan Army was considering buying either the Panzerfaust 3 or RPG-7 as short-range anti-tank weapons. Acquisition of the rockets was cancelled due to lack of funds. Navy (Armada Nacional) The Navy consists of about 5,700 personnel under Admiral Jorge Wilson and is organized into four commands: the Fleet Command | is the Argentinian-built version of the Belgian FN FAL; it is being replaced by the Austrian Steyr AUG following a bidding contest in 2007 and 2008. In addition, about 300 Russian AK-101s are already used, and the elite airborne, commando, and antiterrorist Battalion 14 (Batallón de Infantería Paracaidista Nro 14) exclusively employ German HK G36s. Being produced locally in Uruguay, the Army will receive the Glock 17 pistol as a replacement for its legacy Browning Hi-Power and M1911 pistols. DIO, an Iranian company, was involved in the bidding to replace the FN FAL with its KH-2002; but since there is a UN embargo banning arms exports from Iran, the company attempted to smuggle the 15,000 test bullets through Venezuela. This failed and prompted an investigation. Uruguay special forces are now fielding an indigenous .50 BMG sniper rifle called the FS50 Peregrino. It is a single-shot bolt-action rifle that was developed in Uruguay for about two years. The Uruguayan Army was considering buying either the Panzerfaust 3 or RPG-7 as short-range anti-tank weapons. Acquisition of the rockets was cancelled due to lack of funds. Navy (Armada Nacional) The Navy consists of about 5,700 personnel under Admiral Jorge Wilson and is organized into four commands: the Fleet Command (Comando de la Flota or COMFLO), the Coast Guard (Prefectura Nacional Naval or PRENA), the Chief Directorate of Naval Materiel (Dirección General de Material Naval or DIMAT), and the Chief Directorate of Naval Personnel (Dirección General de Personal Naval or DIPER). The Navy General Staff (Estado Mayor General de la Armada or ESMAY) acts as an advisory body to the admiral. The current fleet consists of 2 ex-Portuguese João Belo class and 1 ex-French Commandant Rivière class (in reserve) frigates, 1 ex-German Lüneburg class auxiliary oil replenisher, 3 Vigilante class and 2 Castrates class patrol boats, 3 ex-East German Kondor II class minesweepers, and other smaller craft. The Navy also includes a battalion-sized Marine Corps (Cuerpo de Fusileros Navales) and a small naval air station at Laguna del Sauce. The Uruguayan Naval Academy (Escuela Naval or ESNAL) is located in Carrasco, a suburb of Montevideo. Instruction consists of a 4-year course of study culminating in a cruise on the instructional tall ship ROU Capitán Miranda, which lasts several weeks and takes graduates to various ports around the world. Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Uruguaya) The Air |
article deals with the diplomatic affairs, foreign policy and international relations of Uruguay. At the political level, these matters are officially handled by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, also known as Cancillería, which answers to the President. Overview Uruguay traditionally has had strong political and cultural links with its neighbours and Europe. British diplomat Alfred Mitchell-Innes was Minister to Uruguay throughout the crucial years of World War I (1913–1919). With globalization and regional economic problems, its links to North America have strengthened. Uruguay is a strong advocate of constitutional democracy, political pluralism, and individual liberties. Its international relations historically have been guided by the principles of nonintervention, multilateralism, respect for national sovereignty, and reliance on the rule of law to settle disputes. Uruguay's international relations also reflect its drive to seek export markets and foreign investment. It is a founding member of MERCOSUR. In June 1991, MERCOSUR and the United States signed the Rose Garden Agreement (also known as the "Four Plus One" Agreement). The agreement was non-operational until June 2001 when MERCOSUR invited the U.S. to discuss the feasibility of market access negotiations. The first U.S.-MERCOSUR | selected to chair the FTAA and WTO agricultural committees and a Uruguayan presides over the WTO General Assembly. Uruguay also is a member of the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI), a trade association based in Montevideo that includes 10 South American countries plus Mexico and Cuba. In 2020, the new right-wing president of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, announced that he will implement radical changes in Uruguay's foreign policy, taking a harder attitude against disputed President Nicolas Maduro's regime in Venezuela and improving relations with the U.S. The previous left-wing government of Uruguay had recognized Maduro as Venezuela's president. President Luis Lacalle Pou also declared the presidents of Venezuela and Cuba to be "dictators." Disputes - international: Uncontested disputes with Brazil over tiny Isla Brasilera at the mouth of the Quarai/Cuareim River near the Argentina tripoint, and, 225 kilometers upriver, over the 235 km2. Invernada River region, as to which tributary is the legitimate source of the Quarai/Cuareim River. In the 1960s, the US Office of Public Safety helped in training Uruguayan police officers. Dan Mitrione taught torture methods used against the civilian population and the Tupamaros. Africa Americas Asia Europe Oceania See also List of diplomatic missions in Uruguay List of diplomatic missions of Uruguay Embassy of Uruguay in Washington References Further reading Meyer, Peter J. "Uruguay: Political and Economic Conditions and US Relations." (Library Of Congress Washington Dc Congressional Research Service, 2010) online. Travieso, Emiliano. "United by grass, separated by coal: Uruguay and New Zealand during the First Globalization." Journal of Global History 15.2 (2020): 269-289. |
the main contributor to the pollution and devastation of both air and water in the country. The Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, humidifying the surrounding air and irrigating the arid land. Since the 1960s, when the overuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to about 10% of its former area and divided into parts, with only the southern part of the narrow western lobe of the South Aral Sea remaining permanently in Uzbekistan. Much of the water was and continues to be used for the irrigation of cotton fields, a crop requiring a large amount of water to grow. Due to the Aral Sea loss, high salinity and contamination of the soil with heavy elements are especially widespread in Karakalpakstan, the region of Uzbekistan adjacent to the Aral Sea. The bulk of the nation's water resources is used for farming, which accounts for nearly 84% of the water use and contributes to high soil salinity. Heavy use of pesticides and fertilisers for cotton growing further aggravates soil contamination. According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), climate risk management in Uzbekistan should consider its ecological safety. Numerous oil and gas deposits have been discovered in the south of the country. Uzbekistan has also been home to seismic activity, as evidenced by the 1902 Andijan earthquake, 2011 Fergana Valley earthquake, and 1966 Tashkent earthquake. A dam collapse at Sardoba reservoir in May 2020 flooded much farmland and many villages. The devastation extended into areas inside neighbouring Kazakhstan. Politics After Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, an election was held, and Islam Karimov was elected as the first President of Uzbekistan on 29 December 1991. The elections of the Oliy Majlis (Parliament or Supreme Assembly) were held under a resolution adopted by the 16th Supreme Soviet in 1994. In that year, the Supreme Soviet was replaced by the Oliy Majlis. The third elections for the bicameral 150-member Oliy Majlis, the Legislative Chamber, and the 100-member Senate for five-year terms, were held on 27 December 2009. The second elections were held from December 2004 to January 2005. The Oliy Majlis was unicameral up to 2004. Its size increased from 69 deputies (members) in 1994 to 120 in 2004–05 and currently stands at 150. Karimov's first presidential term was extended to 2000 via a referendum, and he was re-elected in 2000, 2007, and 2015, each time receiving over 90% of the vote. Most international observers refused to participate in the process and did not recognise the results, dismissing them as not meeting basic standards. The 2002 referendum also included a plan for a bicameral parliament consisting of a lower house (the Oliy Majlis) and an upper house (Senate). Members of the lower house are to be "full-time" legislators. Elections for the new bicameral parliament took place on 26 December. Following Islam Karimov's death on 2 September 2016, the Oliy Majlis appointed Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev as interim president. Although the chairman of the Senate, Nigmatilla Yuldashev, was constitutionally designated as Karimov's successor, Yuldashev proposed that Mirziyoyev take the post of the interim president instead in light of Mirziyoyev's "many years of experience". Mirziyoyev was subsequently elected as the country's second president in the December 2016 presidential election, winning 88.6% of the vote, and was sworn in on 14 December. Deputy Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov replaced him as prime minister. Mirziyoyev removed most of Karimov's officials and urged the government to employ "new, young people who love their country." After a year in office, Mirziyoyev moved away from many of his predecessor's policies. He visited all the Uzbek regions and big cities to get acquainted with the implementation of the projects and reforms which he ordered. Many analysts and Western media compared his rule with Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping or Soviet Communist Party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. His rule has been quoted as being an "Uzbek Spring". Foreign relations Uzbekistan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States in December 1991. However, it is opposed to reintegration and withdrew from the CIS collective security arrangement in 1999. Since that time, Uzbekistan has participated in the CIS peacekeeping force in Tajikistan and in UN-organized groups to help resolve the Tajikistan and Afghanistan conflicts, both of which it sees as posing threats to its own stability. Previously close to Washington (which gave Uzbekistan half a billion dollars in aid in 2004, about a quarter of its military budget), the government of Uzbekistan has recently restricted American military use of the airbase at Karshi-Khanabad for air operations in neighbouring Afghanistan. Uzbekistan was an active supporter of U.S. efforts against worldwide terrorism and joined the coalitions that have dealt with both Afghanistan and Iraq. The relationship between Uzbekistan and the United States began to deteriorate after the so-called "colour revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine (and to a lesser extent Kyrgyzstan). When the U.S. joined in a call for an independent international investigation of the bloody events at Andijan, the relationship further declined, and President Islam Karimov changed the political alignment of the country to bring it closer to Russia and China. In late July 2005, the government of Uzbekistan ordered the United States to vacate an airbase in Karshi-Kanabad (near Uzbekistan's border with Afghanistan) within 180 days. Karimov had offered use of the base to the U.S. shortly after 9/11. It is also believed by some Uzbeks that the protests in Andijan were brought about by the UK and U.S. influences in the area of Andijan. This is another reason for the hostility between Uzbekistan and the West. Uzbekistan is a member of the United Nations (UN) (since 2 March 1992), the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), Partnership for Peace (PfP), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It belongs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) (comprising the five Central Asian countries, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the GUAM alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which was formed in 1997 (making it GUUAM), but pulled out of the organisation in 2005. Uzbekistan is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and hosts the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Uzbekistan joined the new Central Asian Cooperation Organisation (CACO) in 2002. The CACO consists of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is a founding member of, and remains involved in, the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan. In December 1994 Uzbekistan applied for the World Trade Organization membership and received an observer status to start the accession process. The Working Party on the Accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO held its fourth meeting on 7 July 2020 — almost 15 years after its last formal meeting. In September 2006, UNESCO presented Islam Karimov an award for Uzbekistan's preservation of its rich culture and traditions. Despite criticism, this seems to be a sign of improving relationships between Uzbekistan and the West. The month of October 2006 also saw a decrease in the isolation of Uzbekistan from the West. The EU announced that it was planning to send a delegation to Uzbekistan to talk about human rights and liberties, after a long period of hostile relations between the two. Although it is equivocal about whether the official or unofficial version of the Andijan Massacre is true, the EU is evidently willing to ease its economic sanctions against Uzbekistan. Nevertheless, it is generally assumed among Uzbekistan's population that the government will stand firm in maintaining its close ties with the Russian Federation and in its theory that the 2004–2005 protests in Uzbekistan were promoted by the US and UK. In January 2008, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was appointed to her current role as Uzbekistan's ambassador to UNESCO. Karimova-Tillyaeva and her team have been instrumental in promoting inter-cultural dialogue by increasing European society's awareness of Uzbekistan's cultural and historical heritage. Human rights Non-governmental human rights organisations, such as IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union, define Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights" and express profound concern about "wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights". According to the reports, the most widespread violations are torture, arbitrary arrests, and various restrictions of freedoms: of religion, of speech and press, of free association and assembly. It has also been reported that forced sterilisation of rural Uzbek women has been sanctioned by the government. The reports maintain that the violations are most often committed against members of religious organisations, independent journalists, human rights activists and political activists, including members of the banned opposition parties. As of 2015, reports on violations on human rights in Uzbekistan indicated that violations were still going on without any improvement. The Freedom House has consistently ranked Uzbekistan near the bottom of its Freedom in the World ranking since the country's founding in 1991. In the 2018 report, Uzbekistan was one of the 11 worst countries for Political Rights and Civil Liberties. The 2005 civil unrest in Uzbekistan, which resulted in several hundred people being killed, is viewed by many as a landmark event in the history of human rights abuse in Uzbekistan. Concern has been expressed and requests for an independent investigation of the events has been made by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The government of Uzbekistan is accused of unlawful termination of human life and of denying its citizens freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. The government vehemently rebuffs the accusations, maintaining that it merely conducted an anti-terrorist operation, exercising only necessary force. In addition, some officials claim that "an information war on Uzbekistan has been declared" and the human rights violations in Andijan are invented by the enemies of Uzbekistan as a convenient pretext for intervention in the country's internal affairs. Male homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan. Punishment ranges from a fine to 3 years in prison. There are an estimated 1.2 million modern slaves in Uzbekistan, most work in the cotton industry. The government allegedly forces state employees to pick cotton in the autumn months. World Bank loans have been connected to projects that use child labour and forced labour practices in the cotton industry. Recent developments Islam Karimov died in 2016 and his successor Shavkat Mirziyoyev is considered by most to be pursuing a less autocratic path by increasing co-operation with human rights NGOs, scheduling Soviet-style exit visas to be abolished in 2019, and reducing sentences for certain misdemeanor offences. The Amnesty International report on the country for 2017–2018 found some remnant repressive measures and lack of rule of law in eradicating modern slavery. In February 2020, the United Nations announced that Uzbekistan made "major progress" on stamping out forced labour in its cotton harvest as 94% of pickers worked voluntarily. Administrative divisions Uzbekistan is divided into twelve regions (viloyatlar, singular viloyat, compound noun viloyati e.g., Toshkent viloyati, Samarqand viloyati, etc.), one autonomous republic (respublika, compound noun respublikasi e.g. Qoraqalpogiston Muxtor Respublikasi, Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, etc.), and one independent city (shahar, compound noun shahri, e.g., Toshkent shahri). Names are given below in Uzbek, Russian, and Karakalpak languages when applicable, although numerous variations of the transliterations of each name exist. The regions are further divided into districts (tuman). Largest cities Economy Uzbekistan mines 80 tons of gold annually, seventh in the world. Uzbekistan's copper deposits rank tenth in the world and its uranium deposits twelfth. The country's uranium production ranks seventh globally. The Uzbek national gas company, Uzbekneftegas, ranks 11th in the world in natural gas production with an annual output of . The country has significant untapped reserves of oil and gas: there are 194 deposits of hydrocarbons in Uzbekistan, including 98 condensate and natural gas deposits and 96 gas condensate deposits. Uzbekistan improved marginally in the 2020 Ease of Doing Business ranking by the World Bank. The largest corporations involved in Uzbekistan's energy sector are the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Petronas, the Korea National Oil Corporation, Gazprom, Lukoil, and Uzbekneftegas. Along with many Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS economies, Uzbekistan's economy declined during the first years of transition and then recovered after 1995, as the cumulative effect of policy reforms began to be felt. It has shown robust growth, rising by 4% per year between 1998 and 2003 and accelerating thereafter to 7%–8% per year. According to IMF estimates, the GDP in 2008 will be almost double its value in 1995 (in constant prices). Since 2003 annual inflation rates varied, reaching almost 40% in 2010 and less than 20% in 2019. Uzbekistan has GNI per capita of US$2,020 in current dollars in 2018, giving a PPP equivalent of US$7,230. Economic production is concentrated in commodities. In 2011, Uzbekistan was the world's seventh-largest producer and fifth-largest exporter of cotton as well as the seventh-largest world producer of gold. It is also a regionally significant producer of natural gas, coal, copper, oil, silver and uranium. Agriculture employs 27% of Uzbekistan's labour force and contributes 17.4% of its GDP (2012 data). Cultivable land is 4.4 million hectares, or about 10% of Uzbekistan's total area. While official unemployment is very low, underemployment – especially in rural areas – is estimated to be at least 20%. Cotton production in Uzbekistan is important to the national economy of the country. Uzbek cotton is even used to make banknotes in South Korea. The country has a considerable production of carrots as well. The use of child labour in Uzbekistan has led several companies, including Tesco, C&A, Marks & Spencer, Gap, and H&M, to boycott Uzbek cotton. Facing a multitude of economic challenges upon acquiring independence, the government adopted an evolutionary reform strategy, with an emphasis on state control, reduction of imports and self-sufficiency in energy. Since 1994, the state-controlled media have repeatedly proclaimed the success of this "Uzbekistan Economic Model" and suggested that it is a unique example of a smooth transition to the market economy while avoiding shock, pauperism and stagnation. As of 2019, Uzbekistan's economy is one of the most diversified in Central Asia what makes the country an attractive economic partner for China. The gradualist reform strategy has involved postponing significant macroeconomic and structural reforms. The state in the hands of the bureaucracy has remained a dominant influence in the economy. Corruption permeates the society and grows more rampant over time: Uzbekistan's 2005 Corruption Perception Index was 137 out of 159 countries, whereas in 2007 Uzbekistan was 175th out of 179 countries. A February 2006 report on the country by the International Crisis Group suggests that revenues earned from key exports, especially cotton, gold, corn and increasingly gas, are distributed among a very small circle of the ruling elite, with little or no benefit for the populace at large. The recent high-profile corruption scandals involving government contracts and large international companies, notably TeliaSoneria, have shown that businesses are particularly vulnerable to corruption when operating in Uzbekistan. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, "the government is hostile to allowing the development of an independent private sector, over which it would have no control". The economic policies have repelled foreign investment, which is the lowest per capita in the CIS. For years, the largest barrier to foreign companies entering the Uzbekistan market has been the difficulty of converting currency. In 2003 the government accepted the obligations of Article VIII under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) providing for full currency convertibility. However, strict currency controls and the tightening of borders have lessened the effect of this measure. Uzbekistan experienced rampant inflation of around 1000% per year immediately after independence (1992–1994). Stabilisation efforts implemented with guidance from the IMF paid off. The inflation rates were brought down to 50% in 1997 and then to 22% in 2002. Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%. Tight economic policies in 2004 resulted in a drastic reduction of inflation to 3.8% (although alternative estimates based on the price of a true market basket put it at 15%). The inflation rates moved up to 6.9% in 2006 and 7.6% in 2007 but have remained in the single-digit range. The government of Uzbekistan restricts foreign imports in many ways, including high import duties. Excise taxes are applied in a highly discriminatory manner to protect locally produced goods, although the excises taxes were removed in for foreign cars in 2020. Official tariffs are combined with unofficial, discriminatory charges resulting in total charges amounting to as much as 100 to 150% of the actual value of the product, making imported products virtually unaffordable. Import substitution is an officially declared policy and the government proudly reports a reduction by a factor of two in the volume of consumer goods imported. A number of CIS countries are officially exempt from Uzbekistan import duties. Uzbekistan has a Bilateral Investment Treaty with fifty other countries. The Republican Stock Exchange (RSE) opened in 1994. The stocks of all Uzbek joint stock companies (around 1,250) are traded on RSE. The number of listed companies as of January 2013 exceeds 110. Securities market volume reached 2 trillion in 2012, and the number is rapidly growing due to the rising interest by companies of attracting necessary resources through the capital market. According to Central Depository as of January 2013 par value of outstanding shares of Uzbek emitters exceeded nine trillion. Thanks in part to the recovery of world market prices of gold and cotton (the country's key export commodities), expanded natural gas and some manufacturing exports, and increasing labour migrant transfers, the current account turned into a large surplus (between 9% and 11% of GDP from 2003 to 2005). In 2018, foreign exchange reserves, including gold, totalled around US$25 billion. Foreign exchange reserves amounted in 2010 to US$13 billion. Uzbekistan is predicted to be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world (top 26) in future decades, according to a survey by global bank HSBC. Demographics , Uzbekistan has the largest population out of all the countries in Central Asia. Its 32,768,725 citizens comprise nearly half the region's total population. The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 34.1% of its people are younger than 14 (2008 estimate). According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (80%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Russians 2%, Tajiks 5%, Kazakhs 3%, Karakalpaks 2.5% and Tatars 1.5% (1996 estimates). There is some controversy about the percentage of the Tajik population. While official state numbers from Uzbekistan put the number at 5%, the number is said to be an understatement and according to unverifiable reports, some Western scholars put the number up to 20%–30%. The Uzbeks intermixed with Sarts, a Turko-Persian population of Central Asia. Today, the majority of Uzbeks are admixed and represent varying degrees of diversity. Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region by Stalin from the Soviet Far East in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 88% Muslim (mostly Sunni, with a 5% Shi'a minority), 9% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2004 reports that 0.2% of the population are Buddhist (these being ethnic Koreans). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States, Germany, or Israel. Fewer than 5,000 Jews remained in Uzbekistan in 2007. Russians in Uzbekistan represented 5.5% of the total population in 1989. During the Soviet period, Russians and Ukrainians constituted more than half the population of Tashkent. The country counted nearly 1.5 million Russians, 12.5% of the population, in the 1970 census. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, significant emigration of ethnic Russians has taken place, mostly for economic reasons. In the 1940s, the Crimean Tatars, along with the Volga Germans, Chechens, Pontic Greeks, Kumaks and many other nationalities were deported to Central Asia. Approximately 100,000 Crimean Tatars continue to live in Uzbekistan. The number of Greeks in Tashkent has decreased from 35,000 in 1974 to about 12,000 in 2004. The majority of Meskhetian Turks left the country after the pogroms in the Fergana valley in June 1989. At least 10% of Uzbekistan's labour force works abroad (mostly in Russia and Kazakhstan) and other countries. Uzbekistan has a 99.3% literacy rate among adults older than 15 (2003 estimate), which is attributable to the free and universal education system of the Soviet Union. Life expectancy in Uzbekistan is 66 years among men and 72 years among women. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law in March 2020 that demands a national census take place at least every 10 years. The population has not been officially counted in over 30 years. In November 2020, the first census was cancelled due to concerns about coronavirus and the sheer size of the task. It now has been postponed to 2023. Religion Uzbekistan is a secular country and Article 61 of its constitution states that religious organizations and associations shall be separated from the state and equal before law. The state shall not interfere in the activity of religious associations. Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan, although Soviet power (1924–1991) discouraged the expression of religious belief, and it was repressed during its existence as a Soviet Republic. The CIA Factbook estimate that Muslims constitute 88% of the population, while 9% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, 4% other religious and non-religious. While a 2010 Pew Research Center report stated that Uzbekistan's population is 96.5% Muslim. Russian Orthodox Christians comprised 2.3% of the population in 2010. An estimated 93,000 Jews lived in the country in the early 1990s. In addition, there are about 7,400 Zoroastrians left in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tajik areas like Khojand. Despite the predominance of Islam and its rich history in the country, the practice of the faith is far from monolithic. Uzbeks have practised many versions of Islam. The conflict of Islamic tradition with various agendas of reform or secularisation throughout the 20th century has left a wide variety of Islamic practices in Central Asia. The end of Soviet control in Uzbekistan in 1991 did not bring an immediate upsurge of religion-associated fundamentalism, as many had predicted, but rather a gradual re-acquaintance with the precepts of the Islamic faith and a gradual resurgence of Islam in the country. However, since 2015 there has been a slight increase in Islamist activity, with small organisations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan declaring allegiance to ISIL and contributing fighters abroad, although the terror threat in Uzbekistan itself remains low. (See Terrorism in Uzbekistan). Jewish community The Jewish community in the Uzbek lands flourished for centuries, with occasional hardships during the reigns of certain rulers. During the rule of Tamerlane in the 14th century, Jews contributed greatly to his efforts to rebuild Samarkand, and a great Jewish centre was established there. After the area came under Russian rule in 1868, Jews were granted equal rights with the local Muslim population. In that period some 50,000 Jews lived in Samarkand and 20,000 in Bukhara. After the Russian revolutions in 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet regime, Jewish religious life (as with all religions) became restricted. By 1935 only one synagogue out of 30 remained in Samarkand; nevertheless, underground Jewish community life continued during the Soviet era. By 1970 there were 103,000 Jews registered in the Uzbek SSR. Since the 1980s most of the Jews of Uzbekistan emigrated to Israel or to the United States of America. A small community of several thousand remained in the country : some 7,000 lived in Tashkent, 3,000 in Bukhara and 700 in Samarkand. Languages The Uzbek language is one of the Turkic languages close to Uyghur language and both of them belong to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is the only official national language and since 1992 is officially written in the Latin alphabet. Before the 1920s, the written language of Uzbeks was called Turki (known to Western scholars as Chagatai) and used the Nastaʿlīq script. In 1926 the Latin alphabet was introduced and went through several revisions throughout the 1930s. Finally, in 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced by Soviet authorities and was used until the fall of Soviet Union. In 1993 Uzbekistan shifted back to the Latin script (Uzbek alphabet), which was modified in 1996 and is being taught in schools since 2000. Educational establishments teach only the Latin notation. At the same time, the Cyrillic notation is common among the older generation. Even though the Cyrillic notation of Uzbek has now been abolished for official documents, it is still used by a number of popular newspapers and websites whilst a few TV channels duplicate the Latin notation with the Cyrillic one. Karakalpak, belonging to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic language family and thus closer to Kazakh, is spoken by half a million people, primarily in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and has an official status in that territory. Although the Russian language is not an official language in the country, it is widely used in many fields. Digital information from the government is bilingual. The country is also home to approximately one million native Russian speakers. The Tajik language (a variety of Persian) is widespread in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand because of their relatively large population of ethnic Tajiks. It is also found in large pockets in Kasansay, Chust, Rishtan and Sokh in Ferghana Valley, as well as in Burchmulla, Ahangaran, Baghistan in the middle Syr Darya district, and finally in, Shahrisabz, Qarshi, Kitab and the river valleys of Kafiringan and Chaganian, forming altogether, approximately 10–15% of the population of Uzbekistan. More than 800,000 people also speak the Kazakh language. There are no language requirements to attain citizenship in Uzbekistan. In April 2020, a draft bill was introduced in Uzbekistan to regulate the exclusive use of the Uzbek language in government affairs. Under this legislation, government workers could incur fines for doing work in languages other than Uzbek. Though unsuccessful, it was met with criticism by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova. In response, a group of Uzbek intellectuals signed an open letter arguing for the instatement of Russian as an official language alongside Uzbek, citing historical ties, the large Russian-speaking population in Uzbekistan, and the usefulness of Russian in higher education. Communications According to the official source report, as of 10 March 2008, the number of cellular phone users in Uzbekistan reached 7 million, up from 3.7 million on 1 July 2007. Mobile users in 2017 were more than 24 million. The largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers is MTS-Uzbekistan (former Uzdunrobita and part of Russian Mobile TeleSystems) and it | of the banned opposition parties. As of 2015, reports on violations on human rights in Uzbekistan indicated that violations were still going on without any improvement. The Freedom House has consistently ranked Uzbekistan near the bottom of its Freedom in the World ranking since the country's founding in 1991. In the 2018 report, Uzbekistan was one of the 11 worst countries for Political Rights and Civil Liberties. The 2005 civil unrest in Uzbekistan, which resulted in several hundred people being killed, is viewed by many as a landmark event in the history of human rights abuse in Uzbekistan. Concern has been expressed and requests for an independent investigation of the events has been made by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. The government of Uzbekistan is accused of unlawful termination of human life and of denying its citizens freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. The government vehemently rebuffs the accusations, maintaining that it merely conducted an anti-terrorist operation, exercising only necessary force. In addition, some officials claim that "an information war on Uzbekistan has been declared" and the human rights violations in Andijan are invented by the enemies of Uzbekistan as a convenient pretext for intervention in the country's internal affairs. Male homosexuality is illegal in Uzbekistan. Punishment ranges from a fine to 3 years in prison. There are an estimated 1.2 million modern slaves in Uzbekistan, most work in the cotton industry. The government allegedly forces state employees to pick cotton in the autumn months. World Bank loans have been connected to projects that use child labour and forced labour practices in the cotton industry. Recent developments Islam Karimov died in 2016 and his successor Shavkat Mirziyoyev is considered by most to be pursuing a less autocratic path by increasing co-operation with human rights NGOs, scheduling Soviet-style exit visas to be abolished in 2019, and reducing sentences for certain misdemeanor offences. The Amnesty International report on the country for 2017–2018 found some remnant repressive measures and lack of rule of law in eradicating modern slavery. In February 2020, the United Nations announced that Uzbekistan made "major progress" on stamping out forced labour in its cotton harvest as 94% of pickers worked voluntarily. Administrative divisions Uzbekistan is divided into twelve regions (viloyatlar, singular viloyat, compound noun viloyati e.g., Toshkent viloyati, Samarqand viloyati, etc.), one autonomous republic (respublika, compound noun respublikasi e.g. Qoraqalpogiston Muxtor Respublikasi, Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic, etc.), and one independent city (shahar, compound noun shahri, e.g., Toshkent shahri). Names are given below in Uzbek, Russian, and Karakalpak languages when applicable, although numerous variations of the transliterations of each name exist. The regions are further divided into districts (tuman). Largest cities Economy Uzbekistan mines 80 tons of gold annually, seventh in the world. Uzbekistan's copper deposits rank tenth in the world and its uranium deposits twelfth. The country's uranium production ranks seventh globally. The Uzbek national gas company, Uzbekneftegas, ranks 11th in the world in natural gas production with an annual output of . The country has significant untapped reserves of oil and gas: there are 194 deposits of hydrocarbons in Uzbekistan, including 98 condensate and natural gas deposits and 96 gas condensate deposits. Uzbekistan improved marginally in the 2020 Ease of Doing Business ranking by the World Bank. The largest corporations involved in Uzbekistan's energy sector are the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), Petronas, the Korea National Oil Corporation, Gazprom, Lukoil, and Uzbekneftegas. Along with many Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS economies, Uzbekistan's economy declined during the first years of transition and then recovered after 1995, as the cumulative effect of policy reforms began to be felt. It has shown robust growth, rising by 4% per year between 1998 and 2003 and accelerating thereafter to 7%–8% per year. According to IMF estimates, the GDP in 2008 will be almost double its value in 1995 (in constant prices). Since 2003 annual inflation rates varied, reaching almost 40% in 2010 and less than 20% in 2019. Uzbekistan has GNI per capita of US$2,020 in current dollars in 2018, giving a PPP equivalent of US$7,230. Economic production is concentrated in commodities. In 2011, Uzbekistan was the world's seventh-largest producer and fifth-largest exporter of cotton as well as the seventh-largest world producer of gold. It is also a regionally significant producer of natural gas, coal, copper, oil, silver and uranium. Agriculture employs 27% of Uzbekistan's labour force and contributes 17.4% of its GDP (2012 data). Cultivable land is 4.4 million hectares, or about 10% of Uzbekistan's total area. While official unemployment is very low, underemployment – especially in rural areas – is estimated to be at least 20%. Cotton production in Uzbekistan is important to the national economy of the country. Uzbek cotton is even used to make banknotes in South Korea. The country has a considerable production of carrots as well. The use of child labour in Uzbekistan has led several companies, including Tesco, C&A, Marks & Spencer, Gap, and H&M, to boycott Uzbek cotton. Facing a multitude of economic challenges upon acquiring independence, the government adopted an evolutionary reform strategy, with an emphasis on state control, reduction of imports and self-sufficiency in energy. Since 1994, the state-controlled media have repeatedly proclaimed the success of this "Uzbekistan Economic Model" and suggested that it is a unique example of a smooth transition to the market economy while avoiding shock, pauperism and stagnation. As of 2019, Uzbekistan's economy is one of the most diversified in Central Asia what makes the country an attractive economic partner for China. The gradualist reform strategy has involved postponing significant macroeconomic and structural reforms. The state in the hands of the bureaucracy has remained a dominant influence in the economy. Corruption permeates the society and grows more rampant over time: Uzbekistan's 2005 Corruption Perception Index was 137 out of 159 countries, whereas in 2007 Uzbekistan was 175th out of 179 countries. A February 2006 report on the country by the International Crisis Group suggests that revenues earned from key exports, especially cotton, gold, corn and increasingly gas, are distributed among a very small circle of the ruling elite, with little or no benefit for the populace at large. The recent high-profile corruption scandals involving government contracts and large international companies, notably TeliaSoneria, have shown that businesses are particularly vulnerable to corruption when operating in Uzbekistan. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, "the government is hostile to allowing the development of an independent private sector, over which it would have no control". The economic policies have repelled foreign investment, which is the lowest per capita in the CIS. For years, the largest barrier to foreign companies entering the Uzbekistan market has been the difficulty of converting currency. In 2003 the government accepted the obligations of Article VIII under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) providing for full currency convertibility. However, strict currency controls and the tightening of borders have lessened the effect of this measure. Uzbekistan experienced rampant inflation of around 1000% per year immediately after independence (1992–1994). Stabilisation efforts implemented with guidance from the IMF paid off. The inflation rates were brought down to 50% in 1997 and then to 22% in 2002. Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%. Tight economic policies in 2004 resulted in a drastic reduction of inflation to 3.8% (although alternative estimates based on the price of a true market basket put it at 15%). The inflation rates moved up to 6.9% in 2006 and 7.6% in 2007 but have remained in the single-digit range. The government of Uzbekistan restricts foreign imports in many ways, including high import duties. Excise taxes are applied in a highly discriminatory manner to protect locally produced goods, although the excises taxes were removed in for foreign cars in 2020. Official tariffs are combined with unofficial, discriminatory charges resulting in total charges amounting to as much as 100 to 150% of the actual value of the product, making imported products virtually unaffordable. Import substitution is an officially declared policy and the government proudly reports a reduction by a factor of two in the volume of consumer goods imported. A number of CIS countries are officially exempt from Uzbekistan import duties. Uzbekistan has a Bilateral Investment Treaty with fifty other countries. The Republican Stock Exchange (RSE) opened in 1994. The stocks of all Uzbek joint stock companies (around 1,250) are traded on RSE. The number of listed companies as of January 2013 exceeds 110. Securities market volume reached 2 trillion in 2012, and the number is rapidly growing due to the rising interest by companies of attracting necessary resources through the capital market. According to Central Depository as of January 2013 par value of outstanding shares of Uzbek emitters exceeded nine trillion. Thanks in part to the recovery of world market prices of gold and cotton (the country's key export commodities), expanded natural gas and some manufacturing exports, and increasing labour migrant transfers, the current account turned into a large surplus (between 9% and 11% of GDP from 2003 to 2005). In 2018, foreign exchange reserves, including gold, totalled around US$25 billion. Foreign exchange reserves amounted in 2010 to US$13 billion. Uzbekistan is predicted to be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world (top 26) in future decades, according to a survey by global bank HSBC. Demographics , Uzbekistan has the largest population out of all the countries in Central Asia. Its 32,768,725 citizens comprise nearly half the region's total population. The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 34.1% of its people are younger than 14 (2008 estimate). According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (80%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Russians 2%, Tajiks 5%, Kazakhs 3%, Karakalpaks 2.5% and Tatars 1.5% (1996 estimates). There is some controversy about the percentage of the Tajik population. While official state numbers from Uzbekistan put the number at 5%, the number is said to be an understatement and according to unverifiable reports, some Western scholars put the number up to 20%–30%. The Uzbeks intermixed with Sarts, a Turko-Persian population of Central Asia. Today, the majority of Uzbeks are admixed and represent varying degrees of diversity. Uzbekistan has an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to the region by Stalin from the Soviet Far East in 1937–1938. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand. The nation is 88% Muslim (mostly Sunni, with a 5% Shi'a minority), 9% Eastern Orthodox and 3% other faiths. The U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2004 reports that 0.2% of the population are Buddhist (these being ethnic Koreans). The Bukharan Jews have lived in Central Asia, mostly in Uzbekistan, for thousands of years. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but now, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most Central Asian Jews left the region for the United States, Germany, or Israel. Fewer than 5,000 Jews remained in Uzbekistan in 2007. Russians in Uzbekistan represented 5.5% of the total population in 1989. During the Soviet period, Russians and Ukrainians constituted more than half the population of Tashkent. The country counted nearly 1.5 million Russians, 12.5% of the population, in the 1970 census. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, significant emigration of ethnic Russians has taken place, mostly for economic reasons. In the 1940s, the Crimean Tatars, along with the Volga Germans, Chechens, Pontic Greeks, Kumaks and many other nationalities were deported to Central Asia. Approximately 100,000 Crimean Tatars continue to live in Uzbekistan. The number of Greeks in Tashkent has decreased from 35,000 in 1974 to about 12,000 in 2004. The majority of Meskhetian Turks left the country after the pogroms in the Fergana valley in June 1989. At least 10% of Uzbekistan's labour force works abroad (mostly in Russia and Kazakhstan) and other countries. Uzbekistan has a 99.3% literacy rate among adults older than 15 (2003 estimate), which is attributable to the free and universal education system of the Soviet Union. Life expectancy in Uzbekistan is 66 years among men and 72 years among women. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law in March 2020 that demands a national census take place at least every 10 years. The population has not been officially counted in over 30 years. In November 2020, the first census was cancelled due to concerns about coronavirus and the sheer size of the task. It now has been postponed to 2023. Religion Uzbekistan is a secular country and Article 61 of its constitution states that religious organizations and associations shall be separated from the state and equal before law. The state shall not interfere in the activity of religious associations. Islam is the dominant religion in Uzbekistan, although Soviet power (1924–1991) discouraged the expression of religious belief, and it was repressed during its existence as a Soviet Republic. The CIA Factbook estimate that Muslims constitute 88% of the population, while 9% of the population follow Russian Orthodox Christianity, 4% other religious and non-religious. While a 2010 Pew Research Center report stated that Uzbekistan's population is 96.5% Muslim. Russian Orthodox Christians comprised 2.3% of the population in 2010. An estimated 93,000 Jews lived in the country in the early 1990s. In addition, there are about 7,400 Zoroastrians left in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tajik areas like Khojand. Despite the predominance of Islam and its rich history in the country, the practice of the faith is far from monolithic. Uzbeks have practised many versions of Islam. The conflict of Islamic tradition with various agendas of reform or secularisation throughout the 20th century has left a wide variety of Islamic practices in Central Asia. The end of Soviet control in Uzbekistan in 1991 did not bring an immediate upsurge of religion-associated fundamentalism, as many had predicted, but rather a gradual re-acquaintance with the precepts of the Islamic faith and a gradual resurgence of Islam in the country. However, since 2015 there has been a slight increase in Islamist activity, with small organisations such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan declaring allegiance to ISIL and contributing fighters abroad, although the terror threat in Uzbekistan itself remains low. (See Terrorism in Uzbekistan). Jewish community The Jewish community in the Uzbek lands flourished for centuries, with occasional hardships during the reigns of certain rulers. During the rule of Tamerlane in the 14th century, Jews contributed greatly to his efforts to rebuild Samarkand, and a great Jewish centre was established there. After the area came under Russian rule in 1868, Jews were granted equal rights with the local Muslim population. In that period some 50,000 Jews lived in Samarkand and 20,000 in Bukhara. After the Russian revolutions in 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet regime, Jewish religious life (as with all religions) became restricted. By 1935 only one synagogue out of 30 remained in Samarkand; nevertheless, underground Jewish community life continued during the Soviet era. By 1970 there were 103,000 Jews registered in the Uzbek SSR. Since the 1980s most of the Jews of Uzbekistan emigrated to Israel or to the United States of America. A small community of several thousand remained in the country : some 7,000 lived in Tashkent, 3,000 in Bukhara and 700 in Samarkand. Languages The Uzbek language is one of the Turkic languages close to Uyghur language and both of them belong to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is the only official national language and since 1992 is officially written in the Latin alphabet. Before the 1920s, the written language of Uzbeks was called Turki (known to Western scholars as Chagatai) and used the Nastaʿlīq script. In 1926 the Latin alphabet was introduced and went through several revisions throughout the 1930s. Finally, in 1940, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced by Soviet authorities and was used until the fall of Soviet Union. In 1993 Uzbekistan shifted back to the Latin script (Uzbek alphabet), which was modified in 1996 and is being taught in schools since 2000. Educational establishments teach only the Latin notation. At the same time, the Cyrillic notation is common among the older generation. Even though the Cyrillic notation of Uzbek has now been abolished for official documents, it is still used by a number of popular newspapers and websites whilst a few TV channels duplicate the Latin notation with the Cyrillic one. Karakalpak, belonging to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic language family and thus closer to Kazakh, is spoken by half a million people, primarily in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, and has an official status in that territory. Although the Russian language is not an official language in the country, it is widely used in many fields. Digital information from the government is bilingual. The country is also home to approximately one million native Russian speakers. The Tajik language (a variety of Persian) is widespread in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand because of their relatively large population of ethnic Tajiks. It is also found in large pockets in Kasansay, Chust, Rishtan and Sokh in Ferghana Valley, as well as in Burchmulla, Ahangaran, Baghistan in the middle Syr Darya district, and finally in, Shahrisabz, Qarshi, Kitab and the river valleys of Kafiringan and Chaganian, forming altogether, approximately 10–15% of the population of Uzbekistan. More than 800,000 people also speak the Kazakh language. There are no language requirements to attain citizenship in Uzbekistan. In April 2020, a draft bill was introduced in Uzbekistan to regulate the exclusive use of the Uzbek language in government affairs. Under this legislation, government workers could incur fines for doing work in languages other than Uzbek. Though unsuccessful, it was met with criticism by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova. In response, a group of Uzbek intellectuals signed an open letter arguing for the instatement of Russian as an official language alongside Uzbek, citing historical ties, the large Russian-speaking population in Uzbekistan, and the usefulness of Russian in higher education. Communications According to the official source report, as of 10 March 2008, the number of cellular phone users in Uzbekistan reached 7 million, up from 3.7 million on 1 July 2007. Mobile users in 2017 were more than 24 million. The largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers is MTS-Uzbekistan (former Uzdunrobita and part of Russian Mobile TeleSystems) and it is followed by Beeline (part of Russia's Beeline) and UCell (ex Coscom) (originally part of the U.S. MCT Corp., now a subsidiary of the Nordic/Baltic telecommunication company TeliaSonera AB). As of 2019, the estimated number of internet users was more than 22 million or about 52% of the population. Internet Censorship exists in Uzbekistan and in October 2012 the government toughened internet censorship by blocking access to proxy servers. Reporters Without Borders has named Uzbekistan's government an "Enemy of the Internet" and government control over the internet has increased dramatically since the start of the Arab Spring. The press in Uzbekistan practices self-censorship and foreign journalists have been gradually expelled from the country since the Andijan massacre of 2005 when government troops fired into crowds of protesters killing 187 according to official reports and estimates of several hundred by unofficial and witness accounts. Transportation Tashkent, the nation's capital and largest city, has a four-line metro built in 1977, and expanded in 2001 after ten years' independence from the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are currently the only two countries in Central Asia with a subway system. It is promoted as one of the cleanest systems in the former Soviet Union. The stations are exceedingly ornate. For example, the station Metro Kosmonavtov built in 1984 is decorated using a space travel theme to recognise the achievements of humankind in space exploration and to commemorate the role of Vladimir Dzhanibekov, the Soviet cosmonaut of Uzbek origin. A statue of Vladimir Dzhanibekov stands near a station entrance. There are government-operated trams and buses running across the city. There are also many taxis, registered and unregistered. Uzbekistan has plants that produce modern cars. The car production is supported by the government and the Korean auto company Daewoo. In May 2007 UzDaewooAuto, the car maker, signed a strategic agreement with General Motors-Daewoo Auto and Technology (GMDAT, see GM Uzbekistan also). The government bought a stake in Turkey's Koc in SamKochAvto, a producer of small buses and lorries. Afterward, it signed an agreement with Isuzu Motors of Japan to produce Isuzu buses and lorries. Train links connect many towns in Uzbekistan, as well as neighbouring former republics of the Soviet Union. Moreover, after independence two fast-running train systems were established. Uzbekistan launched the first high-speed railway in Central Asia in September 2011 between Tashkent and Samarqand. |
merchants. Because of this trade on what became known as the Silk Route, Bukhara and Samarqand eventually became extremely wealthy cities, and at times Transoxiana was one of the most influential and powerful Persian provinces of antiquity. Alexander the Great conquered the region in 328 BC, bringing it briefly under the control of his Macedonian Empire. The wealth of Transoxiana was a constant magnet for invasions from the northern steppes and from China. Numerous intraregional wars were fought between Soghdian states and the other states in Transoxiana, and the Persians and the Chinese were in perpetual conflict over the region. The Chinese in particular sought the Heavenly Horses from the region, going so far as to wage a siege war against Dayuan, an urbanized civilization in the Fergana Valley in 104 BC to obtain the horses. In the same centuries, however, the region also was an important center of intellectual life and religion. Until the first centuries after Christ, the dominant religion in the region was Zoroastrianism, but Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Christianity also attracted large numbers of followers. Turkic Khaganate In 563-567, the territory of modern Uzbekistan became part of the Turkic Khaganate. In 630 and 658, the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganate were conquered by the Tang Dynasty of China. During the era of the Western Turkic Khaganate (603-658), the political influence of the Turks in Sogd increased. The process of settling the Turks in the oases of Central Asia led to the development of the ancient Turkic writing and monetary relations. Some Turkic rulers of Bukhara, Chach and Fergana issued their own coins. Part of the Bukhara Turks adopted Christianity. The Turks from other regions adopted Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. The first steps for the official introduction of Buddhism into the religious practice of the Turks were made by Mukan Kağan (553-572). However, only Taspar Kağan (572-580) gave the Buddhist mission a scope that could provide the followers of this religion with cultural and political priority in the Kagan headquarters. Most of the Turkic population retained their religion. The sources mention the following Turkic deities: Tengri (Sky), Umay (Mother Goddess), Yer-sub (Earth-Water) and Erklig (Lord of Hell), among which Tengri, the ruler of the Upper World, held a dominant position. Early Islamic period The conquest of Central Asia by Muslim Arabs, which was completed in the eighth century AD, brought to the region a new religion that continues to be dominant. The Arabs first invaded Transoxiana in the middle of the seventh century through sporadic raids during their conquest of Persia. Available sources on the Arab conquest suggest that the Soghdians and other Iranian peoples of Central Asia were unable to defend their land against the Arabs because of internal divisions and the lack of strong indigenous leadership. The Arabs, on the other hand, were led by a brilliant general, Qutaybah ibn Muslim, and were also highly motivated by the desire to spread their new faith (the official beginning of which was in AD 622). Because of these factors, the population of Transoxiana was easily subdued. The new religion brought by the Arabs spread gradually into the region. The native religious identities, which in some respects were already being displaced by Persian influences before the Arabs arrived, were further displaced in the ensuing centuries. Nevertheless, the destiny of Central Asia as an Islamic region was firmly established by the Arab victory over the Chinese armies in 750 in a battle at the Talas River. Despite brief Arab rule, Central Asia successfully retained much of its Iranian characteristic, remaining an important center of culture and trade for centuries after the adoption of the new religion. Transoxiana continued to be an important political player in regional affairs, as it had been under various Persian dynasties. In fact, the Abbasid Caliphate, which ruled the Arab world for five centuries beginning in 750, was established thanks in great part to assistance from Central Asian supporters in their struggle against the then-ruling Umayyad Caliphate. During the height of the Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth and the ninth centuries, Central Asia and Transoxiana experienced a truly golden age. Bukhara became one of the leading centers of learning, culture, and art in the Muslim world, its magnificence rivaling contemporaneous cultural centers such as Baghdad, Cairo, and Cordoba. Some of the greatest historians, scientists, and geographers in the history of Islamic culture were natives of the region including al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, al Khwarizmi, al-Biruni, Avicenna and Omar Khayyam. As the Abbasid Caliphate began to weaken and local Islamic Iranian states emerged as the rulers of Iran and Central Asia, the Persian language continued its preeminent role in the region as the language of literature and government. The rulers of the eastern section of Iran and of Transoxiana were Persians. Under the Samanids and the Buyids, the rich Perso-Islamic culture of Transoxiana continued to flourish. Ghaznavids, Karakhanids and Anushteginids In the sixth century, the continued influx of Turkic nomads from the northern steppes brought a new group of people into Central Asia. These people were the Turks who lived in the great grasslands stretching from Mongolia to the Caspian Sea. Later, introduced mainly as slave soldiers to the Samanid Dynasty, these Turks served in the armies of all the states of the region, including the Abbasid army. In the late tenth century, as the Samanids began to lose control of Transoxiana (Mawarannahr) and northeastern Iran, some of these soldiers came to positions of power in the government of the region, and eventually established their own states, albeit highly Persianized. With the emergence of a Turkic ruling group in the region, other Turkic tribes began to migrate to Transoxiana. The first of the Turkic states in the region was the Persianate Ghaznavid Empire, established in the last years of the tenth century. The Ghaznavid state, which captured the Samanid domains south of the Amu Darya, was able to conquer large areas of eastern Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan during the reign of Sultan Mahmud. The Ghaznavids were closely followed by the Turkic Qarakhanids, who took the Samanid capital Bukhara in 999 AD, and ruled Transoxiana for the next two centuries. Samarkand was made the capital of the Western Qarakhanid state. The dominance of Ghazna was curtailed, however, when the Seljuks led themselves into the western part of the region, conquering the Ghaznavid territory of Khorazm (also spelled Khorezm and Khwarazm). The Seljuks also defeated the Karakhanids, but did not annex their territories outright. Instead they made the Karakhanids a vassal state. The Seljuks dominated a wide area from Asia Minor, Iran, Iraq, and parts of the Caucasus, to the western sections of Transoxiana, in Afghanistan, in the eleventh century. The Seljuk Empire then split into states ruled by various local Turkic and Iranian rulers. The culture and intellectual life of the region continued unaffected by such political changes, however. Turkic tribes from the north continued to migrate into the region during this period. The power of the Seljuks however became diminished when the Seljuk Sultan Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the Kara-Khitans at the Battle of Qatwan in 1141. In the late twelfth century, a Turkic leader of Khorazm, which is the region south of the Aral Sea, united Khorazm, Transoxiana, and Iran under his rule. Under the rule of the Khorazm shah Kutbeddin Muhammad and his son, Muhammad II, Transoxiana continued to be prosperous and rich while maintaining the region's Perso-Islamic identity. However, a new incursion of nomads from the north soon changed this situation. This time the invader was Genghis Khan with his Mongol armies. As Turks began entering the region from the north, they established new states starting from the 11th century and began to change the demographics of the region. After a succession of states dominated the region, in the twelfth century, Transoxiana was united in a single state with Iran and the region of Khwarezm, south of the Aral Sea. In the early thirteenth century, that state was invaded by Mongols, led by Genghis Khan. Under his successors, Iranian-speaking communities were displaced from some parts of Central Asia. Under Timur (Tamerlane), Transoxiana began its last cultural flowering, centered in Samarqand through the Timurid Renaissance. After Timur the state began to split, and by 1510 Uzbek tribes had conquered all of Central Asia. Mongol period The Mongol invasion of Central Asia is one of the turning points in the history of the region. The Mongols had such a lasting effect because they established the tradition that the legitimate ruler of any Central Asian state could only be a blood descendant of Genghis Khan. The Mongol conquest of Central Asia, which took place from 1219 to 1225, led to a wholesale change in the population of Mawarannahr. The conquest quickened the process of Turkification in some parts of the region because, although the armies of Genghis Khan were led by Mongols, they were made up mostly of Turkic tribes that had been incorporated into the Mongol armies as the tribes were encountered in the Mongols' southward sweep. As these armies settled in Mawarannahr, they intermixed with the local populations which did not flee. Another effect of the Mongol conquest was the large-scale damage the soldiers inflicted on cities such as Bukhara and on regions such as Khorazm. As the leading province of a wealthy state, Khorazm was treated especially severely. The irrigation networks in the region suffered extensive damage that was not repaired for several generations. Many Iranian-speaking populations were forced to flee southwards in order to avoid persecution. Following the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, his empire was divided among his four sons and his family members. Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, Mongol law of the Mongol Empire maintained orderly succession for several more generations, and control of most of Mawarannahr stayed in the hands of direct descendants of Chaghatai, the second son of Genghis. Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevailed in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remained strong and united. But, Khwarezm was part of Golden Horde. Timur and Timurids In the early fourteenth century, however, as the empire began to break up into its constituent parts, the Chaghtai territory also was disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups competed for influence. One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane), emerged from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Mawarannahr. Although he was not a descendant of Genghis, Timur became the de facto ruler of Mawarannahr and proceeded to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea. He also invaded Russia before dying during an invasion of China in 1405. Timur initiated the last flowering of Mawarannahr by gathering in his capital, Samarqand, numerous artisans and scholars from the lands he had conquered. By supporting such people, Timur imbued his empire with a very rich Perso-Islamic culture. During Timur's reign and the reigns of his immediate descendants, a wide range of religious and palatial construction projects were undertaken in Samarqand and other population centers. Timur also patronized scientists and artists; his grandson Ulugh Beg was one of the world's first great astronomers. It was during the Timurid dynasty that Turkic, in the form of the Chaghatai dialect, became a literary language in its own right in Mawarannahr, although the Timurids were Persianate in nature. The greatest Chaghataid writer, Ali Shir Nava'i, was active in the city of Herat, now in northwestern Afghanistan, in the second half of the fifteenth century. The Timurid state quickly broke into two halves after the death of Timur. The chronic internal fighting of the Timurids attracted the attention of the Uzbek nomadic tribes living to the north of the Aral Sea. In 1501 the Uzbeks began a wholesale invasion of Mawarannahr. Uzbek period By 1510 the Uzbeks had completed their conquest of Central Asia, including the territory of the present-day Uzbekistan. Of the states they established, the most powerful, the Khanate of Bukhara, centered on the city of Bukhara. The khanate controlled Mawarannahr, especially the region of Tashkent, the Fergana Valley in the east, and northern Afghanistan. A second Uzbek state, the Khanate of Khiva was established in the oasis of Khorazm at the mouth of the Amu Darya in 1512. The Khanate of Bukhara was initially led by the energetic Shaybanid Dynasty. The Shaybanids competed against Iran, which was led by the Safavid Dynasty, for the rich far-eastern territory of present-day Iran. The struggle with Iran also had a religious | of Khiva became a Russian protectorate in 1873. Thus by 1876 the entire territory comprising present-day Uzbekistan either had fallen under direct Russian rule or had become a protectorate of Russia. The treaties establishing the protectorates over Bukhara and Khiva gave Russia control of the foreign relations of these states and gave Russian merchants important concessions in foreign trade; the khanates retained control of their own internal affairs. Tashkent and Quqon fell directly under a Russian governor general. During the first few decades of Russian rule, the daily life of the Central Asians did not change greatly. The Russians substantially increased cotton production, but otherwise they interfered little with the indigenous people. Some Russian settlements were built next to the established cities of Tashkent and Samarqand, but the Russians did not mix with the indigenous populations. The era of Russian rule did produce important social and economic changes for some Uzbeks as a new middle class developed and some peasants were affected by the increased emphasis on cotton cultivation. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, conditions began to change as new Russian railroads brought greater numbers of Russians into the area. In the 1890s, several revolts, which were put down easily, led to increased Russian vigilance in the region. The Russians increasingly intruded in the internal affairs of the khanates. The policy of the Russian authorities (refusal to approve waqf documents) resulted in the fall of incomes and the level of living standards in Islamic “sacred families”. The only avenue for Uzbek resistance to Russian rule became the Pan-Turkish movement, also known as Jadidism, which had arisen in the 1860s among intellectuals who sought to preserve indigenous Islamic Central Asian culture from Russian encroachment. By 1900 Jadidism had developed into the region's first major movement of political resistance. Until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the modern, secular ideas of Jadidism faced resistance from both the Russians and the Uzbek khans, who had differing reasons to fear the movement. Prior to the events of 1917, Russian rule had brought some industrial development in sectors directly connected with cotton. Although railroads and cotton-ginning machinery advanced, the Central Asian textile industry was slow to develop because the cotton crop was shipped to Russia for processing. As the tsarist government expanded the cultivation of cotton dramatically, it changed the balance between cotton and food production, creating some problems in food supply—although in the prerevolutionary period Central Asia remained largely self-sufficient in food. This situation was to change during the Soviet period when the Moscow government began a ruthless drive for national self-sufficiency in cotton. This policy converted almost the entire agricultural economy of Uzbekistan to cotton production, bringing a series of consequences whose harm still is felt today in Uzbekistan and other republics. Entering the twentieth century By the turn of the twentieth century, the Russian Empire was in complete control of Central Asia. The territory of Uzbekistan was divided into three political groupings: the khanates of Bukhara and Khiva and the Guberniya (Governorate General) of Turkestan, the last of which was under direct control of the Ministry of War of Russia. The final decade of the nineteenth century finds the three regions united under the independent and sovereign Republic of Uzbekistan. The intervening decades were a period of revolution, oppression, massive disruptions, and colonial rule. After 1900 the khanates continued to enjoy a certain degree of autonomy in their internal affairs. However, they ultimately were subservient to the Russian governor general in Tashkent, who ruled the region in the name of Tsar Nicholas II. The Russian Empire exercised direct control over large tracts of territory in Central Asia, allowing the khanates to rule a large portion of their ancient lands for themselves. In this period, large numbers of Russians, attracted by the climate and the available land, immigrated into Central Asia. After 1900, increased contact with Russian civilization began to affect the lives of Central Asians in the larger population centers where the Russians settled. The Jadidists and Basmachis Russian influence was especially strong among certain young intellectuals who were the sons of the rich merchant classes. Educated in the local Muslim schools, in Russian universities, or in Istanbul, these men, who came to be known as the Jadidists, tried to learn from Russia and from modernizing movements in Istanbul and among the Tatars, and to use this knowledge to regain their country's independence. The Jadidists believed that their society, and even their religion, must be reformed and modernized for this goal to be achieved. In 1905 the unexpected victory of a new Asiatic power in the Russo-Japanese War and the eruption of revolution in Russia raised the hopes of reform factions that Russian rule could be overturned, and a modernization program initiated, in Central Asia. The democratic reforms that Russia promised in the wake of the revolution gradually faded, however, as the tsarist government restored authoritarian rule in the decade that followed 1905. Renewed tsarist repression and the reactionary politics of the rulers of Bukhara and Khiva forced the reformers underground or into exile. Nevertheless, some of the future leaders of Soviet Uzbekistan, including Abdur Rauf Fitrat and others, gained valuable revolutionary experience and were able to expand their ideological influence in this period. In the summer of 1916, a number of settlements in eastern Uzbekistan were the sites of violent demonstrations against a new Russian decree canceling the Central Asians' immunity to conscription for duty in World War I. Reprisals of increasing violence ensued, and the struggle spread from Uzbekistan into Kyrgyz and Kazak territory. There, Russian confiscation of grazing land already had created animosity not present in the Uzbek population, which was concerned mainly with preserving its rights. The next opportunity for the Jadidists presented itself in 1917 with the outbreak of the February and October revolutions in Russia. In February the revolutionary events in Russia's capital, Petrograd (St. Petersburg), were quickly repeated in Tashkent, where the tsarist administration of the governor general was overthrown. In its place, a dual system was established, combining a provisional government with direct Soviet power and completely excluding the native Muslim population from power. Indigenous leaders, including some of the Jadidists, attempted to set up an autonomous government in the city of Quqon in the Fergana Valley, but this attempt was quickly crushed. Following the suppression of autonomy in Quqon, Jadidists and other loosely connected factions began what was called the Basmachi revolt against Soviet rule, which by 1922 had survived the civil war and was asserting greater power over most of Central Asia. For more than a decade, Basmachi guerrilla fighters (that name was a derogatory Slavic term that the fighters did not apply to themselves) fiercely resisted the establishment of Soviet rule in parts of Central Asia. However, the majority of Jadidists, including leaders such as Abdurrauf Fitrat and Fayzulla Khodzhayev, cast their lot with the communists. In 1920 Khojayev, who became first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, assisted communist forces in the capture of Bukhara and Khiva. After the Amir of Bukhara had joined the Basmachi movement, Khojayev became president of the newly established Bukharan People's Soviet Republic. A People's Republic of Khorezm also was set up in what had been Khiva. The Basmachi revolt eventually was crushed as the civil war in Russia ended and the communists drew away large portions of the Central Asian population with promises of local political autonomy and the potential economic autonomy of Soviet leader Lenin's New Economic Policy. Under these circumstances, large numbers of Central Asians joined the communist party, many gaining high positions in the government of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR), the administrative unit established in 1924 to include present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The indigenous leaders cooperated closely with the communist government in enforcing policies designed to alter the traditional society of the region: the emancipation of women, the redistribution of land, and mass literacy campaigns. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Jadidist movement of educated Central Asians, centered in present-day Uzbekistan, began to advocate overthrowing Russian rule. In 1916 violent opposition broke out in Uzbekistan and elsewhere, in response to the conscription of Central Asians into the Russian army fighting World War I. When the tsar was overthrown in 1917, Jadidists established a short-lived autonomous state at Quqon. After the Bolshevik Party gained power in Moscow, the Jadidists split between supporters of Russian communism and supporters of a widespread uprising that became known as the Basmachi Rebellion. As that revolt was being crushed in the early 1920s, local communist leaders such as Faizulla Khojayev gained power in Uzbekistan. In 1924 the Soviet Union established the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, which included present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Tajikistan became the separate Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic in 1929. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, large-scale agricultural collectivization resulted in widespread famine in Central Asia. In the late 1930s, Khojayev and the entire leadership of the Uzbek Republic were purged and executed by Soviet leader Joseph V. Stalin (in power 1927–53) and replaced by Russian officials. The Russification of political and economic life in Uzbekistan that began in the 1930s continued through the 1970s. During World War II, Stalin exiled entire national groups from the Caucasus and the Crimea to Uzbekistan to prevent "subversive" activity against the war effort. The Stalinist period In 1929 the Tajik and Uzbek Soviet socialist republics were separated. As Uzbek communist party chief, Khojayev enforced the policies of the Soviet government during the collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s and, at the same time, tried to increase the participation of Uzbeks in the government and the party. Soviet leader Joseph V. Stalin suspected the motives of all reformist national leaders in the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union. By the late 1930s, Khojayev and the entire group that came into high positions in the Uzbek Republic had been arrested and executed during the Stalinist purges. Following the purge of the nationalists, the government and party ranks in Uzbekistan were filled with people loyal to the Moscow government. Economic policy emphasized the supply of cotton to the rest of the Soviet Union, to the exclusion of diversified agriculture. During World War II, many industrial plants from European Russia were evacuated to Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia. With the factories came a new wave of Russian and other European workers. Because native Uzbeks were mostly occupied in the country's agricultural regions, the urban concentration of immigrants increasingly Russified Tashkent and other large cities. During the war years, in addition to the Russians who moved to Uzbekistan, other nationalities such as Crimean Tatars, Chechens, and Koreans were exiled to the republic because Moscow saw them as subversive elements in European Russia. Khrushchev and Brezhnev rule Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the relative relaxation of totalitarian control initiated by First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev (in office 1953–64) brought the rehabilitation of some of the Uzbek nationalists who had been purged. More Uzbeks began to join the Communist Party of Uzbekistan and to assume positions in the government. However, those Uzbeks who participated in the regime did so on Russian terms. Russian was the language of state, and Russification was the prerequisite for obtaining a position in the government or the party. Those who did not or could not abandon their Uzbek lifestyles and identities were excluded from leading roles in official Uzbek society. Because of these conditions, Uzbekistan gained a reputation as one of the most politically conservative republics in the Soviet Union. As Uzbeks were beginning to gain leading positions in society, they also were establishing or reviving unofficial networks based on regional and clan loyalties. These networks provided their members support and often profitable connections between them and the state and the party. An extreme example of this phenomenon occurred under the leadership of Sharaf Rashidov, who was first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan from 1959 to 1982. During his tenure, Rashidov brought numerous relatives and associates from his native region into government and party leadership positions. The individuals who thus became "connected" treated their positions as personal fiefdoms to enrich themselves. In this way, Rashidov was able to initiate efforts to make Uzbekistan less subservient to Moscow. As became apparent after his death, Rashidov's strategy had been to remain a loyal ally of Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, by bribing high officials of the central government. With this advantage, the Uzbek government was allowed to merely feign compliance with Moscow's demands for increasingly higher cotton quotas. The 1980s Moscow's control over Uzbekistan weakened in the 1970s as Uzbek party leader Sharaf Rashidov brought many cronies and relatives into positions of power. In the mid-1980s, Moscow attempted to regain control by again purging the entire Uzbek party leadership. However, this move increased Uzbek nationalism, which had long resented Soviet policies such as the imposition of cotton monoculture and the suppression of Islamic traditions. In the late 1980s, the liberalized atmosphere of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev (in power 1985–91) fostered political opposition groups and open (albeit limited) opposition to Soviet policy in Uzbekistan. In 1989 a series of violent ethnic clashes involving Uzbeks brought the appointment of ethnic Uzbek outsider Islam Karimov as Communist Party chief. When the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan reluctantly approved independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Karimov became president of the Republic of Uzbekistan. During the decade following the death of Rashidov, Moscow attempted to regain the central control over Uzbekistan that had weakened in the previous decade. In 1986 it was announced that almost the entire party and government leadership of the republic had conspired in falsifying cotton production figures. Eventually, Rashidov himself was also implicated (posthumously) together with Yuri Churbanov, Brezhnev's son-in-law. A massive purge of the Uzbek leadership was carried out, and corruption trials were conducted by prosecutors brought in from Moscow. In the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became synonymous with corruption. The Uzbeks themselves felt that the central government had singled them out unfairly; in the 1980s, this resentment led to a strengthening of Uzbek nationalism. Moscow's policies in Uzbekistan, such as the strong emphasis on cotton and attempts to uproot Islamic tradition, then came under increasing criticism in Tashkent. In 1989 ethnic animosities came to a head in the Fergana Valley, where local Meskhetian Turks were assaulted by Uzbeks, and in the Kyrgyz city of Osh, where Uzbek and Kyrgyz youth clashed. Moscow's response to this violence was a reduction of the purges and the appointment of Islam Karimov as first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan. The appointment of Karimov, who was not a member of the local party elite, signified that Moscow wanted to lessen tensions by appointing an outsider who had not been involved in the purges. Resentment among Uzbeks continued to smolder, however, in the liberalized atmosphere of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of perestroika and glasnost. With the emergence of new opportunities to express dissent, Uzbeks expressed their grievances over the cotton scandal, the purges, and other long-unspoken resentments. These included the environmental situation in the republic, recently exposed as a catastrophe as a result of the long emphasis on heavy industry and a relentless pursuit of cotton. Other grievances included discrimination and persecution experienced by Uzbek recruits in the Soviet army and the lack of investment in industrial development in the republic to provide jobs for the ever-increasing population. By the late 1980s, some dissenting intellectuals had formed political organizations to express their grievances. The most important of these, Birlik (Unity), initially advocated the diversification of agriculture, a program to salvage the desiccated Aral Sea, and the declaration of the Uzbek language as the state language of the republic. Those issues were chosen partly because they were real concerns and partly because they were a safe way of expressing broader disaffection with the Uzbek government. In their public debate with Birlik, the government and party never lost the upper hand. As became especially clear after the accession of Karimov as party chief, most Uzbeks, especially those outside the cities, still supported the communist party and the government. Birlik's intellectual leaders never were able to make their appeal to a broad segment of the population. 1991 to present The attempted coup against the Gorbachev government by disaffected hard-liners in Moscow, which occurred in August 1991, was a catalyst for independence movements throughout the Soviet Union. Despite Uzbekistan's initial hesitancy to oppose the coup, the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan declared the republic independent on August 31, 1991. In December 1991, an independence referendum was passed with 98.2 percent of the popular vote. The same month, a parliament was elected and Karimov was chosen the new nation's first president. Although Uzbekistan had not sought independence, when events brought them to that point, Karimov and his government moved quickly to adapt themselves to the new realities. They realized that under the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose federation proposed to replace the Soviet Union, no central government would provide the subsidies to which Uzbek governments had become accustomed for the previous 70 years. Old economic ties would have to be reexamined and new markets and economic mechanisms established. Although Uzbekistan as defined by the Soviets had never had independent foreign relations, diplomatic relations would have to be established with foreign countries quickly. Investment and foreign credits would have to be attracted, a formidable challenge in light of Western restrictions on financial aid to nations restricting expression of political dissent. For example, the suppression of internal dissent in 1992 and 1993 had an unexpectedly chilling effect on foreign investment. Uzbekistan's image in the West alternated in the ensuing years between an attractive, stable experimental zone for investment and a post-Soviet dictatorship whose human rights record made financial aid inadvisable. Such alternation exerted strong influence on the political and economic fortunes of the new republic in its first five years. In 1992 Uzbekistan adopted a new constitution, but the main opposition party, Birlik, was banned, and a pattern of media suppression began. In 1995 a national referendum extended Karimov's term of office from 1997 to 2000. A series of violent incidents in eastern Uzbekistan in 1998 and 1999 intensified government activity against Islamic extremist groups, other forms of opposition, and minorities. In 2000 Karimov was reelected overwhelmingly in an election whose procedures received international criticism. Later that year, Uzbekistan began laying mines along the Tajikistan border, creating a serious new regional issue and intensifying Uzbekistan's image as a regional hegemon. In the early 2000s, tensions also developed with neighboring states Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. In the mid-2000s, a mutual defense treaty substantially enhanced relations between Russia and Uzbekistan. Tension with Kyrgyzstan increased in 2006 when Uzbekistan demanded extradition of hundreds of refugees who had fled from Andijon into Kyrgyzstan after the riots. A series of border incidents also inflamed tensions with neighboring Tajikistan. In 2006 Karimov continued arbitrary dismissals and shifts of subordinates in the government, including one deputy prime minister. The activities of missionaries from some Islamic countries, coupled with the absence of real opportunities to participate in public affairs, contributed to the popularization of a radical interpretation of Islam. In the February 1999 Tashkent bombings, car bombs hit Tashkent and President Karimov narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. The government blamed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) for the attacks. Thousands of people suspected of complicity were arrested and imprisoned. In August 2000, militant groups tried to penetrate Uzbek territory from Kyrgyzstan; acts of armed violence were noted in the southern part of the country as well. In March 2004, another wave of attacks shook the country. These were reportedly committed by an international terrorist network. An explosion in the central part of Bukhara killed ten people in a house allegedly used by terrorists on March 28, 2004. Later that day, policemen were attacked at a factory, and early the following morning a police traffic check point was attacked. The violence escalated on March 29, when two women separately set off bombs near the main bazaar in Tashkent, killing two people and injuring around 20. These were the first suicide bombers in Uzbekistan. On the same day, three police officers were shot dead. In Bukhara, another explosion at a suspected terrorist bomb factory caused ten fatalities. The following day police |
Aral Sea is resulting in growing concentrations of chemical pesticides and natural salts; these substances are then blown from the increasingly exposed lake bed and contribute to desertification; water pollution from industrial wastes and the heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides is the cause of many human health disorders; increasing soil salination; soil contamination from agricultural chemicals, including DDT Environment – international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Ozone Layer Protection, Wetlands signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements Water pollution Large-scale use of chemicals for cotton cultivation, inefficient irrigation systems, and poor drainage systems are examples of the conditions that led to a high filtration of salinized and contaminated water back into the soil. Post-Soviet policies have become even more dangerous; in the early 1990s, the average application of chemical fertilizers and insecticides throughout the Central Asian republics was 20 to 25 kilograms per hectare, compared with the former average of three kilograms per hectare for the entire Soviet Union. As a result, the supply of fresh water has received further contaminants. Industrial pollutants also have damaged Uzbekistan's water. In the Amu Darya, concentrations of phenol and oil products have been measured at far above acceptable health standards. In 1989 the Minister of Health of the Turkmen SSR described the Amu Darya as a sewage ditch for industrial and agricultural waste substances. Experts who monitored the river in 1995 reported even further deterioration. In the early 1990s, about 60% of pollution control funding went to water-related projects, but only about half of cities and about one-quarter of villages have sewers. Communal water systems do not meet health standards; much of the population lacks drinking water systems and must drink water straight from contaminated irrigation ditches, canals, or the Amu Darya itself. According to one report, virtually all the large underground fresh-water supplies in Uzbekistan are polluted by industrial and chemical wastes. An official in Uzbekistan's Ministry of Environment estimated that about half of the country's population lives in regions where the water is severely polluted. The government estimated in 1995 that only 230 of the country's 8,000 industrial enterprises were following pollution control standards. Air pollution Poor water management and heavy use of agricultural chemicals also have polluted the air. Salt and dust storms and the spraying of pesticides and defoliants for the cotton crop have led to severe degradation of air quality in rural areas. In urban areas, factories and auto emissions are a growing threat to air quality. Fewer than half of factory smokestacks in Uzbekistan are equipped with filtration devices, and none has the capacity to filter gaseous emissions. In addition, a high percentage of existing filters are defective or out of operation. Air pollution data for Tashkent, Farghona, and Olmaliq show all three cities exceeding recommended levels of nitrous dioxide and particulates. High levels of heavy metals such as lead, nickel, zinc, copper, mercury, and manganese have been found in Uzbekistan's atmosphere, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, waste materials, and ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy. Especially high concentrations of heavy metals have been reported in Toshkent Province and in the southern part of Uzbekistan near the Olmaliq Metallurgy Combine. In the mid-1990s, Uzbekistan's industrial production, about 60% of the total for the Central Asian nations excluding Kazakhstan, also yielded about 60% of the total volume of Central Asia's emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Because automobiles are relatively scarce, automotive exhaust is a problem only in Tashkent and Farghona. Land and Soil Pollution The reduction of water in Uzbekistan has resulted in soil degradation, and the spread of the salt from the evaporated Aral Sea has contaminated the surrounding soil. The soil has lost much of its water due to the increased surface irrigation. The irrigation of farmlands with water from the Aral Sea has resulted in increased salinization of the soil, causing the farmland to be less productive and the destruction of a large portion of farmable land. The amount of grasslands in Uzbekistan has gradually decreased mainly due to over-grazing and climate change. About 62.6% of the land in Uzbekistan is used for agriculture with 51.7% of that land used for permanent pasture. The soil has been polluted by mining and smelting activities due to the spread of metals and other pollutants by wind. Smelter ash contaminated soil causes environmental risks such as reduction of soil respiration, contamination of microbial biomass, and negatively effecting trophic interactions. Many species of animals are sensitive to metal pollution and are directly exposed to it by living off of the land that has been polluted by the mining and smelting activities. The metals polluting the land and soil include copper, gold, lead, silver, metallic zinc, and others. An example is the metallurgical complex at Almalik in Uzbekistan that manufactures metals and has waste storage sites in surrounding areas, which pollute the soil, groundwater, and air with high amounts of copper, zinc, arsenic, lead, and cadmium. The mining complexes in Uzbekistan have created toxic waste that has spread through the land, groundwater, air, waterways, and soil. The soil in Uzbekistan is also polluted by industrial waste. The improper handling and disposal of industrial waste has polluted the land in Uzbekistan and other countries in Central Asia. The evaporation of the Aral Sea exposed Vozrozhdeniya Island, also known as Resurrection Island, to the land and environment in Uzbekistan when the island transformed into a large peninsula. At Resurrection Island, the land and soil was polluted with weaponized and genetically modified pathogens due to a secret biological weapons program carried out by the Soviet military. The island was decontaminated by the Russian military, Government of Uzbekistan, and U.S. experts because of the health and environmental dangers it could have caused with its new connection to the land. Government environmental policy The government of Uzbekistan has acknowledged the extent of the country's environmental problems, and it has made a commitment to address them in its Biodiversity Action Plan. But the governmental structures to deal with these problems remain confused and ill-defined. Old agencies and organizations have been expanded to address these questions, and new ones have been created, resulting in a bureaucratic web of agencies with no generally understood commitment to attack environmental problems directly. Various nongovernmental and grassroots environmental organizations also have begun to form, some closely tied to the current government and others assuming an opposition stance. For example, environmental issues were prominent points in the original platform of Birlik, the first major opposition movement to emerge in Uzbekistan. By the mid-1990s, such issues had become a key concern of all opposition groups and a cause of growing concern among the population as a whole. In the first half of the 1990s, many plans were proposed to limit or discourage economic practices that damage the environment. Despite discussion of programs to require payments for resources (especially water) and to collect fines from heavy polluters, however, little has been accomplished. The obstacles are a lack of law enforcement in these areas, inconsistent government economic and environmental planning, corruption, and the overwhelming concentration of power in the hands of a president who shows little tolerance of grassroots activity. International donors and Western assistance agencies have devised programs to transfer technology and know-how to address these problems. But the country's environmental problems are predominantly the result of abuse and mismanagement of natural resources promoted by political and economic priorities. Until the political will emerges to regard environmental and health problems as a threat not only to the government in power but also to the very survival of Uzbekistan, the increasingly grave environmental threat will not be addressed effectively. The Government of Uzbekistan joined forces with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan in 1992 to form the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS) and in 1993 to form the Interstate Council on the Problems of the Aral Sea Basin (ICAS). The ICAS was formed to work with the World Bank in order to improve the conditions of the Aral Sea, but was disbanded in 1997 to | Experts who monitored the river in 1995 reported even further deterioration. In the early 1990s, about 60% of pollution control funding went to water-related projects, but only about half of cities and about one-quarter of villages have sewers. Communal water systems do not meet health standards; much of the population lacks drinking water systems and must drink water straight from contaminated irrigation ditches, canals, or the Amu Darya itself. According to one report, virtually all the large underground fresh-water supplies in Uzbekistan are polluted by industrial and chemical wastes. An official in Uzbekistan's Ministry of Environment estimated that about half of the country's population lives in regions where the water is severely polluted. The government estimated in 1995 that only 230 of the country's 8,000 industrial enterprises were following pollution control standards. Air pollution Poor water management and heavy use of agricultural chemicals also have polluted the air. Salt and dust storms and the spraying of pesticides and defoliants for the cotton crop have led to severe degradation of air quality in rural areas. In urban areas, factories and auto emissions are a growing threat to air quality. Fewer than half of factory smokestacks in Uzbekistan are equipped with filtration devices, and none has the capacity to filter gaseous emissions. In addition, a high percentage of existing filters are defective or out of operation. Air pollution data for Tashkent, Farghona, and Olmaliq show all three cities exceeding recommended levels of nitrous dioxide and particulates. High levels of heavy metals such as lead, nickel, zinc, copper, mercury, and manganese have been found in Uzbekistan's atmosphere, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, waste materials, and ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy. Especially high concentrations of heavy metals have been reported in Toshkent Province and in the southern part of Uzbekistan near the Olmaliq Metallurgy Combine. In the mid-1990s, Uzbekistan's industrial production, about 60% of the total for the Central Asian nations excluding Kazakhstan, also yielded about 60% of the total volume of Central Asia's emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere. Because automobiles are relatively scarce, automotive exhaust is a problem only in Tashkent and Farghona. Land and Soil Pollution The reduction of water in Uzbekistan has resulted in soil degradation, and the spread of the salt from the evaporated Aral Sea has contaminated the surrounding soil. The soil has lost much of its water due to the increased surface irrigation. The irrigation of farmlands with water from the Aral Sea has resulted in increased salinization of the soil, causing the farmland to be less productive and the destruction of a large portion of farmable land. The amount of grasslands in Uzbekistan has gradually decreased mainly due to over-grazing and climate change. About 62.6% of the land in Uzbekistan is used for agriculture with 51.7% of that land used for permanent pasture. The soil has been polluted by mining and smelting activities due to the spread of metals and other pollutants by wind. Smelter ash contaminated soil causes environmental risks such as reduction of soil respiration, contamination of microbial biomass, and negatively effecting trophic interactions. Many species of animals are sensitive to metal pollution and are directly exposed to it by living off of the land that has been polluted by the mining and smelting activities. The metals polluting the land and soil include copper, gold, lead, silver, metallic zinc, and others. An example is the metallurgical complex at Almalik in Uzbekistan that manufactures metals and has waste storage sites in surrounding areas, which pollute the soil, groundwater, and air with high amounts of copper, zinc, arsenic, lead, and cadmium. The mining complexes in Uzbekistan have created toxic waste that has spread through the land, groundwater, air, waterways, and soil. The soil in Uzbekistan is also polluted by industrial waste. The improper handling and disposal of industrial waste has polluted the land in Uzbekistan and other countries in Central Asia. The evaporation of the Aral Sea exposed Vozrozhdeniya Island, also known as Resurrection Island, to the land and environment in Uzbekistan when the island transformed into a large peninsula. At Resurrection Island, the land and soil was polluted with weaponized and genetically modified pathogens due to a secret biological weapons program carried out |
in cotton farming in large-scale collective farms when the country was part of the Soviet Union. The population continues to be heavily rural and dependent on farming for its livelihood, although the farm structure in Uzbekistan has largely shifted from collective to individual since 1990. Vital statistics UN estimates Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs website > World Population Prospects: The 2019 revision. Sources: Current vital statistics Fertility and births Total fertility rate (TFR) and crude birth rate (CBR): Total fertility rate (TFR) According to the CIA World Factbook, the total fertility rate (TFR) estimated as of 2011 is 1.89 children born/woman. In 2002, the estimated TFR was 2.92; Uzbeks 2.99, Russians 1.35, Karakalpak 2.69, Tajik 3.19, Kazakh 2.95, Tatar 2.05, others 2.53; Tashkent City 1.96, Karakalpakstan 2.90, Fergana 2.73; Eastern region 2.71, East Central 2.96, Central 3.43, Western 3.05. The high fertility rate during the Soviet Union and during its period of disintegration is partly due to the historical cultural preferences for large families, economic reliance upon agriculture, and the greater relative worth of Soviet child benefits in Uzbekistan. Abortion was the preferred method of birth control. Legalized in 1955, the number of abortions increased by 231% from 1956-1973. By 1991, the abortion ratio was 39 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. However, in the past few decades, fertility control methods have shifted considerably from abortion to modern contraceptive methods, especially IUDs. By the mid-1980s IUDS became the main method of contraception through government and organizational policies that aimed to introduce women to modern contraceptives. According to a UHES report from 2002, 73% of married Uzbek woman had used the IUD, 14% male condom, and 13% the pill. The government supported the use of modern contraceptives to control fertility rates because of national economic difficulties that followed the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Thus the government has been influential in determining the popularity of the IUD. Despite family planning programs that educate women on different methods of contraception, the IUD has remained women’s first choice of contraception. Word of mouth and social relations also account for the strong preference for the IUD. Nevertheless, factors such as class and level of education have been shown to give women more freedom in their choice of contraception methods. Regional differences The regions of Surxondaryo and Qashqadaryo have the highest birth rate and the lowest death rates in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, the city of Tashkent has the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate of the country. Life expectancy Source: UN World Population Prospects 2017 Ethnic groups Ethnic composition according to the 1989 population census (latest available): Uzbek 71%, Russian 6%, Khowar 2%, Tajik 5% (believed to be much higher), Kazakh 4%, Tatar 3%, Karakalpak 2%, other 7%. Estimates of ethnic composition in 1996 from CIA World Factbook: Uzbek 80%, Russian 5.5%, Tajik 5%, Kazakh 3%, Karakalpak 2.5%, Tatar 1.5%, other 2.5% (1996 est.) The table shows the ethnic composition of Uzbekistan's population (in percent) according to four population censuses between 1926 and 1989 (no population census was carried out in 1999, and the next census is now being planned for 2010). The increase in the percentage of Tajik from 3.9% of the population in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989 may be attributed, at least in part, to the change in census instructions: in the 1989 census for the first the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely self-declared on the basis of the respondent's ethnic self-identification. Languages According to the CIA factbook, the current language distribution is: Uzbek 74.3%, Russian 14.2%, Tajik 4.4% and Other 7.1%. The Latin script replaced Cyrillic in the mid-1990s. Following independence, Uzbek was made the official state language. President Islam Karimov, the radical nationalist group Birlik (Unity), and the Uzbek Popular Front promoted this change. These parties believed that Uzbek would stimulate nationalism and the change itself was part of the process of de-Russification, which was meant to deprive Russian language and culture of any recognition. Birlik held campaigns in the late 1980s to achieve this goal, with one event in 1989 culminating in 12,000 people in Tashkent calling for official recognition of Uzbek as the state language. In 1995, the government adopted the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on State Language, which mandates that Uzbek be used in all public spheres and official jobs. Scholars studying migration and ethnic minorities have since criticized the law as a source of discrimination toward minorities who do not speak Uzbek. Nevertheless, Russian remains the de facto language when it comes to science, inter-ethnic communication, business, and advertising. Multiple sources suggest that the Persian-speaking Tajik population of Uzbekistan may be as large as 25%-30% of the total population, but these estimates are based on unverifiable reports of "Tajiks around the country". The Tajik language is the dominant language spoken in the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand. The delineation of territory in 1924 and the process of “Uzbekisation” caused many Tajiks to identify as Uzbek. Thus there are many Tajiks who speak Tajik but are considered Uzbek. Religion Muslims constitute 88% of the population according to a 2013 US State Department release. Approximately 10% of the population are Russian Orthodox Christians. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but fewer than 5,000 remained in 2007. A study showed that 35% of surveyed consider religion as "very important". CIA World Factbook demographic statistics The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook as of September 2009, unless otherwise indicated. Age structure 2009 estimate: 0–14 years: 26% (male 3,970,386 / female 3,787,371) 15–64 years: 67% (male 9,191,439 / female 9,309,791) 65 years and over: 6% (male 576,191 / female 770,829) Sex ratio 2009 estimate: at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female under 12 | and Other 7.1%. The Latin script replaced Cyrillic in the mid-1990s. Following independence, Uzbek was made the official state language. President Islam Karimov, the radical nationalist group Birlik (Unity), and the Uzbek Popular Front promoted this change. These parties believed that Uzbek would stimulate nationalism and the change itself was part of the process of de-Russification, which was meant to deprive Russian language and culture of any recognition. Birlik held campaigns in the late 1980s to achieve this goal, with one event in 1989 culminating in 12,000 people in Tashkent calling for official recognition of Uzbek as the state language. In 1995, the government adopted the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on State Language, which mandates that Uzbek be used in all public spheres and official jobs. Scholars studying migration and ethnic minorities have since criticized the law as a source of discrimination toward minorities who do not speak Uzbek. Nevertheless, Russian remains the de facto language when it comes to science, inter-ethnic communication, business, and advertising. Multiple sources suggest that the Persian-speaking Tajik population of Uzbekistan may be as large as 25%-30% of the total population, but these estimates are based on unverifiable reports of "Tajiks around the country". The Tajik language is the dominant language spoken in the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand. The delineation of territory in 1924 and the process of “Uzbekisation” caused many Tajiks to identify as Uzbek. Thus there are many Tajiks who speak Tajik but are considered Uzbek. Religion Muslims constitute 88% of the population according to a 2013 US State Department release. Approximately 10% of the population are Russian Orthodox Christians. There were 94,900 Jews in Uzbekistan in 1989 (about 0.5% of the population according to the 1989 census), but fewer than 5,000 remained in 2007. A study showed that 35% of surveyed consider religion as "very important". CIA World Factbook demographic statistics The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook as of September 2009, unless otherwise indicated. Age structure 2009 estimate: 0–14 years: 26% (male 3,970,386 / female 3,787,371) 15–64 years: 67% (male 9,191,439 / female 9,309,791) 65 years and over: 6% (male 576,191 / female 770,829) Sex ratio 2009 estimate: at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female under 12 years 1.05 male(s)/female 15–64 years: 0.99 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female total population: 0.99 male(s)/female Infant mortality rate 2009 estimate: Total: 23.43 deaths per 1,000 live births Male: 27.7 deaths per 1,000 live births Female: 18.9 deaths per 1,000 live births Life expectancy at birth 2009 estimate: total population: 71.96 years male: 68.95 years female: 75.15 years Literacy 2003 estimate: Literacy is defined as the percentage of the population aged 15 and over that can read and write. total population: 99.3% male: 99.6% female: 99% Education The educational system has achieved 99% literacy, and the mean amount of schooling for both men and women is 12 years. The government provides free and compulsory 12-year education. In 2016 Uzbekistan acknowledged the country's lack of higher education services to support its market needs. In addition, private higher education providers have begun to emerge on the market to provide students with the necessary knowledge and skills needed in the labor market. TEAM University, a private university in Tashkent, aims to develop the skills required to start entrepreneurial activities, thereby contributing to the development of businesses and private enterprises. Migration As of 2011, Uzbekistan has a net migration rate of -2.74 migrant(s)/ 1000 population. The process of migration changed after the fall of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet Union, passports facilitated movement throughout the fifteen republics and movement throughout the republics was relatively less expensive than it is today. An application for a labor abroad permit from a special department of the Uzbek Agency of External Labor Migration in Uzbekistan is required since 2003. The permit was originally not affordable to many Uzbeks and the process was criticized for the bureaucratic red tape it required. The same departments and agencies involved in creating this permit are consequently working to substantially reduce the costs as well as simplifying the procedure. On July 4, 2007, the Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov signed three agreements that would address labor activity and protection of the rights of the working migrants (this includes Russian citizens in Uzbekistan and Uzbek citizens in Russia) as well as cooperation in fighting undocumented immigration and the deportation of undocumented workers. Uzbek Migration Economic difficulties have increased labor migration to Russia, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, South Korea, and Europe over the past decade. At least 10% of Uzbekistan’s labor force works abroad. Approximately 58% of the labor force that migrates, migrates to Russia. High unemployment rates and low wages are responsible for labor migration. Migrants typically are people from the village, farmers, blue-collar workers, and students who are seeking work abroad. However, many migrants are not aware of the legal procedures required to leave the country, causing many to end up unregistered in Uzbekistan or the host country. Without proper registration, undocumented migrants are susceptible to underpayment, no social guarantees and bad treatment by employers. According to data from the Russian Federal Immigration Service, there were 102,658 officially registered labor migrants versus 1.5 million unregistered immigrants from Uzbekistan in Russia in 2006. The total remittances for both groups combined was approximately US $1.3 billion that same year, eight percent of Uzbekistan’s GDP. Minorities A significant number of ethnic and national minorities left Uzbekistan after the country became independent, but actual numbers |
Officially it created a separation of powers among a strong presidency, the Oliy Majlis, and the judiciary. In practice, however, these changes have been largely cosmetic. Although the language of the new constitution includes many democratic features, it can be superseded by executive decrees and legislation, and often constitutional law simply is ignored. The president, who is directly elected to a five-year term that can be repeated once, is the head of state and is granted supreme executive power by the constitution. As commander in chief of the armed forces, the president also may declare a state of emergency or of war. The president is empowered to appoint the prime minister and full cabinet of ministers and the judges of the three national courts, subject to the approval of the Oliy Majlis, and to appoint all members of lower courts. The president also has the power to dissolve the parliament, in effect negating the Oliy Majlis's veto power over presidential nominations in a power struggle situation. Deputies to the Oliy Majlis, the highest legislative body, are elected to five-year terms. The body may be dismissed by the president with the concurrence of the Constitutional Court; because that court is subject to presidential appointment, the dismissal clause weights the balance of power heavily toward the executive branch. The Oliy Majlis enacts legislation, which may be initiated by the president, within the parliament, by the high courts, by the procurator general (highest law enforcement official in the country), or by the government of the Autonomous Province of Karakalpakstan. Besides legislation, international treaties, presidential decrees, and states of emergency also must be ratified by the Senate of Oliy Majlis. The national judiciary includes the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the High Economic Court. Lower court systems exist at the regional, district, and town levels. Judges at all levels are appointed by the president and approved by the Oliy Majlis. Nominally independent of the other branches of government, the courts remain under complete control of the executive branch. As in the system of the Soviet era, the procurator general and his regional and local equivalents are both the state's chief prosecuting officials and the chief investigators of criminal cases, a configuration that limits the pretrial rights of defendants. Opposition parties and the media Also passed in the 2002 referendum was a plan to create a bicameral parliament. Several political parties have been formed with government approval but have yet to show interest in advocating alternatives to government policy. Similarly, although multiple media outlets (radio, TV, newspapers) have been established, these either remain under government control or rarely broach political topics. Independent political parties have been denied registration under restrictive registration procedures. Despite extensive constitutional protections, the Karimov government has actively suppressed the activities of political movements, continues to ban unsanctioned public meetings and demonstrations, and continues to suppress opposition figures. The repression reduces constructive opposition even when institutional changes have been made. In the mid-1990s, legislation established significant rights for independent trade unions, separate from the government, and enhanced individual rights; but enforcement is uneven, and the role of the state security agencies, principally the State Security Service (SGB), remains central. With the exception of sporadic liberalization, all opposition movements and independent media are essentially banned in Uzbekistan. The early 1990s were characterized by arrests and beatings of opposition figures on fabricated charges. For example, one prominent Uzbek, Ibrahim Bureyev, was arrested in 1994 after announcing plans to form a new opposition party. After reportedly being freed just before the March referendum, Bureyev shortly thereafter was arrested again on charges of possessing illegal firearms and drugs. In April 1995, fewer than two weeks after the referendum extending President Karimov's term, six dissidents were sentenced to prison for distributing the party newspaper of Erk/Liberty and inciting the overthrow of Karimov. Members of opposition groups have been harassed by Uzbekistan's SNB as far away as Moscow. Crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism The government severely represses those it suspects of Islamic extremism. Some 6,000 suspected members of Hizb ut-Tahrir are among those incarcerated, and some are believed to have died over the past several years from prison disease, torture, and abuse. With few options for religious instruction, some young Muslims have turned to underground Islamic movements. The police force and the SNB use torture as a routine investigation technique. The government has begun to bring to trial some officers accused of torture. Four police officers and three SNB officers have been convicted. The government has granted amnesties to political and non-political prisoners, but this was believed to have benefited only a small proportion of those detained. In 2002 and the beginning of 2003 the government arrested fewer suspected Islamic fundamentalists than in the past. However, in May 2005, hundreds were killed by police in a massacre of protesters in the city of Andijan. In a move welcomed by the international community, the government of Uzbekistan has ended prior censorship, though the media remain tightly controlled. Executive branch |President |Shavkat Mirziyoyev |Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party |8 September 2016 |- |Prime Minister |Abdulla Oripov |Uzbekistan Liberal Democratic Party |14 December 2016 |} The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term in elections | activities, establishing the Karimov regime's dominant rationalization for increased authoritarianism: Islamic fundamentalism threatened to overthrow the secular state and establish an Islamic regime similar to that in Iran. The constitution ratified in December 1992 reaffirmed that Uzbekistan was a secular state. Although the constitution prescribed a new form of legislature, the PDPU-dominated Supreme Soviet remained in office for nearly two years until the first election to the new parliament, the Oliy Majlis, which took place in December 1994 and January 1995. In 1993 Karimov's concern about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism spurred Uzbekistan's participation in the multinational CIS peacekeeping force sent to quell the civil war in nearby Tajikistan - a force that remained in place three years later because of continuing hostilities. Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1994 continued repression by the Karimov regime brought strong criticism from international human rights organizations. In March 1995, Karimov took another step in the same direction by securing a 99% majority in a referendum on extending his term as president from the prescribed next election in 1997 to 2000. In early 1995, Karimov announced a new policy of toleration for opposition parties and coalitions, apparently in response to the need to improve Uzbekistan's international commercial position. A few new parties were registered in 1995, although the degree of their opposition to the government was doubtful, and some imprisonments of opposition political figures continued. The parliamentary election, the first held under the new constitution's guarantee of universal suffrage to all citizens 18 years of age or older, excluded all parties except the PDPU and the pro-government Progress of the Fatherland Party, despite earlier promises that all parties would be free to participate. The new, 250-seat Oliy Majlis included only 69 members elected as PDPU candidates, but an estimated 120 more deputies were PDPU members technically nominated to represent local councils rather than the PDPU. The result was that Karimov's solid majority continued after the new parliament went into the office. 1992 constitution From the beginning of his presidency, Karimov remained nominally committed to instituting democratic reforms. A new constitution was adopted by the legislature in December 1992. Officially it created a separation of powers among a strong presidency, the Oliy Majlis, and the judiciary. In practice, however, these changes have been largely cosmetic. Although the language of the new constitution includes many democratic features, it can be superseded by executive decrees and legislation, and often constitutional law simply is ignored. The president, who is directly elected to a five-year term that can be repeated once, is the head of state and is granted supreme executive power by the constitution. As commander in chief of the armed forces, the president also may declare a state of emergency or of war. The president is empowered to appoint the prime minister and full cabinet of ministers and the judges of the three national courts, subject to the approval of the Oliy Majlis, and to appoint all members of lower courts. The president also has the power to dissolve the parliament, in effect negating the Oliy Majlis's veto power over presidential nominations in a power struggle situation. Deputies to the Oliy Majlis, the highest legislative body, are elected to five-year terms. The body may be dismissed by the president with the concurrence of the Constitutional Court; because that court is subject to presidential appointment, the dismissal clause weights the balance of power heavily toward the executive branch. The Oliy Majlis enacts legislation, which may be initiated by the president, within the parliament, by the high courts, by the procurator general (highest law enforcement official in the country), or by the government of the Autonomous Province of Karakalpakstan. Besides legislation, international treaties, presidential decrees, and states of emergency also must be ratified by the Senate of Oliy Majlis. The national judiciary includes the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the High Economic Court. Lower court systems exist at the regional, district, and town levels. Judges at all levels are appointed by the president and approved by the Oliy Majlis. Nominally independent of the other branches of government, the courts remain under complete control of the executive branch. As in the system of the Soviet era, the procurator general and his regional and local equivalents are both the state's chief prosecuting officials and the chief investigators of criminal cases, a configuration that limits the pretrial rights of defendants. Opposition parties and the media Also passed in the 2002 referendum was a plan to create a bicameral parliament. Several political parties have been formed with government approval but have yet to show interest in advocating alternatives to government policy. Similarly, although multiple media outlets (radio, TV, newspapers) have been established, these either remain under government control or rarely broach political topics. Independent political parties have been denied registration under restrictive registration procedures. Despite extensive constitutional protections, the Karimov government has actively suppressed the activities of political movements, continues to ban unsanctioned public meetings and demonstrations, and continues to suppress opposition figures. The repression reduces constructive opposition even when institutional changes have been made. In the mid-1990s, legislation established significant rights for independent trade unions, separate from the government, and enhanced individual rights; but enforcement is uneven, and the role of the state security agencies, principally the State Security Service (SGB), remains central. With the exception of sporadic liberalization, all opposition movements and independent media are essentially banned in Uzbekistan. The early 1990s were characterized by arrests and beatings of opposition figures on fabricated charges. For example, one prominent Uzbek, Ibrahim Bureyev, was arrested in 1994 after announcing plans to form a new opposition party. After reportedly being freed just before the March referendum, Bureyev shortly thereafter was arrested again on charges of possessing illegal firearms and drugs. In April 1995, fewer than two weeks after the referendum extending President Karimov's term, six dissidents were sentenced to prison for distributing the party newspaper of Erk/Liberty and inciting the overthrow of Karimov. Members of opposition groups have been harassed by Uzbekistan's SNB as far away as Moscow. Crackdown on Islamic fundamentalism The government severely represses those it suspects of Islamic extremism. Some 6,000 suspected members of Hizb ut-Tahrir are among those incarcerated, and some are believed to have died over the past several years from prison disease, torture, and abuse. With few options for religious instruction, |
figures in millions of som. The chart also shows the consumer price index(CPI) as a measure of inflation from the same source and the end-of-year U.S. dollar exchange rate from the Central Bank of the Uzbekistan database. For purchasing power parity comparisons in 2006, the U.S. dollar is exchanged at 340 som. Uzbekistan's GDP, like that of all CIS countries, declined during the first years of transition and then recovered after 1995, as the cumulative effect of policy reforms began to be felt. It has shown robust growth, rising by 4% per year between 1998 and 2003, and accelerating thereafter to 7%-8% per year. In 2011 the growth rate came up to 9%. Given the growing economy, the total number of people employed rose from 8.5 million in 1995 to 13.5 million in 2011. This healthy increase of nearly 25% in the labor force lagged behind the increase in GDP during the same period (64%, see chart), which implies a significant increase in labor productivity. Official unemployment is very low: less than 30,000 job seekers were registered in government labor exchanges in 2005-2006 (0.3% of the labor force). Underemployment, on the other hand, is believed to be quite high, especially in agriculture, which accounts for fully 28% of all employed, many of them working part-time on tiny household plots. However, no reliable figures are available due to the absence of credible labor surveys. The minimum wage, public-sector wages, and old-age pensions are routinely raised twice a year to ensure that base income is not eroded by inflation. Although no statistics are published on average wages in Uzbekistan, pensions as a proxy for the average wage increased significantly between 1995 and 2006, both in real terms and in U.S. dollars. The monthly old-age pension increased in real (CPI-adjusted) sums by almost a factor of 5 between 1995 and 2006. The monthly pension in U.S. dollars was around $20–$25 until 2000, then dropped to $15–$20 between 2001 and 2004, and now is $64. The minimum wage was raised to $34.31 in November 2011. Assuming that the average wages in the country are at a level of 3-4 times the monthly pension, we estimate the wages in 2006 at $100–$250 per month, or $3–$8 per day. According to the forecast by the Asian Development Bank, the GDP in Uzbekistan in 2009 is expected to grow by 7%. Meanwhile, in 2010 the Uzbekistan GDP growth is predicted at 6,5%. Labor Literacy in Uzbekistan is almost universal, and workers are generally well-educated and trained accordingly in their respective fields. Most local technical and managerial training does not meet international business standards, but foreign companies engaged in production report that locally hired workers learn quickly and work effectively. The government emphasizes foreign education. Each year hundreds of students are sent to the United States, Europe, and Japan for university degrees, after which they have a commitment to work for the government for 5 years. Reportedly, about 60% of students who study abroad find employment with foreign companies upon completing their degrees, despite their 5-year commitment to work in the government. Some American companies offer their local employees special training programs in the United States. In addition, Uzbekistan subsidizes studies for students at Westminster International University in Tashkent—one of the few Western-style institutions in Uzbekistan. In 2002, the government "Istedod" Foundation (formerly as "Umid" Foundation) is paying for 98 out of 155 students studying at Westminster. For the next academic year, Westminster is expecting to admit 360 students, from which Istedod is expecting to pay for 160 students. The education at Westminster costs $5,200 per academic year. In 2008 Management Development Institute of Singapore at Tashkent started its work. This university provides high quality education with international degree. Tuition fee was $5000 in 2012. In 2009 Turin Polytechnik University was opened. It is the only university in Central Asia that prepares high quality employees for industries. With the closing or downsizing of many foreign firms, it is relatively easy to find qualified employees, though salaries are very low by Western standards. Salary caps, which the government implements in an apparent attempt to prevent firms from circumventing restrictions on withdrawal of cash from banks, prevent many foreign firms from paying their workers as much as they would like. Labor market regulations in Uzbekistan are similar to those of the Soviet Union, with all rights guaranteed but some rights unobserved. Unemployment is a growing problem, and the number of people looking for jobs in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Southeast Asia is increasing each year. Uzbekistan's Ministry of Labor does not publish information on Uzbek citizens working abroad, but Russia's Federal Migration Service reports 2.5 million Uzbek migrant workers in Russia. There are also indications of up to 1 million Uzbek migrants working illegally in Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan's migrant workers may thus be around 3.5-4 million people, or a staggering 25% of its labor force of 14.8 million. The U.S. Department of State also estimates that between three and five million Uzbek citizens of working age live outside Uzbekistan. After 2016 Uzbekistan has admitted the lack of higher education offers in the country to support its labor market needs. Since 2016 a number of higher educational providers have started operating in Uzbekistan, including in cooperation with foreign universities. Moreover, private higher education providers started to emerge on the market to provide students with necessary skills, knowledge and competencies required on the labor market. One of the private universities in Tashkent TEAM University aims at development of skills necessary for starting entrepreneurial activities, thus contributing to development of businesses and private enterprises. Prices and monetary policy Uzbekistan experienced galloping inflation of around 1000% per year immediately after independence (1992–1994). Stabilization efforts implemented with active guidance from the International Monetary Fund rapidly paid off, as inflation rates were brought down to 50% in 1997 and then to 22% in 2002. Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%. The severe inflationary pressures that characterized the early years of independence inevitably led to a dramatic depreciation of the national currency. The exchange rate of Uzbekistan's first currency, the "notional" ruble inherited from the Soviet period and its successor, the transient "coupon som" introduced in November 1993 in a ratio of 1:1 to the ruble, went up from 100 rubles/US$ in the early 1992 to 3627 rubles (or coupon soms) in mid-April 1994. On July 1, 1994 the "coupon soʻm" was replaced with the permanent new Uzbek soʻm (UZS) in a ratio of 1000:1, and the starting exchange rate for the new national currency was set at 7 som/US$, implying an almost two-fold depreciation since mid-April. Within the first six months, between July and December 1994, the national currency depreciated further to 25 som/US$ and continued depreciating at a fast clip until December 2002, when the exchange rate had reached 969 som/US$, i.e., 138 times the starting exchange rate eight and a half years earlier or nearly 10,000 times the exchange rate in early 1992, soon after the declaration of independence. Then the depreciation of the som virtually stopped in response to the government's stabilization program, which at the same time dramatically reduced the inflation rates. During the four years that followed (2003–2007) the exchange rate of the som to the US dollar increased only by a factor of 1.33, from 969 som to around 1865 som in May 2012. From 1996 until the spring of 2003, the official and so-called "commercial" exchange rate – both set administratively by the Central Bank – were highly overvalued. Many businesses and individuals were unable to buy dollars legally at these "low" rates, so a widespread black market developed to meet hard currency demand. The spread between the official exchange rate and the curb rate widened especially after the Russian financial crisis of August 1998: at the end of 1999 the curb rate stood at 550 som/US$ compared with the official rate of 140 som/US$, a gap by nearly a factor of 4 (up from a factor of "only" 2 in 1997 and the first half of 1998). By mid-2003, the government's stabilization and liberalization efforts had reduced the gap between the black market, official, and commercial rates to approximately 8% and it quickly disappeared as the som was made convertible after October 2003. Today, four foreign currencies—the U.S. dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, and the yen—are freely exchanged in commercial booths all around the cities, while other currencies, including the Russian ruble and the Kazakh tenge, are bought and sold by individual ("black market") money changers, who are allowed to operate openly without harassment. The foreign exchange regime since October 2003 is characterized as "controlled floating rate". Liberalization of the trade regime remains a prerequisite for Uzbekistan to proceed to an IMF-financed program. In 2012, "black market" rate is again significantly higher than official rate, 2850 som/US$ vs. 1865 som/US$ (as of mid-June 2011). This curb rate is often referred to as 'bazar rate', because money changers operate at or near 'bazars' - large farmer markets. Tax collection rates remained high, due to the use of the banking system by the government as a collection agency. Technical assistance from the World Bank, Office of Technical Assistance at the U.S. Treasury Department, and UNDP is being provided in reforming the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance into institutions capable of conducting market-oriented fiscal and monetary policy. Agriculture In 2018, Uzbekistan produced: 5.4 million tonnes of wheat; 2.9 million tons of potato; 2.2 million tons of cotton (8th largest producer in the world); 2.2 million tons of tomato (14th largest producer in the world); 2.1 million tonnes of carrot (2nd largest producer in the world, just behind China); 1.8 million tons of watermelon (8th largest producer in the world); 1.5 million tons of grape (15th largest producer in the world); 1.4 million tons of onion (15th largest producer in the world); 1.1 million tons of apple (14th largest producer in the world); 857 thousand tons of cucumber (7th largest producer in the world); 743 thousand tons of cabbage; 493 thousand tons of apricot (2nd largest producer in the world, just behind Turkey); 413 thousand tons of maize; 254 thousand tons of garlic; 221 thousand tons of rice; 172 thousand tons of cherry; 161 thousand tons of peach; 134 thousand tons of plum (17th largest producer in the world); In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products. At the end of 2013, the government announced through the Central Bank of the Republic of Uzbekistan that it predicted agriculture as playing a major component of the country's economic development in the future. Agriculture in Uzbekistan employs 28% of labor force and contributes 24% of GDP (2006 data). Another 8% of GDP is from processing of domestic agricultural output. Cotton, once Uzbekistan's star cash earner, has lost much its luster since independence as wheat began to gain prominence from considerations of food security for the rapidly growing population. Areas cropped to cotton were reduced by more than 25% from 2 million hectares in 1990 to less than 1.5 million hectares in 2006, while wheat cultivation jumped 60% from around 1 million hectares in 1990 to 1.6 million hectares in 2006. Cotton production dropped from 3 million tons annually in the pre-independence decade to around 1.2 million tons since 1995, but even at these reduced levels Uzbekistan produces 3 times as much cotton as all the other Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan combined. Cotton | 1998 and 2003, and accelerating thereafter to 7%-8% per year. In 2011 the growth rate came up to 9%. Given the growing economy, the total number of people employed rose from 8.5 million in 1995 to 13.5 million in 2011. This healthy increase of nearly 25% in the labor force lagged behind the increase in GDP during the same period (64%, see chart), which implies a significant increase in labor productivity. Official unemployment is very low: less than 30,000 job seekers were registered in government labor exchanges in 2005-2006 (0.3% of the labor force). Underemployment, on the other hand, is believed to be quite high, especially in agriculture, which accounts for fully 28% of all employed, many of them working part-time on tiny household plots. However, no reliable figures are available due to the absence of credible labor surveys. The minimum wage, public-sector wages, and old-age pensions are routinely raised twice a year to ensure that base income is not eroded by inflation. Although no statistics are published on average wages in Uzbekistan, pensions as a proxy for the average wage increased significantly between 1995 and 2006, both in real terms and in U.S. dollars. The monthly old-age pension increased in real (CPI-adjusted) sums by almost a factor of 5 between 1995 and 2006. The monthly pension in U.S. dollars was around $20–$25 until 2000, then dropped to $15–$20 between 2001 and 2004, and now is $64. The minimum wage was raised to $34.31 in November 2011. Assuming that the average wages in the country are at a level of 3-4 times the monthly pension, we estimate the wages in 2006 at $100–$250 per month, or $3–$8 per day. According to the forecast by the Asian Development Bank, the GDP in Uzbekistan in 2009 is expected to grow by 7%. Meanwhile, in 2010 the Uzbekistan GDP growth is predicted at 6,5%. Labor Literacy in Uzbekistan is almost universal, and workers are generally well-educated and trained accordingly in their respective fields. Most local technical and managerial training does not meet international business standards, but foreign companies engaged in production report that locally hired workers learn quickly and work effectively. The government emphasizes foreign education. Each year hundreds of students are sent to the United States, Europe, and Japan for university degrees, after which they have a commitment to work for the government for 5 years. Reportedly, about 60% of students who study abroad find employment with foreign companies upon completing their degrees, despite their 5-year commitment to work in the government. Some American companies offer their local employees special training programs in the United States. In addition, Uzbekistan subsidizes studies for students at Westminster International University in Tashkent—one of the few Western-style institutions in Uzbekistan. In 2002, the government "Istedod" Foundation (formerly as "Umid" Foundation) is paying for 98 out of 155 students studying at Westminster. For the next academic year, Westminster is expecting to admit 360 students, from which Istedod is expecting to pay for 160 students. The education at Westminster costs $5,200 per academic year. In 2008 Management Development Institute of Singapore at Tashkent started its work. This university provides high quality education with international degree. Tuition fee was $5000 in 2012. In 2009 Turin Polytechnik University was opened. It is the only university in Central Asia that prepares high quality employees for industries. With the closing or downsizing of many foreign firms, it is relatively easy to find qualified employees, though salaries are very low by Western standards. Salary caps, which the government implements in an apparent attempt to prevent firms from circumventing restrictions on withdrawal of cash from banks, prevent many foreign firms from paying their workers as much as they would like. Labor market regulations in Uzbekistan are similar to those of the Soviet Union, with all rights guaranteed but some rights unobserved. Unemployment is a growing problem, and the number of people looking for jobs in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Southeast Asia is increasing each year. Uzbekistan's Ministry of Labor does not publish information on Uzbek citizens working abroad, but Russia's Federal Migration Service reports 2.5 million Uzbek migrant workers in Russia. There are also indications of up to 1 million Uzbek migrants working illegally in Kazakhstan. Uzbekistan's migrant workers may thus be around 3.5-4 million people, or a staggering 25% of its labor force of 14.8 million. The U.S. Department of State also estimates that between three and five million Uzbek citizens of working age live outside Uzbekistan. After 2016 Uzbekistan has admitted the lack of higher education offers in the country to support its labor market needs. Since 2016 a number of higher educational providers have started operating in Uzbekistan, including in cooperation with foreign universities. Moreover, private higher education providers started to emerge on the market to provide students with necessary skills, knowledge and competencies required on the labor market. One of the private universities in Tashkent TEAM University aims at development of skills necessary for starting entrepreneurial activities, thus contributing to development of businesses and private enterprises. Prices and monetary policy Uzbekistan experienced galloping inflation of around 1000% per year immediately after independence (1992–1994). Stabilization efforts implemented with active guidance from the International Monetary Fund rapidly paid off, as inflation rates were brought down to 50% in 1997 and then to 22% in 2002. Since 2003 annual inflation rates averaged less than 10%. The severe inflationary pressures that characterized the early years of independence inevitably led to a dramatic depreciation of the national currency. The exchange rate of Uzbekistan's first currency, the "notional" ruble inherited from the Soviet period and its successor, the transient "coupon som" introduced in November 1993 in a ratio of 1:1 to the ruble, went up from 100 rubles/US$ in the early 1992 to 3627 rubles (or coupon soms) in mid-April 1994. On July 1, 1994 the "coupon soʻm" was replaced with the permanent new Uzbek soʻm (UZS) in a ratio of 1000:1, and the starting exchange rate for the new national currency was set at 7 som/US$, implying an almost two-fold depreciation since mid-April. Within the first six months, between July and December 1994, the national currency depreciated further to 25 som/US$ and continued depreciating at a fast clip until December 2002, when the exchange rate had reached 969 som/US$, i.e., 138 times the starting exchange rate eight and a half years earlier or nearly 10,000 times the exchange rate in early 1992, soon after the declaration of independence. Then the depreciation of the som virtually stopped in response to the government's stabilization program, which at the same time dramatically reduced the inflation rates. During the four years that followed (2003–2007) the exchange rate of the som to the US dollar increased only by a factor of 1.33, from 969 som to around 1865 som in May 2012. From 1996 until the spring of 2003, the official and so-called "commercial" exchange rate – both set administratively by the Central Bank – were highly overvalued. Many businesses and individuals were unable to buy dollars legally at these "low" rates, so a widespread |
After the completion of the Uzbek link to the Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic cable, Uzbekistan plans to establish a fiber-optic connection to Afghanistan. Radio Uzbekistan Radio Stations Online Full List Updated 2013 Listen all Uzbekistan AM FM Radio Stations Online Currently, Uzbekistan has four AM stations, 12 FM stations, and three shortwave stations. Additionally, as of 1997, there are an estimated 10.2 million radios in use in Uzbekistan. Television Uzbekistan has 28 television broadcast stations. This includes one cable rebroadcaster in Taskent and approximately 20 stations in regional capitals. Internet Internet access in Uzbekistan has significantly developed after its new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, came to power. Compared to the past, you can now access Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and many other social networks without any restrictions. The new president has opened up the country to FDIs and has signed a tax incentive for business opportunities to improve the private business sector. He has also addressed and put a lot | are digital exchanges in large cities and rural areas. Domestic system The main line telecommunications system is dilapidated and telephone density is low. The state-owned telecommunications company, Uztelecom, has used loans from the Japanese government and the China Development Bank to improve mainline services. The completion of conversion to digital exchanges was in 2010. Mobile services are growing rapidly, with the subscriber base reaching 25 million in 2011. International system Uzbekistan is linked by fiber-optic cable or microwave radio relay with CIS member states and to other countries by leased connection via the Moscow international gateway switch. After the completion of the Uzbek link to the Trans-Asia-Europe (TAE) fiber-optic cable, Uzbekistan plans to establish a fiber-optic connection to Afghanistan. Radio Uzbekistan Radio Stations Online Full List Updated 2013 Listen all Uzbekistan AM FM Radio Stations Online Currently, Uzbekistan has four AM stations, 12 FM stations, and three shortwave stations. Additionally, as of 1997, there are an estimated 10.2 million radios in use in Uzbekistan. Television Uzbekistan has 28 television broadcast stations. This includes one cable rebroadcaster in Taskent and approximately 20 stations in regional capitals. Internet Internet access |
Soviet Union. The ring road around Tashkent is about long, and completely multilaned, although it lacks a carriageway separation in most sections. The M39 Highway, connecting Tashkent and Samarkand is a 4-laned road in some of its length, although poorly maintained and without carriageway separation in most of its length. In January, 2017, the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan governments made an agreement to reopen the section of this highway which passed through Kazakhstan that had been closed for ten years, avoiding the detour via Guliston. The M37 Highway starts from Samarkand, reaching west to the Turkmen border, via Navoiy and Bukhara. The A373 Highway starts from Tashkent, going east through Kokand of Fergana Region, and ends at the Kyrgyz border. Ports and waterways Double landlocked Uzbekistan has no seaports. Its main river port is Termez on the Amu Darya river. Although Termez lacks modern facilities and has a shortage of spare parts, activity there has increased as conditions in neighboring Afghanistan have stabilized. Termez has been an important transfer point for humanitarian supplies entering Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has of inland waterways. Since the mid-1990s, commercial travel | agreement to reopen the section of this highway which passed through Kazakhstan that had been closed for ten years, avoiding the detour via Guliston. The M37 Highway starts from Samarkand, reaching west to the Turkmen border, via Navoiy and Bukhara. The A373 Highway starts from Tashkent, going east through Kokand of Fergana Region, and ends at the Kyrgyz border. Ports and waterways Double landlocked Uzbekistan has no seaports. Its main river port is Termez on the Amu Darya river. Although Termez lacks modern facilities and has a shortage of spare parts, activity there has increased as conditions in neighboring Afghanistan have stabilized. Termez has been an important transfer point for humanitarian supplies entering Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has of inland waterways. Since the mid-1990s, commercial travel on Uzbekistan's portion of the Amu Darya has been reduced because of low water levels. Pipelines As of 2010, Uzbekistan had of natural gas pipelines, of oil pipelines, and of pipelines for refined products. Airports As of 2012, Uzbekistan has 53 airports. 33 of them have paved runways, six of which had runways longer than . The largest of them, Tashkent International Airport, is linked with European and Middle Eastern cities by direct flights of Aeroflot, Lufthansa, and Turkish Airlines, and with New York and Los Angeles via connecting flights through Moscow. The national airline, Uzbek Havo Yollari (Uzbekistan Airlines), flies mainly within |
militarized forces The following institutions are uniformed and have military affiliations but are not part of the Armed Forces: National Security Service (SNB), the country's secret police Frontier Service (also called the Committee for State Border Protection of the National Security Service), the border guard of Uzbekistan. They have gotten into disagreements with the Kyrgyz Frontier Force in the Batken Region. The Frontier Service also operates the riverine naval assets of Uzbekistan, which include two Gyurza class gunboats. Internal Troops, they are commonly used against Islamic terrorists in the border regions near Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It maintains several Spetsnaz battalions: Scorpion Group Bars Uzbekistan National Guard also serves as a specialized elite force. Military industry In November 2017, at the initiative of President Mirziyoyev, the State Committee for Defense Industry () was created, serving as an authorized body of state administration responsible for the implementation of state defense orders and defense production organization. Abbreviated by the Russian term of Goskomoboronprom, it has developed the country's industrial potential in the field of production of military and dual-use products. Under the committee, a joint Uzbek-Turkish enterprise for the production of military uniforms was created. The following enterprises serve under the committee: State Unitary Enterprise Vostok State Enterprise CHARZ Center for Innovative Technologies TexMash RemTex KRANTAS In 2020, the first Uzbek light armored personnel carrier began the process of development. The APCs, known as the Tarlon and Qalqon light armored vehicles, was designed and manufactured at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex. It designed for the protection and tracking of convoys, sanitary transportation, engineering, radiation, chemical and biological reconnaissance and fire support. Military education Higher education Under the Defence Ministry Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan (formerly the Tashkent Higher All-Arms Command School) Military Institute of Information and Communication Technologies and Communications Military Medical Academy (the former Military Medical Faculty of the Tashkent Medical Academy) Ground forces Chirchiq Higher Tank Command and Engineering School Samarkand Higher Military Automobile Command School Jizzakh Higher Military Technological University Air Force Higher Military Aviation School Under Paramilitary services Higher Military Customs Institute Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan Military-Technical Institute of the National Guard of Uzbekistan Institute of Civil Defense of the Ministry of Emergency Affairs NCO training In January 2001, Sergeant Training Schools were established in the Tashkent, Central, South-West and Eastern military districts. In 2007, a fifth sergeant training school was opened in the Northwest Military District. The curriculum of the Sergeant Training School provides servicemen with the basics of managin tactical units, professional command skills related to military specialization, accurate assessment of the situation and decision-making, methods of organizing the use of weapons and military equipment. focused on teaching. The training program is aimed at developing the leadership qualities of sergeants, maintaining a healthy morale and military skills in military units. Officers of the military, national police, special forces, and Ministry of Internal Affairs attend courses at the Joint Service Officer Training Academy in the capital. Youth training In addition to the schools mentioned, four military lyceums (high schools) operate in Tashkent, Samarkand, Fergana, and Urgench, all of which were established in 1993, are run by the military for pre-military education. Military culture Military oath The Military oath () is taken by conscripts as a legal basis of the beginning of their military service. The oath is administered by the commanding officer of the unit while a colour guard lowers the national flag for the soldier to kiss after he/she has taken the oath. The first military oath of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan was adopted at the 10th session of the 12th convocation of the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan on 3 July 1992. The following is the text for the 1992 version of the oath: With the entry of the Law "On General Military Commitment and Military Service" adopted by the Oliy Majlis in 2002, the oath was abolished and the original text was made unavailable. In April 2018, a long proposed new version of the oath was approved. The new version is as follows: Holidays These are the military holidays observed by all service personnel the Uzbek Armed Forces: 14 January – Defender of the Motherland Day 15 February – International Duties Memorial Day 5 April – National Security Service Day 9 May – Day of Remembrance and Honour 3rd day in August – Uzbek Air Force Day 25 October – Police and Internal Affairs Servicemen's Day Cultural institutions The armed forces maintains a number of cultural institutions that operated under the Ministry of Defense. Those institutions include the following: State Museum of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan – Founded in 1965 as the Museum of the Turkestan Military District, the State Museum of the Armed Forces () is under the direct control of the Ministry of Defense, being located in the ministry's central building since May 1975. The museum exhibits over 10,000 pieces of memorabilia, including Second World War era tanks and military artifacts from the Timurid dynasty. Tashkent House of Military Officers – The main building was built in 1885 and was used as a military assembly by the Imperial Russian Army before the October | on 20 February 1992, the new Ministry of Defence took over the offices which had been formerly occupied by the district headquarters staff. The Uzbek SSR had the strongest Soviet military presence of the other Central Asian Republics, controlling its own and operating its own domestic Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) independent of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union. Establishment of armed forces and military institutions On 2 July 1992 a Presidential Decree established a Ministry of Defence to supersede the Ministry of Defence Affairs. Over the succeeding years, Uzbekistan replaced Russian officers with ethnic Uzbeks and restructured the military to focus on targets like civil unrest, drug trafficking, and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The three major Soviet military academies, the Tashkent Higher All-Arms Command School, the Chirchiq Higher Tank Command and Engineering School, and the Samarkand Higher Military Automobile Command School, were located in Uzbekistan. This caused the government to not send Uzbek officers to Russia for training. In 1994, they established the joint Armed Forces Academy, to train officers of all branches. Though the Uzbek language was becoming more in use by the army, Russian remained the main language used in training officers, due to the fact that most manuals were in Russian and that the Central Asian Turkic languages did not have proper military vocabulary. Development In October 1993, by the decree, the 2nd Mobile Army Corps was formed on the basis of the 105th Guards Vienna Airborne Division, and the 1st Army Corps was established on the basis of the former 59th Army Corps. In January 1994, the 108th Motorized Rifle Division was disbanded, and its military units were incorporated into the 1st Army Corps. Disbanded regiments were replaced by motorized infantry, mountain artillery, tank, and anti-aircraft artillery brigades. In April 1994, departments of defense were introduced in the regions of the republic, the Republic of Karakalpakstan and the city of Tashkent, and departments of defense in cities and districts. Military reforms were implemented after the appointment of civilian Kadyr Gulyamov to the defence ministry. Soviet-style regimental structures, were replaced, with the basic fighting unit consisting of 14 soldiers. "Ranger" detachments based on the American model were also formed. Since Shavkat Mirziyoyev came to power, the military has been involved in re-arming its military with modern equipment. Activities and foreign relations From August to September 1997, Uzbekistan took part in the exercises of the Central Asian Battalion (CENTRASBAT) in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. as part of an eight nation joint exercise which include the United States, Russia and Ukraine. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States leased the Karshi-Khanabad airbase in southern Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan. The American base there was called "Camp Stronghold Freedom," yet was more often referred to as "K2 Airbase" by the personnel in theater. In May 2005, the military was involved in suppressing unrest in the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan, which became known as the Andijan massacre. Consequently, the EU banned arms sales and imposed a one-year visa ban on 12 senior officials, including the security chief and interior and defence ministers, accusing them of bearing responsibility for the killings. In the aftermath of the incident, President Karimov dismissed several senior military figures: Defense Minister Gulyamov, Head of the Joint Headquarters of the Armed Forces Ismail Ergashev, and Commander of the Eastern Military District Kosimali Akhmedov. Burnashev and Chernykh said that '..although these dismissals did not change the formal system of administration in the security and military structures, they reflected serious shifts in power relations among regional elites representing their clans.' A joint statement of the member countries of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation issued in early July 2005 on a conference in the Kazakh capital of Astana |
Uzbekistan is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and hosts the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Uzbekistan also joined the new Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) in 2002. The CACO consists of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is a founding member of and remains involved in the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan. Turunen visit to Uzbekistan Antti Turunen, the head of the Finnish Foreign Ministry's Eastern European and Central Asian department, led a European Union fact-finding mission to Tashkent, Uzbekistan on August 29, 2006. The Uzbek deputy foreign minister indicated that the Uzbek government was interested in talks with the EU during a visit to Helsinki, Finland in June 2006, just before Finland assumed the EU presidency. Radio Free Europe journalists spoke to Turunen on September 1. Turunen said the visit was inconclusive, but promising enough for the EU to "analyze" to see if the sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan could be lifted. Turunen's visit to Uzbekistan was the first EU visit since October, when sanctions were imposed after the Uzbek government refused to allow an international investigation into the Andijan massacre. The diplomatic sanctions consisted of a ban on political contacts, aid cuts, and visa bans on officials held responsible for the events in Andijan and their cover-up. Turunen said, "There are many, many open cases on human rights, and we have to now carefully look into what has really been done and what recommendations of [the] international community have been implemented. They indicated [then] that there would be possibilities to again resume ministerial level dialogue, that they might be willing to again discuss all aspects of EU-Uzbek relations, including the events in | terrorism and joined the coalitions which have dealt with both Afghanistan and Iraq (although, in 2005, relations with the U.S. were strained after the May 2005 unrest and Uzbekistan demanded that the U.S. leave Karshi-Khanabad). It is a member of the United Nations, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Partnership for Peace, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It belongs to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization, which comprises 7 Central Asian countries: Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is a founding member of and remains involved in the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the GUAM alliance (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova), which was formed in 1997 (temporarily making it GUUAM until Uzbekistan withdrew in 2005). Uzbekistan is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and hosts the SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. Uzbekistan also joined the new Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) in 2002. The CACO consists of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is a founding member of and remains involved in the Central Asian Union, formed with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, joined in March 1998 by Tajikistan. Turunen visit to Uzbekistan Antti Turunen, the head of the Finnish Foreign Ministry's Eastern European and Central Asian department, led a European Union fact-finding mission to Tashkent, Uzbekistan on August 29, 2006. The Uzbek deputy foreign minister indicated that the Uzbek government was interested in talks with the EU during a visit to Helsinki, Finland in June 2006, just before Finland assumed the EU presidency. Radio Free Europe journalists spoke to Turunen on September 1. Turunen said the visit was inconclusive, but promising enough for the EU to "analyze" to see if the sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan could be lifted. Turunen's visit to Uzbekistan was the first EU visit since October, when sanctions were imposed after the Uzbek government refused to allow an international investigation into the Andijan massacre. The diplomatic sanctions consisted of a ban on political contacts, aid cuts, and visa |
uterus and form the uterine microbiome. Support The uterus is primarily supported by the pelvic diaphragm, perineal body, and urogenital diaphragm. Secondarily, it is supported by ligaments, including the peritoneal ligament and the broad ligament of uterus. Major ligaments It is held in place by several peritoneal ligaments, of which the following are the most important (there are two of each): Axis Normally, the uterus lies in anteversion and anteflexion. In most women, the long axis of the uterus is bent forward on the long axis of the vagina, against the urinary bladder. This position is referred to as anteversion of the uterus. Furthermore, the long axis of the body of the uterus is bent forward at the level of the internal os with the long axis of the cervix. This position is termed anteflexion of the uterus. The uterus assumes an anteverted position in 50% of women, a retroverted position in 25% of women, and a midposed position in the remaining 25% of women. Position The uterus is in the middle of the pelvic cavity in frontal plane (due to broad ligament of the uterus). The fundus does not surpass the linea terminalis, while the vaginal part of the cervix does not extend below the interspinal line. The uterus is mobile and moves posteriorly under the pressure of a full bladder, or anteriorly under the pressure of a full rectum. If both are full, it moves upwards. Increased intra-abdominal pressure pushes it downwards. The mobility is conferred to it by musculo-fibrous apparatus that consists of suspensory and sustentacular part. Under normal circumstances the suspensory part keeps the uterus in anteflexion and anteversion (in 90% of women) and keeps it "floating" in the pelvis. The meaning of these terms are described below: The sustentacular part supports the pelvic organs and comprises the larger pelvic diaphragm in the back and the smaller urogenital diaphragm in the front. The pathological changes of the position of the uterus are: retroversion/retroflexion, if it is fixed hyperanteflexion – tipped too forward; most commonly congenital, but may be caused by tumors anteposition, retroposition, lateroposition – the whole uterus is moved; caused by parametritis or tumors elevation, descensus, prolapse rotation (the whole uterus rotates around its longitudinal axis), torsion (only the body of the uterus rotates around) inversion In cases where the uterus is "tipped", also known as retroverted uterus, the woman may have symptoms of pain during sexual intercourse, pelvic pain during menstruation, minor incontinence, urinary tract infections, fertility difficulties, and difficulty using tampons. A pelvic examination by a doctor can determine if a uterus is tipped. Blood supply The uterus is supplied by arterial blood both from the uterine artery and the ovarian artery. Another anastomotic branch may also supply the uterus from anastomosis of these two arteries. Nerve supply Afferent nerves supplying the uterus are T11 and T12. Sympathetic supply is from the hypogastric plexus and the ovarian plexus. Parasympathetic supply is from the S2, S3 and S4 nerves. Development Bilateral Müllerian ducts form during early fetal life. In males, anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) secreted from the testes leads to their regression. In females, these ducts give rise to the Fallopian tubes and the uterus. In humans the lower segments of the two ducts fuse to form a single uterus, however, in cases of uterine malformations this development may be disturbed. The different uterine forms in various mammals are due to various degrees of fusion of the two Müllerian ducts. Various congenital conditions of the uterus can develop in utero. Though uncommon some of these are a double uterus, didelphic uterus, bicornate uterus and others. Function The reproductive function of the uterus is to accept a fertilized ovum which passes through the utero-tubal junction from the fallopian tube. The fertilized ovum divides to become a blastocyst, which implants into the endometrium and derives nourishment from blood vessels, which develop exclusively for this purpose. The fertilized ovum becomes an embryo, attaches to a wall of | Normally, the uterus lies in anteversion and anteflexion. In most women, the long axis of the uterus is bent forward on the long axis of the vagina, against the urinary bladder. This position is referred to as anteversion of the uterus. Furthermore, the long axis of the body of the uterus is bent forward at the level of the internal os with the long axis of the cervix. This position is termed anteflexion of the uterus. The uterus assumes an anteverted position in 50% of women, a retroverted position in 25% of women, and a midposed position in the remaining 25% of women. Position The uterus is in the middle of the pelvic cavity in frontal plane (due to broad ligament of the uterus). The fundus does not surpass the linea terminalis, while the vaginal part of the cervix does not extend below the interspinal line. The uterus is mobile and moves posteriorly under the pressure of a full bladder, or anteriorly under the pressure of a full rectum. If both are full, it moves upwards. Increased intra-abdominal pressure pushes it downwards. The mobility is conferred to it by musculo-fibrous apparatus that consists of suspensory and sustentacular part. Under normal circumstances the suspensory part keeps the uterus in anteflexion and anteversion (in 90% of women) and keeps it "floating" in the pelvis. The meaning of these terms are described below: The sustentacular part supports the pelvic organs and comprises the larger pelvic diaphragm in the back and the smaller urogenital diaphragm in the front. The pathological changes of the position of the uterus are: retroversion/retroflexion, if it is fixed hyperanteflexion – tipped too forward; most commonly congenital, but may be caused by tumors anteposition, retroposition, lateroposition – the whole uterus is moved; caused by parametritis or tumors elevation, descensus, prolapse rotation (the whole uterus rotates around its longitudinal axis), torsion (only the body of the uterus rotates around) inversion In cases where the uterus is "tipped", also known as retroverted uterus, the woman may have symptoms of pain during sexual intercourse, pelvic pain during menstruation, minor incontinence, urinary tract infections, fertility difficulties, and difficulty using tampons. A pelvic examination by a doctor can determine if a uterus is tipped. Blood supply The uterus is supplied by arterial blood both from the uterine artery and the ovarian artery. Another anastomotic branch may also supply the uterus from anastomosis of these two arteries. Nerve supply Afferent nerves supplying the uterus are T11 and T12. Sympathetic supply is from the hypogastric plexus and the ovarian plexus. Parasympathetic supply is from the S2, S3 and S4 nerves. Development Bilateral Müllerian ducts form during early fetal life. In males, anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) secreted from the testes leads to their regression. In females, these ducts give rise to the Fallopian tubes and the uterus. In humans the lower segments of the two ducts fuse to form a single uterus, however, in cases of uterine malformations this development may be disturbed. The different uterine forms in various mammals are due to various degrees of fusion of the two Müllerian ducts. Various congenital conditions of the uterus can develop in utero. Though uncommon some of these are a double uterus, |
a series of science fiction conventions held in Maryland 1974 through 1989 | convention), a series of science fiction conventions held in Maryland 1974 through |
drama film directed by Walter West Under Suspicion (1928 film), a German silent crime film directed by Constantin J. David Under Suspicion (1930 film), an American pre-Code drama film directed by A. F. Erickson Under Suspicion (1937 film), an American mystery film directed by Lewis D. | directed by Constantin J. David Under Suspicion (1930 film), an American pre-Code drama film directed by A. F. Erickson Under Suspicion (1937 film), an American mystery film directed by Lewis D. Collins Under Suspicion |
work in this topic, and participated in the early Mobile Computing workshop held in Santa Cruz in 1996. Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo, Japan leads the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory (UNL), Tokyo as well as the T-Engine Forum. The joint goal of Sakamura's Ubiquitous Networking specification and the T-Engine forum, is to enable any everyday device to broadcast and receive information. MIT has also contributed significant research in this field, notably Things That Think consortium (directed by Hiroshi Ishii, Joseph A. Paradiso and Rosalind Picard) at the Media Lab and the CSAIL effort known as Project Oxygen. Other major contributors include University of Washington's Ubicomp Lab (directed by Shwetak Patel), Dartmouth College's DartNets Lab, Georgia Tech's College of Computing, Cornell University's People Aware Computing Lab, NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, UC Irvine's Department of Informatics, Microsoft Research, Intel Research and Equator, Ajou University UCRi & CUS. Examples One of the earliest ubiquitous systems was artist Natalie Jeremijenko's "Live Wire", also known as "Dangling String", installed at Xerox PARC during Mark Weiser's time there. This was a piece of string attached to a stepper motor and controlled by a LAN connection; network activity caused the string to twitch, yielding a peripherally noticeable indication of traffic. Weiser called this an example of calm technology. A present manifestation of this trend is the widespread diffusion of mobile phones. Many mobile phones support high speed data transmission, video services, and other services with powerful computational ability. Although these mobile devices are not necessarily manifestations of ubiquitous computing, there are examples, such as Japan's Yaoyorozu ("Eight Million Gods") Project in which mobile devices, coupled with radio frequency identification tags demonstrate that ubiquitous computing is already present in some form. Ambient Devices has produced an "orb", a "dashboard", and a "weather beacon": these decorative devices receive data from a wireless network and report current events, such as stock prices and the weather, like the Nabaztag produced by Violet Snowden. The Australian futurist Mark Pesce has produced a highly configurable 52-LED LAMP enabled lamp which uses Wi-Fi named MooresCloud after Gordon Moore. The Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation launched a device called Ubi – The Ubiquitous Computer designed to allow voice interaction with the home and provide constant access to information. Ubiquitous computing research has focused on building an environment in which computers allow humans to focus attention on select aspects of the environment and operate in supervisory and policy-making roles. Ubiquitous computing emphasizes the creation of a human computer interface that can interpret and support a user's intentions. For example, MIT's Project Oxygen seeks to create a system in which computation is as pervasive as air: In the future, computation will be human centered. It will be freely available everywhere, like batteries and power sockets, or oxygen in the air we breathe...We will not need to carry our own devices around with us. Instead, configurable generic devices, either handheld or embedded in the environment, will bring computation to us, whenever we need it and wherever we might be. As we interact with these "anonymous" devices, they will adopt our information personalities. They will respect our desires for privacy and security. We won't have to type, click, or learn new computer jargon. Instead, we'll communicate naturally, using speech and gestures that describe our intent... This is a fundamental transition that does not seek to escape the physical world and "enter some metallic, gigabyte-infested cyberspace" but rather brings computers and communications to us, making them "synonymous with the useful tasks they perform". Network robots link ubiquitous networks with robots, contributing to the creation of new lifestyles and solutions to address a variety of social problems including the aging of population and nursing care. Issues Privacy is easily the most often-cited criticism of ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), and may be the greatest barrier to its long-term success. Public policy problems are often "preceded by long shadows, long trains of activity", emerging slowly, over decades or even the course of a century. There is a need for a long-term view to guide policy decision making, as this will assist in identifying long-term problems or opportunities related to the ubiquitous computing environment. This information can reduce uncertainty and guide the decisions of both policy makers and those directly involved in system development (Wedemeyer et al. 2001). One important consideration is the degree to which different opinions form around a single problem. Some issues may have strong consensus about their importance, even if there are great differences in opinion regarding the cause or solution. For example, few people will differ in their assessment of a highly tangible problem with physical impact such as terrorists using new weapons of mass destruction to destroy human life. The problem statements outlined above that address the future evolution of the human species or challenges to identity have clear cultural or religious implications and are likely to have greater variance in opinion about them. Research centres This is a list of notable institutions who claim to have a focus on Ubiquitous computing sorted by country: Canada Topological Media Lab, Concordia University, Canada Finland Community Imaging Group, University of Oulu, Finland Germany Telecooperation Office (TECO), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany India Ubiquitous Computing Research Resource Centre (UCRC), Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Pakistan Centre for Research in Ubiquitous Computing (CRUC), Karachi, Pakistan. Sweden Mobile Life Centre, Stockholm University United Kingdom Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham See also Ambient media Computer accessibility Human-centered computing Mobile interaction Smart city (ubiquitous city) Ubiquitous commerce Ubiquitous learning Ubiquitous robot Wearable computer References Further reading Adam Greenfield's book Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous | the user wherever he/she moves. Roy Want, while a researcher and student working under Andy Hopper at Cambridge University, worked on the "Active Badge System", which is an advanced location computing system where personal mobility that is merged with computing. Bill Schilit (now at Google) also did some earlier work in this topic, and participated in the early Mobile Computing workshop held in Santa Cruz in 1996. Ken Sakamura of the University of Tokyo, Japan leads the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory (UNL), Tokyo as well as the T-Engine Forum. The joint goal of Sakamura's Ubiquitous Networking specification and the T-Engine forum, is to enable any everyday device to broadcast and receive information. MIT has also contributed significant research in this field, notably Things That Think consortium (directed by Hiroshi Ishii, Joseph A. Paradiso and Rosalind Picard) at the Media Lab and the CSAIL effort known as Project Oxygen. Other major contributors include University of Washington's Ubicomp Lab (directed by Shwetak Patel), Dartmouth College's DartNets Lab, Georgia Tech's College of Computing, Cornell University's People Aware Computing Lab, NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, UC Irvine's Department of Informatics, Microsoft Research, Intel Research and Equator, Ajou University UCRi & CUS. Examples One of the earliest ubiquitous systems was artist Natalie Jeremijenko's "Live Wire", also known as "Dangling String", installed at Xerox PARC during Mark Weiser's time there. This was a piece of string attached to a stepper motor and controlled by a LAN connection; network activity caused the string to twitch, yielding a peripherally noticeable indication of traffic. Weiser called this an example of calm technology. A present manifestation of this trend is the widespread diffusion of mobile phones. Many mobile phones support high speed data transmission, video services, and other services with powerful computational ability. Although these mobile devices are not necessarily manifestations of ubiquitous computing, there are examples, such as Japan's Yaoyorozu ("Eight Million Gods") Project in which mobile devices, coupled with radio frequency identification tags demonstrate that ubiquitous computing is already present in some form. Ambient Devices has produced an "orb", a "dashboard", and a "weather beacon": these decorative devices receive data from a wireless network and report current events, such as stock prices and the weather, like the Nabaztag produced by Violet Snowden. The Australian futurist Mark Pesce has produced a highly configurable 52-LED LAMP enabled lamp which uses Wi-Fi named MooresCloud after Gordon Moore. The Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation launched a device called Ubi – The Ubiquitous Computer designed to allow voice interaction with the home and provide constant access to information. Ubiquitous computing research has focused on building an environment in which computers allow humans to focus attention on select aspects of the environment and operate in supervisory and policy-making roles. Ubiquitous computing emphasizes the creation of a human computer interface that can interpret and support a user's intentions. For example, MIT's Project Oxygen seeks to create a system in which computation is as pervasive as air: In the future, computation will be human centered. It will be freely available everywhere, like batteries and power sockets, or oxygen in the air we breathe...We will not need to carry our own devices around with us. Instead, configurable generic devices, either handheld or embedded in the environment, will bring computation to us, whenever we need it and wherever we might be. As we interact with these "anonymous" devices, they will adopt our information personalities. They will respect our desires for privacy and security. We won't have to type, click, or learn new computer jargon. Instead, we'll communicate naturally, using speech and gestures that describe our intent... This is a fundamental transition that does not seek to escape the physical world and "enter some metallic, gigabyte-infested cyberspace" but rather brings computers and communications to us, making them "synonymous with the useful tasks they perform". Network robots link ubiquitous networks with robots, contributing to the creation of new lifestyles and |
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The declaration was made to guarantee equal rights for every person, and if it had been intended for only a certain section of people, Congress would have left it as "rights of Englishmen". Stephen Lucas called it "one of the best-known sentences in the English language", with Joseph Ellis saying it contains "the most potent and consequential words in American history". The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted. The Declaration of Independence inspired many similar documents in other countries, the first being the 1789 Declaration of United Belgian States issued during the Brabant Revolution in the Austrian Netherlands. It also served as the primary model for numerous declarations of independence in Europe and Latin America, as well as Africa (Liberia) and Oceania (New Zealand) during the first half of the 19th century. Background By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year. Relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire. Many colonists, however, had developed a different conception of the empire. The colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, and colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies. The orthodox British view, dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire, and so, by definition, anything that Parliament did was constitutional. In the colonies, however, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, not even Parliament. After the Townshend Acts, some essayists even began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth, by 1774, American writers such as Samuel Adams, James Wilson, and Thomas Jefferson were arguing that Parliament was the legislature of Great Britain only, and that the colonies, which had their own legislatures, were connected to the rest of the empire only through their allegiance to the Crown. Congress convenes The issue of Parliament's authority in the colonies became a crisis after Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (known as the Intolerable Acts in the colonies) in 1774 to punish the colonists for the Gaspee Affair of 1772 and the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Many colonists saw the Coercive Acts as a violation of the British Constitution and thus a threat to the liberties of all of British America, so the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in September 1774 to coordinate a response. Congress organized a boycott of British goods and petitioned the king for repeal of the acts. These measures were unsuccessful because King George and the ministry of Prime Minister Lord North were determined to enforce parliamentary supremacy in America. As the king wrote to North in November 1774, "blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent". Most colonists still hoped for reconciliation with Great Britain, even after fighting began in the American Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The Second Continental Congress convened at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia in May 1775, and some delegates hoped for eventual independence, but no one yet advocated declaring it. Many colonists no longer believed that Parliament had any sovereignty over them, yet they still professed loyalty to King George, who they hoped would intercede on their behalf. They were disappointed in late 1775 when the king rejected Congress's second petition, issued a Proclamation of Rebellion, and announced before Parliament on October 26 that he was considering "friendly offers of foreign assistance" to suppress the rebellion. A pro-American minority in Parliament warned that the government was driving the colonists toward independence. Toward independence Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published in January 1776, just as it became clear in the colonies that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator. Paine had only recently arrived in the colonies from England, and he argued in favor of colonial independence, advocating republicanism as an alternative to monarchy and hereditary rule. Common Sense made a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration in the American colonies. Paine connected independence with Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity, thereby stimulating public debate on a topic that few had previously dared to openly discuss, and public support for separation from Great Britain steadily increased after its publication. Some colonists still held out hope for reconciliation, but developments in early 1776 further strengthened public support for independence. In February 1776, colonists learned of Parliament's passage of the Prohibitory Act, which established a blockade of American ports and declared American ships to be enemy vessels. John Adams, a strong supporter of independence, believed that Parliament had effectively declared American independence before Congress had been able to. Adams labeled the Prohibitory Act the "Act of Independency", calling it "a compleat Dismemberment of the British Empire". Support for declaring independence grew even more when it was confirmed that King George had hired German mercenaries to use against his American subjects. Despite this growing popular support for independence, Congress lacked the clear authority to declare it. Delegates had been elected to Congress by 13 different governments, which included extralegal conventions, ad hoc committees, and elected assemblies, and they were bound by the instructions given to them. Regardless of their personal opinions, delegates could not vote to declare independence unless their instructions permitted such an action. Several colonies, in fact, expressly prohibited their delegates from taking any steps toward separation from Great Britain, while other delegations had instructions that were ambiguous on the issue; consequently, advocates of independence sought to have the Congressional instructions revised. For Congress to declare independence, a majority of delegations would need authorization to vote for it, and at least one colonial government would need to specifically instruct its delegation to propose a declaration of independence in Congress. Between April and July 1776, a "complex political war" was waged to bring this about. Revising instructions In the campaign to revise Congressional instructions, many Americans formally expressed their support for separation from Great Britain in what were effectively state and local declarations of independence. Historian Pauline Maier identifies more than ninety such declarations that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July 1776. These "declarations" took a variety of forms. Some were formal written instructions for Congressional delegations, such as the Halifax Resolves of April 12, with which North Carolina became the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence. Others were legislative acts that officially ended British rule in individual colonies, such as the Rhode Island legislature renouncing its allegiance to Great Britain on May 4—the first colony to do so. Many "declarations" were resolutions adopted at town or county meetings that offered support for independence. A few came in the form of jury instructions, such as the statement issued on April 23, 1776, by Chief Justice William Henry Drayton of South Carolina: "the law of the land authorizes me to declare ... that George the Third, King of Great Britain ... has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him." Most of these declarations are now obscure, having been overshadowed by the resolution for independence, approved by Congress on July 2, and the declaration of independence, approved and printed on July 4 and signed in August. The modern scholarly consensus is that the best-known and earliest of the local declarations is most likely inauthentic, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, allegedly adopted in May 1775 (a full year before other local declarations). Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Advocates of independence saw Pennsylvania as the key; if that colony could be converted to the pro-independence cause, it was believed that the others would follow. On May 1, however, opponents of independence retained control of the Pennsylvania Assembly in a special election that had focused on the question of independence. In response, Congress passed a resolution on May 10 which had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, calling on colonies without a "government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs" to adopt new governments. The resolution passed unanimously, and was even supported by Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, the leader of the anti-independence faction in Congress, who believed that it did not apply to his colony. May 15 preamble As was the custom, Congress appointed a committee to draft a preamble to explain the purpose of the resolution. John Adams wrote the preamble, which stated that because King George had rejected reconciliation and was hiring foreign mercenaries to use against the colonies, "it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed". Adams's preamble was meant to encourage the overthrow of the governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were still under proprietary governance. Congress passed the preamble on May 15 after several days of debate, but four of the middle colonies voted against it, and the Maryland delegation walked out in protest. Adams regarded his May 15 preamble effectively as an American declaration of independence, although a formal declaration would still have to be made. Lee's resolution On the same day that Congress passed Adams's radical preamble, the Virginia Convention set the stage for a formal Congressional declaration of independence. On May 15, the Convention instructed Virginia's congressional delegation "to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain". In accordance with those instructions, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a three-part resolution to Congress on June 7. The motion was seconded by John Adams, calling on Congress to declare independence, form foreign alliances, and prepare a plan of colonial confederation. The part of the resolution relating to declaring independence read: "Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Lee's resolution met with resistance in the ensuing debate. Opponents of the resolution conceded that reconciliation was unlikely with Great Britain, while arguing that declaring independence was premature, and that securing foreign aid should take priority. Advocates of the resolution countered that foreign governments would not intervene in an internal British struggle, and so a formal declaration of independence was needed before foreign aid was possible. All Congress needed to do, they insisted, was to "declare a fact which already exists". Delegates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York were still not yet authorized to vote for independence, however, and some of them threatened to leave Congress if the resolution were adopted. Congress, therefore, voted on June 10 to postpone further discussion of Lee's resolution for three weeks. Until then, Congress decided that a committee should prepare a document announcing and explaining independence in case Lee's resolution was approved when it was brought up again in July. Final push Support for a Congressional declaration of independence was consolidated in the final weeks of June 1776. On June 14, the Connecticut Assembly instructed its delegates to propose independence and, the following day, the legislatures of New Hampshire and Delaware authorized their delegates to declare independence. In Pennsylvania, political struggles ended with the dissolution of the colonial assembly, and a new Conference of Committees under Thomas McKean authorized Pennsylvania's delegates to declare independence on June 18. The Provincial Congress of New Jersey had been governing the province since January 1776; they resolved on June 15 that Royal Governor William Franklin was "an enemy to the liberties of this country" and had him arrested. On June 21, they chose new delegates to Congress and empowered them to join in a declaration of independence. Only Maryland and New York had yet to authorize independence toward the end of June. Previously, Maryland's delegates had walked out when the Continental Congress adopted Adams's radical May 15 preamble, and had sent to the Annapolis Convention for instructions. On May 20, the Annapolis Convention rejected Adams's preamble, instructing its delegates to remain against independence. But Samuel Chase went to Maryland and, thanks to local resolutions in favor of independence, was able to get the Annapolis Convention to change its mind on June 28. Only the New York delegates were unable to get revised instructions. When Congress had been considering the resolution of independence on June 8, the New York Provincial Congress told the delegates to wait. But on June 30, the Provincial Congress evacuated New York as British forces approached, and would not convene again until July 10. This meant that New York's delegates would not be authorized to declare independence until after Congress had made its decision. Draft and adoption Political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence even while a document was being written to explain the decision. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five" to draft a declaration, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The committee took no minutes, so there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded; contradictory accounts were written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, too many years to be regarded as entirely reliable—although their accounts are frequently cited. What is certain is that the committee discussed the general outline which the document should follow and decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded them to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with him personally. Adams also convinced Jefferson by giving him some drinks. Jefferson was a little nervous about writing it, so Adams calmed him down with the drinks. Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next 17 days, and he likely wrote the draft quickly. He then consulted the others and made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled." Congress ordered that the draft "lie on the table" and then methodically edited Jefferson's primary document for the next two days, shortening it by a fourth, removing unnecessary wording, and improving sentence structure. They removed Jefferson's assertion that King George III had forced slavery onto the colonies, in order to moderate the document and appease those in South Carolina and Georgia, both states which had significant involvement in the slave trade. Jefferson later wrote in his autobiography that Northern states were also supportive towards the clauses removal, "for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others." Jefferson wrote that Congress had "mangled" his draft version, but the Declaration that was finally produced was "the majestic document that inspired both contemporaries and posterity", in the words of his biographer John Ferling. Congress tabled the draft of the declaration on Monday, July 1 and resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and they resumed debate on Lee's resolution of independence. John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation. John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration. A vote was taken after a long day of speeches, each colony casting a single vote, as always. The delegation for each colony numbered from two to seven members, and each delegation voted among themselves to determine the colony's vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against declaring independence. The New York delegation abstained, lacking permission to vote for independence. Delaware cast no vote because the delegation was split between Thomas McKean, who voted yes, and George Read, who voted no. | political war" was waged to bring this about. Revising instructions In the campaign to revise Congressional instructions, many Americans formally expressed their support for separation from Great Britain in what were effectively state and local declarations of independence. Historian Pauline Maier identifies more than ninety such declarations that were issued throughout the Thirteen Colonies from April to July 1776. These "declarations" took a variety of forms. Some were formal written instructions for Congressional delegations, such as the Halifax Resolves of April 12, with which North Carolina became the first colony to explicitly authorize its delegates to vote for independence. Others were legislative acts that officially ended British rule in individual colonies, such as the Rhode Island legislature renouncing its allegiance to Great Britain on May 4—the first colony to do so. Many "declarations" were resolutions adopted at town or county meetings that offered support for independence. A few came in the form of jury instructions, such as the statement issued on April 23, 1776, by Chief Justice William Henry Drayton of South Carolina: "the law of the land authorizes me to declare ... that George the Third, King of Great Britain ... has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him." Most of these declarations are now obscure, having been overshadowed by the resolution for independence, approved by Congress on July 2, and the declaration of independence, approved and printed on July 4 and signed in August. The modern scholarly consensus is that the best-known and earliest of the local declarations is most likely inauthentic, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, allegedly adopted in May 1775 (a full year before other local declarations). Some colonies held back from endorsing independence. Resistance was centered in the middle colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Advocates of independence saw Pennsylvania as the key; if that colony could be converted to the pro-independence cause, it was believed that the others would follow. On May 1, however, opponents of independence retained control of the Pennsylvania Assembly in a special election that had focused on the question of independence. In response, Congress passed a resolution on May 10 which had been promoted by John Adams and Richard Henry Lee, calling on colonies without a "government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs" to adopt new governments. The resolution passed unanimously, and was even supported by Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, the leader of the anti-independence faction in Congress, who believed that it did not apply to his colony. May 15 preamble As was the custom, Congress appointed a committee to draft a preamble to explain the purpose of the resolution. John Adams wrote the preamble, which stated that because King George had rejected reconciliation and was hiring foreign mercenaries to use against the colonies, "it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed". Adams's preamble was meant to encourage the overthrow of the governments of Pennsylvania and Maryland, which were still under proprietary governance. Congress passed the preamble on May 15 after several days of debate, but four of the middle colonies voted against it, and the Maryland delegation walked out in protest. Adams regarded his May 15 preamble effectively as an American declaration of independence, although a formal declaration would still have to be made. Lee's resolution On the same day that Congress passed Adams's radical preamble, the Virginia Convention set the stage for a formal Congressional declaration of independence. On May 15, the Convention instructed Virginia's congressional delegation "to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain". In accordance with those instructions, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented a three-part resolution to Congress on June 7. The motion was seconded by John Adams, calling on Congress to declare independence, form foreign alliances, and prepare a plan of colonial confederation. The part of the resolution relating to declaring independence read: "Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." Lee's resolution met with resistance in the ensuing debate. Opponents of the resolution conceded that reconciliation was unlikely with Great Britain, while arguing that declaring independence was premature, and that securing foreign aid should take priority. Advocates of the resolution countered that foreign governments would not intervene in an internal British struggle, and so a formal declaration of independence was needed before foreign aid was possible. All Congress needed to do, they insisted, was to "declare a fact which already exists". Delegates from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York were still not yet authorized to vote for independence, however, and some of them threatened to leave Congress if the resolution were adopted. Congress, therefore, voted on June 10 to postpone further discussion of Lee's resolution for three weeks. Until then, Congress decided that a committee should prepare a document announcing and explaining independence in case Lee's resolution was approved when it was brought up again in July. Final push Support for a Congressional declaration of independence was consolidated in the final weeks of June 1776. On June 14, the Connecticut Assembly instructed its delegates to propose independence and, the following day, the legislatures of New Hampshire and Delaware authorized their delegates to declare independence. In Pennsylvania, political struggles ended with the dissolution of the colonial assembly, and a new Conference of Committees under Thomas McKean authorized Pennsylvania's delegates to declare independence on June 18. The Provincial Congress of New Jersey had been governing the province since January 1776; they resolved on June 15 that Royal Governor William Franklin was "an enemy to the liberties of this country" and had him arrested. On June 21, they chose new delegates to Congress and empowered them to join in a declaration of independence. Only Maryland and New York had yet to authorize independence toward the end of June. Previously, Maryland's delegates had walked out when the Continental Congress adopted Adams's radical May 15 preamble, and had sent to the Annapolis Convention for instructions. On May 20, the Annapolis Convention rejected Adams's preamble, instructing its delegates to remain against independence. But Samuel Chase went to Maryland and, thanks to local resolutions in favor of independence, was able to get the Annapolis Convention to change its mind on June 28. Only the New York delegates were unable to get revised instructions. When Congress had been considering the resolution of independence on June 8, the New York Provincial Congress told the delegates to wait. But on June 30, the Provincial Congress evacuated New York as British forces approached, and would not convene again until July 10. This meant that New York's delegates would not be authorized to declare independence until after Congress had made its decision. Draft and adoption Political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence even while a document was being written to explain the decision. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a "Committee of Five" to draft a declaration, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut. The committee took no minutes, so there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded; contradictory accounts were written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, too many years to be regarded as entirely reliable—although their accounts are frequently cited. What is certain is that the committee discussed the general outline which the document should follow and decided that Jefferson would write the first draft. The committee in general, and Jefferson in particular, thought that Adams should write the document, but Adams persuaded them to choose Jefferson and promised to consult with him personally. Adams also convinced Jefferson by giving him some drinks. Jefferson was a little nervous about writing it, so Adams calmed him down with the drinks. Considering Congress's busy schedule, Jefferson probably had limited time for writing over the next 17 days, and he likely wrote the draft quickly. He then consulted the others and made some changes, and then produced another copy incorporating these alterations. The committee presented this copy to the Congress on June 28, 1776. The title of the document was "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled." Congress ordered that the draft "lie on the table" and then methodically edited Jefferson's primary document for the next two days, shortening it by a fourth, removing unnecessary wording, and improving sentence structure. They removed Jefferson's assertion that King George III had forced slavery onto the colonies, in order to moderate the document and appease those in South Carolina and Georgia, both states which had significant involvement in the slave trade. Jefferson later wrote in his autobiography that Northern states were also supportive towards the clauses removal, "for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others." Jefferson wrote that Congress had "mangled" his draft version, but the Declaration that was finally produced was "the majestic document that inspired both contemporaries and posterity", in the words of his biographer John Ferling. Congress tabled the draft of the declaration on Monday, July 1 and resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and they resumed debate on Lee's resolution of independence. John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation. John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration. A vote was taken after a long day of speeches, each colony casting a single vote, as always. The delegation for each colony numbered from two to seven members, and each delegation voted among themselves to determine the colony's vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against declaring independence. The New York delegation abstained, lacking permission to vote for independence. Delaware cast no vote because the delegation was split between Thomas McKean, who voted yes, and George Read, who voted no. The remaining nine delegations voted in favor of independence, which meant that the resolution had been approved by the committee of the whole. The next step was for the resolution to be voted upon by Congress itself. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina was opposed to Lee's resolution but desirous of unanimity, and he moved that the vote be postponed until the following day. On July 2, South Carolina reversed its position and voted for independence. In the Pennsylvania delegation, Dickinson and Robert Morris abstained, allowing the delegation to vote three-to-two in favor of independence. The tie in the Delaware delegation was broken by the timely arrival of Caesar Rodney, who voted for independence. The New York delegation abstained once again since they were still not authorized to vote for independence, although they were allowed to do so a week later by the New York Provincial Congress. The resolution of independence was adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention, and the colonies formally severed political ties with Great Britain. John Adams wrote to his wife on the following day and predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday He thought that the vote for independence would be commemorated; he did not foresee that Americans would instead celebrate Independence Day on the date when the announcement of that act was finalized. I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. Congress next turned its attention to the committee's draft of the declaration. They made a few changes in wording during several days of debate and deleted nearly a fourth of the text. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776, and sent to the printer for publication. There is a distinct change in wording from this original broadside printing of the Declaration and the final official engrossed copy. The word "unanimous" was inserted as a result of a Congressional resolution passed on July 19, 1776: "Resolved, That the Declaration passed on the 4th, be fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile of 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress." Historian George Athan Billias says: "Independence amounted to a new status of interdependence: the United States was now a sovereign nation entitled to the privileges and responsibilities that came with that status. America thus became a member of the international community, which meant becoming a maker of treaties and alliances, a military ally in diplomacy, and a partner in foreign trade on a more equal basis." Annotated text of the engrossed declaration The declaration is not divided into formal sections; but it is often discussed as consisting of five parts: introduction, preamble, indictment of King George III, denunciation of the British people, and conclusion. Influences and legal status Historians have often sought to identify the sources that most influenced the words and political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. By Jefferson's own admission, the Declaration contained no original ideas, but was instead a statement of sentiments widely shared by supporters of the American Revolution. As he explained in 1825: Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. Jefferson's most immediate sources were two documents written in June 1776: his own draft of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia, and George Mason's draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Ideas and phrases from both of these documents appear in the Declaration of Independence. Mason's opening was: Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. Mason was, in turn, directly influenced by the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James II. During the American Revolution, Jefferson and other Americans looked to the English Declaration of Rights as a model of how to end the reign of an unjust king. The Scottish Declaration of Arbroath (1320) and the Dutch Act of Abjuration (1581) have also been offered as models for Jefferson's Declaration, but these models are now accepted by few scholars. Maier found no evidence that the Dutch Act of Abjuration served as a model for the Declaration, and considers the argument "unpersuasive". Armitage discounts the influence of the Scottish and Dutch acts, and writes that neither was called "declarations of independence" until fairly recently. Stephen E. Lucas argued in favor of the influence of the Dutch act. Jefferson wrote that a number of authors exerted a general influence on the words of the Declaration. English political theorist John Locke is usually cited as one of the primary influences, a man whom Jefferson called one of "the three greatest men that have ever lived". In 1922, historian Carl L. Becker wrote, "Most Americans had absorbed Locke's works as a kind of political gospel; and the Declaration, in its form, in its phraseology, follows closely certain sentences in Locke's second treatise on government." The extent of Locke's influence on the American Revolution has been questioned by some subsequent scholars, however. Historian Ray Forrest Harvey argued in 1937 for the dominant influence of Swiss jurist Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, declaring that Jefferson and Locke were at "two opposite poles" in their political philosophy, as evidenced by Jefferson's use in the Declaration of Independence of the phrase "pursuit of happiness" instead of "property". Other scholars emphasized the influence of republicanism rather than Locke's classical liberalism. Historian Garry Wills argued that Jefferson was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, particularly Francis Hutcheson, rather than Locke, an interpretation that has been strongly criticized. Legal historian John Phillip Reid has written that the emphasis on the political philosophy of the Declaration has been misplaced. The Declaration is not a philosophical tract about natural rights, argues Reid, but is instead a legal document—an indictment against King George for violating the constitutional rights of the colonists. As such, it follows the process of the 1550 Magdeburg Confession, which legitimized resistance against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in a multi-step legal formula now known as the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. Historian David Armitage has argued that the Declaration was strongly influenced by de Vattel's The Law of Nations, the dominant international law treatise of the period, and a book that Benjamin Franklin said was "continually in the hands of the members of our Congress". Armitage writes, "Vattel made independence fundamental to his definition of statehood"; therefore, the primary purpose of the Declaration was "to express the international legal sovereignty of the United States". If the United States were to have any hope of being recognized by the European powers, the American revolutionaries first had to make it clear that they were no longer dependent on Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence does not have the force of law domestically, but nevertheless it may help to provide historical and legal clarity about the Constitution and other laws. Signing The Declaration became official when Congress voted for it on July 4; signatures of the delegates were not needed to make it official. The handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence that was signed by Congress is dated July 4, 1776. The signatures of fifty-six delegates are affixed; however, the exact date when each person signed it has long been the subject of debate. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams all wrote that the Declaration had been signed by Congress on July 4. But in 1796, signer Thomas McKean disputed that the Declaration had been signed on July 4, pointing out that some signers were not then present, including several who were not even elected to Congress until after that date. The Declaration was transposed on paper, adopted by the Continental Congress, and signed by John Hancock, President of the Congress, on July 4, 1776, according to the 1911 record of events by the U.S. State Department under Secretary Philander C. Knox. On August 2, 1776, a parchment paper copy of the Declaration was signed by 56 persons. Many |
Meisterschüler under Heinrich Nauen at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In 1927 he befriended Johanna Ey, who as "Mutter Ey" became well known for her stewardship of young and upcoming artists of the day. Leman became a member of her circle, and his works began to appear in her galleries. At the end of the 1920s Leman made his first trip to Majorca and decided to move there. In 1930 the artist made his home in Deià, Majorca. This began an intense | to appear in her galleries. At the end of the 1920s Leman made his first trip to Majorca and decided to move there. In 1930 the artist made his home in Deià, Majorca. This began an intense time, up until his death, of major accomplishments. With his renowned style he incorporated the themes of the Spanish island, its landscapes, people and their |
The Yardbirds The Ultimate (Bryan Adams Album), a compilation album by Bryan Adams Ultimate Prince or just Ultimate, an album by Prince Songs "Ultimate" (Denzel Curry song), a song by Denzel Curry from the double EP 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms "Ultimate", a song by Lindsay Lohan from the Freaky Friday soundtrack Video games Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, often referred to as simply Ultimate. Ultimate General, a series of computer games recreating the American Civil War Ultimate Play the Game or just Ultimate, a video game developer, now known as Rare Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media | an album by The Yardbirds The Ultimate (Bryan Adams Album), a compilation album by Bryan Adams Ultimate Prince or just Ultimate, an album by Prince Songs "Ultimate" (Denzel Curry song), a song by Denzel Curry from the double EP 32 Zel/Planet Shrooms "Ultimate", a song by Lindsay Lohan from the Freaky Friday soundtrack Video games Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, often referred to as simply Ultimate. Ultimate General, a series of computer games recreating the American Civil War Ultimate Play the Game or just Ultimate, a video game developer, now known as Rare Other uses in arts, |
in non-Berne convention states. In 1973 the Soviet Union joined the UCC. The United States only provided copyright protection for a fixed renewable term, and required that, in order for a work to be copyrighted, it must contain a copyright notice and be registered at the Copyright Office. The Berne Convention, on the other hand, provided for copyright protection for a single term based on the life of the author, and did not require registration or the inclusion of a copyright notice for copyright to exist. Thus the United States would have to make several major modifications to its copyright law in order to become a party to the Berne Convention. At the time, the United States was unwilling to do so. The UCC thus permits those states that had a system of protection similar to the United States for fixed terms at the time of signature to retain them. Eventually, the United States became willing to participate in the Berne Convention and change its national copyright law as required. In 1989 it became a party to the Berne Convention as a result of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. Under the Second Protocol of the Universal Copyright Convention (Paris text), protection under U.S. copyright law is expressly required for works published by the United Nations, by UN specialized agencies and by the Organization of American States (OAS). The same requirement applies to other contracting states as well. Berne Convention states were concerned that the existence of the UCC would encourage parties to the Berne Convention to leave that convention and adopt the UCC instead. So the UCC included a clause stating that parties which were also Berne Convention parties need not apply the provisions of the Convention to any former Berne Convention state that renounced the Berne Convention after 1951. Thus, any state that has once adopted the Berne Convention is penalised if it then decides to renounce the Berne Convention and use the UCC protections instead, as its copyrights might no longer exist in Berne Convention states. Since almost all countries are either members or aspiring members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and thus comply with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), the UCC has lost significance. See also International copyright List of parties to the Universal Copyright Convention References External links Geneva text of the UCC from September 6, 1952. Paris text of the UCC from July 14, 1971. States Parties of UCC, with Appendix Declaration relating to Article XVII and Resolution concerning Article XI. Geneva, 6 September 1952.. States Parties of UCC as revised on 24 July 1971, with Appendix Declaration relating to Article XVII and Resolution concerning Article XI. Paris, 24 July 1971.. Copyright treaties Treaties concluded in 1952 Treaties concluded in 1971 Treaties entered into force in 1974 Treaties of Algeria Treaties of Argentina Treaties of Andorra Treaties of Australia Treaties of Austria Treaties of Azerbaijan Treaties of the Bahamas Treaties of Bangladesh Treaties of Barbados Treaties of Belgium Treaties of Belize Treaties of Bolivia Treaties of Bosnia and Herzegovina Treaties of the Second Brazilian Republic Treaties of the People's Republic of Bulgaria Treaties of the Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–1970) Treaties of Cameroon Treaties of Canada Treaties of Chile | states also became party to the UCC, so that their copyrights would exist in non-Berne convention states. In 1973 the Soviet Union joined the UCC. The United States only provided copyright protection for a fixed renewable term, and required that, in order for a work to be copyrighted, it must contain a copyright notice and be registered at the Copyright Office. The Berne Convention, on the other hand, provided for copyright protection for a single term based on the life of the author, and did not require registration or the inclusion of a copyright notice for copyright to exist. Thus the United States would have to make several major modifications to its copyright law in order to become a party to the Berne Convention. At the time, the United States was unwilling to do so. The UCC thus permits those states that had a system of protection similar to the United States for fixed terms at the time of signature to retain them. Eventually, the United States became willing to participate in the Berne Convention and change its national copyright law as required. In 1989 it became a party to the Berne Convention as a result of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. Under the Second Protocol of the Universal Copyright Convention (Paris text), protection under U.S. copyright law is expressly required for works published by the United Nations, by UN specialized agencies and by the Organization of American States (OAS). The same requirement applies to other contracting states as well. Berne Convention states were concerned that the existence of the UCC would encourage parties to the Berne Convention to leave that convention and adopt the UCC instead. So the UCC included a clause stating that parties which were also Berne Convention parties need not apply the provisions of the Convention to any former Berne Convention state that renounced the Berne Convention after 1951. Thus, any state that has once adopted the Berne Convention is penalised if it then decides to renounce the Berne Convention and use the UCC protections instead, as its copyrights might no longer exist in Berne Convention states. Since almost all countries are either members or aspiring members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and thus comply with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), the UCC has lost significance. See also International copyright List of parties to the Universal Copyright Convention References External links Geneva text of the UCC from September 6, 1952. Paris text of the UCC from July 14, 1971. States Parties of UCC, with Appendix Declaration relating to Article XVII and |
singularity. However, if the universe contained too little matter then the self-gravity would be too weak for astronomical structures, like galaxies or planets, to form. Since the Big Bang, the universe has expanded monotonically. Perhaps unsurprisingly, our universe has just the right mass-energy density, equivalent to about 5 protons per cubic metre, which has allowed it to expand for the last 13.8 billion years, giving time to form the universe as observed today. There are dynamical forces acting on the particles in the universe which affect the expansion rate. Before 1998, it was expected that the expansion rate would be decreasing as time went on due to the influence of gravitational interactions in the universe; and thus there is an additional observable quantity in the universe called the deceleration parameter, which most cosmologists expected to be positive and related to the matter density of the universe. In 1998, the deceleration parameter was measured by two different groups to be negative, approximately -0.55, which technically implies that the second derivative of the cosmic scale factor has been positive in the last 5-6 billion years. This acceleration does not, however, imply that the Hubble parameter is currently increasing; see deceleration parameter for details. Spacetime Spacetimes are the arenas in which all physical events take place. The basic elements of spacetimes are events. In any given spacetime, an event is defined as a unique position at a unique time. A spacetime is the union of all events (in the same way that a line is the union of all of its points), formally organized into a manifold. Events, such as matter and energy, bend spacetime. Curved spacetime, on the other hand, forces matter and energy to behave in a certain way. There is no point in considering one without the other. The universe appears to be a smooth spacetime continuum consisting of three spatial dimensions and one temporal (time) dimension (an event in the spacetime of the physical universe can therefore be identified by a set of four coordinates: (x, y, z, t) ). On average, space is observed to be very nearly flat (with a curvature close to zero), meaning that Euclidean geometry is empirically true with high accuracy throughout most of the Universe. Spacetime also appears to have a simply connected topology, in analogy with a sphere, at least on the length-scale of the observable universe. However, present observations cannot exclude the possibilities that the universe has more dimensions (which is postulated by theories such as the string theory) and that its spacetime may have a multiply connected global topology, in analogy with the cylindrical or toroidal topologies of two-dimensional spaces. The spacetime of the universe is usually interpreted from a Euclidean perspective, with space as consisting of three dimensions, and time as consisting of one dimension, the "fourth dimension". By combining space and time into a single manifold called Minkowski space, physicists have simplified a large number of physical theories, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the universe at both the supergalactic and subatomic levels. Spacetime events are not absolutely defined spatially and temporally but rather are known to be relative to the motion of an observer. Minkowski space approximates the universe without gravity; the pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of general relativity describe spacetime with matter and gravity. Shape General relativity describes how spacetime is curved and bent by mass and energy (gravity). The topology or geometry of the universe includes both local geometry in the observable universe and global geometry. Cosmologists often work with a given space-like slice of spacetime called the comoving coordinates. The section of spacetime which can be observed is the backward light cone, which delimits the cosmological horizon. The cosmological horizon (also called the particle horizon or the light horizon) is the maximum distance from which particles can have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. This horizon represents the boundary between the observable and the unobservable regions of the universe. The existence, properties, and significance of a cosmological horizon depend on the particular cosmological model. An important parameter determining the future evolution of the universe theory is the density parameter, Omega (Ω), defined as the average matter density of the universe divided by a critical value of that density. This selects one of three possible geometries depending on whether Ω is equal to, less than, or greater than 1. These are called, respectively, the flat, open and closed universes. Observations, including the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and Planck maps of the CMB, suggest that the universe is infinite in extent with a finite age, as described by the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) models. These FLRW models thus support inflationary models and the standard model of cosmology, describing a flat, homogeneous universe presently dominated by dark matter and dark energy. Support of life The universe may be fine-tuned; the Fine-tuned universe hypothesis is the proposition that the conditions that allow the existence of observable life in the universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range of values, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the universe would have been unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood. The proposition is discussed among philosophers, scientists, theologians, and proponents of creationism. Composition The universe is composed almost completely of dark energy, dark matter, and ordinary matter. Other contents are electromagnetic radiation (estimated to constitute from 0.005% to close to 0.01% of the total mass-energy of the universe) and antimatter. The proportions of all types of matter and energy have changed over the history of the universe. The total amount of electromagnetic radiation generated within the universe has decreased by 1/2 in the past 2 billion years. Today, ordinary matter, which includes atoms, stars, galaxies, and life, accounts for only 4.9% of the contents of the Universe. The present overall density of this type of matter is very low, roughly 4.5 × 10−31 grams per cubic centimetre, corresponding to a density of the order of only one proton for every four cubic metres of volume. The nature of both dark energy and dark matter is unknown. Dark matter, a mysterious form of matter that has not yet been identified, accounts for 26.8% of the cosmic contents. Dark energy, which is the energy of empty space and is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, accounts for the remaining 68.3% of the contents. Matter, dark matter, and dark energy are distributed homogeneously throughout the universe over length scales longer than 300 million light-years or so. However, over shorter length-scales, matter tends to clump hierarchically; many atoms are condensed into stars, most stars into galaxies, most galaxies into clusters, superclusters and, finally, large-scale galactic filaments. The observable universe contains as many as 200 billion galaxies and, overall, as many as an estimated stars (more stars than all the grains of sand on planet Earth). Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars up to giants with one trillion (1012) stars. Between the larger structures are voids, which are typically 10–150 Mpc (33 million–490 million ly) in diameter. The Milky Way is in the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is in the Laniakea Supercluster. This supercluster spans over 500 million light-years, while the Local Group spans over 10 million light-years. The Universe also has vast regions of relative emptiness; the largest known void measures 1.8 billion ly (550 Mpc) across. The observable universe is isotropic on scales significantly larger than superclusters, meaning that the statistical properties of the universe are the same in all directions as observed from Earth. The universe is bathed in highly isotropic microwave radiation that corresponds to a thermal equilibrium blackbody spectrum of roughly 2.72548 kelvins. The hypothesis that the large-scale universe is homogeneous and isotropic is known as the cosmological principle. A universe that is both homogeneous and isotropic looks the same from all vantage points and has no center. Dark energy An explanation for why the expansion of the universe is accelerating remains elusive. It is often attributed to "dark energy", an unknown form of energy that is hypothesized to permeate space. On a mass–energy equivalence basis, the density of dark energy (~ 7 × 10−30 g/cm3) is much less than the density of ordinary matter or dark matter within galaxies. However, in the present dark-energy era, it dominates the mass–energy of the universe because it is uniform across space. Two proposed forms for dark energy are the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, and scalar fields such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space. Contributions from scalar fields that are constant in space are usually also included in the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant can be formulated to be equivalent to vacuum energy. Scalar fields having only a slight amount of spatial inhomogeneity would be difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant. Dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that is invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but which accounts for most of the matter in the universe. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the universe. Other than neutrinos, a form of hot dark matter, dark matter has not been detected directly, making it one of the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics. Dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light or any other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level. Dark matter is estimated to constitute 26.8% of the total mass–energy and 84.5% of the total matter in the universe. Ordinary matter The remaining 4.9% of the mass–energy of the universe is ordinary matter, that is, atoms, ions, electrons and the objects they form. This matter includes stars, which produce nearly all of the light we see from galaxies, as well as interstellar gas in the interstellar and intergalactic media, planets, and all the objects from everyday life that we can bump into, touch or squeeze. As a matter of fact, the great majority of ordinary matter in the universe is unseen, since visible stars and gas inside galaxies and clusters account for less than 10 per cent of the ordinary matter contribution to the mass-energy density of the universe. Ordinary matter commonly exists in four states (or phases): solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. However, advances in experimental techniques have revealed other previously theoretical phases, such as Bose–Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates. Ordinary matter is composed of two types of elementary particles: quarks and leptons. For example, the proton is formed of two up quarks and one down quark; the neutron is formed of two down quarks and one up quark; and the electron is a kind of lepton. An atom consists of an atomic nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons, and electrons that orbit the nucleus. Because most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in its nucleus, which is made up of baryons, astronomers often use the term baryonic matter to describe ordinary matter, although a small fraction of this "baryonic matter" is electrons. Soon after the Big Bang, primordial protons and neutrons formed from the quark–gluon plasma of the early universe as it cooled below two trillion degrees. A few minutes later, in a process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis, nuclei formed from the primordial protons and neutrons. This nucleosynthesis formed lighter elements, those with small atomic numbers up to lithium and beryllium, but the abundance of heavier elements dropped off sharply with increasing atomic number. Some boron may have been formed at this time, but the next heavier element, carbon, was not formed in significant amounts. Big Bang nucleosynthesis shut down after about 20 minutes due to the rapid drop in temperature and density of the expanding universe. Subsequent formation of heavier elements resulted from stellar nucleosynthesis and supernova nucleosynthesis. Particles Ordinary matter and the forces that act on matter can be described in terms of elementary particles. These particles are sometimes described as being fundamental, since they have an unknown substructure, and it is unknown whether or not they are composed of smaller and even more fundamental particles. Of central importance is the Standard Model, a theory that is concerned with electromagnetic interactions and the weak and strong nuclear interactions. The Standard Model is supported by the experimental confirmation of the existence of particles that compose matter: quarks and leptons, and their corresponding "antimatter" duals, as well as the force particles that mediate interactions: the photon, the W and Z bosons, and the gluon. The Standard Model predicted the existence of the recently discovered Higgs boson, a particle that is a manifestation of a field within the universe that can endow particles with mass. Because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results, the Standard Model is sometimes regarded as a "theory of almost everything". The Standard Model does not, however, accommodate gravity. A true force-particle "theory of everything" has not been attained. Hadrons A hadron is a composite particle made of quarks held together by the strong force. Hadrons are categorized into two families: baryons (such as protons and neutrons) made of three quarks, and mesons (such as pions) made of one quark and one antiquark. Of the hadrons, protons are stable, and neutrons bound within atomic nuclei are stable. Other hadrons are unstable under ordinary conditions and are thus insignificant constituents of the modern universe. From | universe called the deceleration parameter, which most cosmologists expected to be positive and related to the matter density of the universe. In 1998, the deceleration parameter was measured by two different groups to be negative, approximately -0.55, which technically implies that the second derivative of the cosmic scale factor has been positive in the last 5-6 billion years. This acceleration does not, however, imply that the Hubble parameter is currently increasing; see deceleration parameter for details. Spacetime Spacetimes are the arenas in which all physical events take place. The basic elements of spacetimes are events. In any given spacetime, an event is defined as a unique position at a unique time. A spacetime is the union of all events (in the same way that a line is the union of all of its points), formally organized into a manifold. Events, such as matter and energy, bend spacetime. Curved spacetime, on the other hand, forces matter and energy to behave in a certain way. There is no point in considering one without the other. The universe appears to be a smooth spacetime continuum consisting of three spatial dimensions and one temporal (time) dimension (an event in the spacetime of the physical universe can therefore be identified by a set of four coordinates: (x, y, z, t) ). On average, space is observed to be very nearly flat (with a curvature close to zero), meaning that Euclidean geometry is empirically true with high accuracy throughout most of the Universe. Spacetime also appears to have a simply connected topology, in analogy with a sphere, at least on the length-scale of the observable universe. However, present observations cannot exclude the possibilities that the universe has more dimensions (which is postulated by theories such as the string theory) and that its spacetime may have a multiply connected global topology, in analogy with the cylindrical or toroidal topologies of two-dimensional spaces. The spacetime of the universe is usually interpreted from a Euclidean perspective, with space as consisting of three dimensions, and time as consisting of one dimension, the "fourth dimension". By combining space and time into a single manifold called Minkowski space, physicists have simplified a large number of physical theories, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the universe at both the supergalactic and subatomic levels. Spacetime events are not absolutely defined spatially and temporally but rather are known to be relative to the motion of an observer. Minkowski space approximates the universe without gravity; the pseudo-Riemannian manifolds of general relativity describe spacetime with matter and gravity. Shape General relativity describes how spacetime is curved and bent by mass and energy (gravity). The topology or geometry of the universe includes both local geometry in the observable universe and global geometry. Cosmologists often work with a given space-like slice of spacetime called the comoving coordinates. The section of spacetime which can be observed is the backward light cone, which delimits the cosmological horizon. The cosmological horizon (also called the particle horizon or the light horizon) is the maximum distance from which particles can have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. This horizon represents the boundary between the observable and the unobservable regions of the universe. The existence, properties, and significance of a cosmological horizon depend on the particular cosmological model. An important parameter determining the future evolution of the universe theory is the density parameter, Omega (Ω), defined as the average matter density of the universe divided by a critical value of that density. This selects one of three possible geometries depending on whether Ω is equal to, less than, or greater than 1. These are called, respectively, the flat, open and closed universes. Observations, including the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and Planck maps of the CMB, suggest that the universe is infinite in extent with a finite age, as described by the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) models. These FLRW models thus support inflationary models and the standard model of cosmology, describing a flat, homogeneous universe presently dominated by dark matter and dark energy. Support of life The universe may be fine-tuned; the Fine-tuned universe hypothesis is the proposition that the conditions that allow the existence of observable life in the universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range of values, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different, the universe would have been unlikely to be conducive to the establishment and development of matter, astronomical structures, elemental diversity, or life as it is understood. The proposition is discussed among philosophers, scientists, theologians, and proponents of creationism. Composition The universe is composed almost completely of dark energy, dark matter, and ordinary matter. Other contents are electromagnetic radiation (estimated to constitute from 0.005% to close to 0.01% of the total mass-energy of the universe) and antimatter. The proportions of all types of matter and energy have changed over the history of the universe. The total amount of electromagnetic radiation generated within the universe has decreased by 1/2 in the past 2 billion years. Today, ordinary matter, which includes atoms, stars, galaxies, and life, accounts for only 4.9% of the contents of the Universe. The present overall density of this type of matter is very low, roughly 4.5 × 10−31 grams per cubic centimetre, corresponding to a density of the order of only one proton for every four cubic metres of volume. The nature of both dark energy and dark matter is unknown. Dark matter, a mysterious form of matter that has not yet been identified, accounts for 26.8% of the cosmic contents. Dark energy, which is the energy of empty space and is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate, accounts for the remaining 68.3% of the contents. Matter, dark matter, and dark energy are distributed homogeneously throughout the universe over length scales longer than 300 million light-years or so. However, over shorter length-scales, matter tends to clump hierarchically; many atoms are condensed into stars, most stars into galaxies, most galaxies into clusters, superclusters and, finally, large-scale galactic filaments. The observable universe contains as many as 200 billion galaxies and, overall, as many as an estimated stars (more stars than all the grains of sand on planet Earth). Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million (107) stars up to giants with one trillion (1012) stars. Between the larger structures are voids, which are typically 10–150 Mpc (33 million–490 million ly) in diameter. The Milky Way is in the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is in the Laniakea Supercluster. This supercluster spans over 500 million light-years, while the Local Group spans over 10 million light-years. The Universe also has vast regions of relative emptiness; the largest known void measures 1.8 billion ly (550 Mpc) across. The observable universe is isotropic on scales significantly larger than superclusters, meaning that the statistical properties of the universe are the same in all directions as observed from Earth. The universe is bathed in highly isotropic microwave radiation that corresponds to a thermal equilibrium blackbody spectrum of roughly 2.72548 kelvins. The hypothesis that the large-scale universe is homogeneous and isotropic is known as the cosmological principle. A universe that is both homogeneous and isotropic looks the same from all vantage points and has no center. Dark energy An explanation for why the expansion of the universe is accelerating remains elusive. It is often attributed to "dark energy", an unknown form of energy that is hypothesized to permeate space. On a mass–energy equivalence basis, the density of dark energy (~ 7 × 10−30 g/cm3) is much less than the density of ordinary matter or dark matter within galaxies. However, in the present dark-energy era, it dominates the mass–energy of the universe because it is uniform across space. Two proposed forms for dark energy are the cosmological constant, a constant energy density filling space homogeneously, and scalar fields such as quintessence or moduli, dynamic quantities whose energy density can vary in time and space. Contributions from scalar fields that are constant in space are usually also included in the cosmological constant. The cosmological constant can be formulated to be equivalent to vacuum energy. Scalar fields having only a slight amount of spatial inhomogeneity would be difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant. Dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical kind of matter that is invisible to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but which accounts for most of the matter in the universe. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation, and the large-scale structure of the universe. Other than neutrinos, a form of hot dark matter, dark matter has not been detected directly, making it one of the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics. Dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light or any other electromagnetic radiation at any significant level. Dark matter is estimated to constitute 26.8% of the total mass–energy and 84.5% of the total matter in the universe. Ordinary matter The remaining 4.9% of the mass–energy of the universe is ordinary matter, that is, atoms, ions, electrons and the objects they form. This matter includes stars, which produce nearly all of the light we see from galaxies, as well as interstellar gas in the interstellar and intergalactic media, planets, and all the objects from everyday life that we can bump into, touch or squeeze. As a matter of fact, the great majority of ordinary matter in the universe is unseen, since visible stars and gas inside galaxies and clusters account for less than 10 per cent of the ordinary matter contribution to the mass-energy density of the universe. Ordinary matter commonly exists in four states (or phases): solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. However, advances in experimental techniques have revealed other previously theoretical phases, such as Bose–Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates. Ordinary matter is composed of two types of elementary particles: quarks and leptons. For example, the proton is formed of two up quarks and one down quark; the neutron is formed of two down quarks and one up quark; and the electron is a kind of lepton. An atom consists of an atomic nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons, and electrons that orbit the nucleus. Because most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in its nucleus, which is made up of baryons, astronomers often use the term baryonic matter to describe ordinary matter, although a small fraction of this "baryonic matter" is electrons. Soon after the Big Bang, primordial protons and neutrons formed from the quark–gluon plasma of the early universe as it cooled below two trillion degrees. A few minutes later, in a process known as Big Bang nucleosynthesis, nuclei formed from the primordial protons and neutrons. This nucleosynthesis formed lighter elements, those with small atomic numbers up to lithium and beryllium, but the abundance of heavier elements dropped off sharply with increasing atomic number. Some boron may have been formed at this time, but the next heavier element, carbon, was not formed in significant amounts. Big Bang nucleosynthesis shut down after about 20 minutes due to the rapid drop in temperature and density of the expanding universe. Subsequent formation of heavier elements resulted from stellar nucleosynthesis and supernova nucleosynthesis. Particles Ordinary matter and the forces that act on matter can be described in terms of elementary particles. These particles are sometimes described as being fundamental, since they have an unknown substructure, and it is unknown whether or not they are composed of smaller and even more fundamental particles. Of central importance is the Standard Model, a theory that is concerned with electromagnetic interactions and the weak and strong nuclear interactions. The Standard Model is supported by the experimental confirmation of the existence of particles that compose matter: quarks and leptons, and their corresponding "antimatter" duals, as well as the force particles that mediate interactions: the photon, the W and Z bosons, and the gluon. The Standard Model predicted the existence of the recently discovered Higgs boson, a particle that is a manifestation of a field within the universe that can endow particles with mass. Because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results, the Standard Model is sometimes regarded as a "theory of almost everything". The Standard Model does not, however, accommodate gravity. A true force-particle "theory of everything" has not been attained. Hadrons A hadron is a composite particle made of quarks held together by the strong force. Hadrons are categorized into two families: baryons (such as protons and neutrons) made of three quarks, and mesons (such as pions) made of one quark and one antiquark. Of the hadrons, protons are stable, and neutrons bound within atomic nuclei are stable. Other hadrons are unstable under ordinary conditions and are thus insignificant constituents of the modern universe. From approximately 10−6 seconds after the Big Bang, during a period is known as the hadron epoch, the temperature of the universe had fallen sufficiently to allow quarks to bind together into hadrons, and the mass of the universe was dominated by hadrons. Initially, the temperature was high enough to allow the formation of hadron/anti-hadron pairs, which kept matter and antimatter in thermal equilibrium. However, as the temperature of the universe continued to fall, hadron/anti-hadron pairs were no longer produced. Most of the hadrons and anti-hadrons were then eliminated in particle-antiparticle annihilation reactions, leaving a small residual of hadrons by the time the universe was about one second old. Leptons A lepton is an elementary, half-integer spin particle that does not undergo strong interactions but is subject to the Pauli exclusion principle; no two leptons of the same species can be in exactly the same state at the same time. Two main classes of leptons exist: charged leptons (also known as the electron-like leptons), and neutral leptons (better known as neutrinos). Electrons are stable and the most common charged lepton in the universe, whereas muons and taus are unstable particle that quickly decay after being produced in high energy collisions, such as those involving cosmic rays or carried out in particle accelerators. Charged leptons can combine with other particles to form various composite particles such as atoms and positronium. The electron governs nearly all of chemistry, as it is found in atoms and is directly tied to all chemical properties. Neutrinos rarely interact with anything, and are consequently rarely observed. Neutrinos stream throughout the universe but rarely interact with normal matter. The lepton epoch was the period in the evolution of the early universe in which the leptons dominated the mass of the universe. It started roughly 1 second after the Big Bang, after the majority of hadrons and anti-hadrons annihilated each other at the end of the hadron epoch. During the lepton epoch the temperature of the universe was still high enough to create lepton/anti-lepton pairs, so leptons and anti-leptons were in thermal equilibrium. Approximately 10 seconds after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe had fallen to the point where lepton/anti-lepton pairs were no longer created. Most leptons and anti-leptons were then eliminated in annihilation reactions, leaving a small residue of leptons. The mass of the universe was then dominated by photons as it entered the following photon epoch. Photons A photon is the quantum of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. It is the force carrier for the electromagnetic force, even when static via virtual photons. The effects of this force are easily observable at the microscopic and at the macroscopic level because the photon has zero rest mass; this allows long distance interactions. Like all elementary particles, photons are currently best explained by quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality, exhibiting properties of waves and of particles. The photon epoch started after |
exact limit of which is the Kennard bound. Click the show button below to see a semi-formal derivation of the Kennard inequality using wave mechanics. Matrix mechanics interpretation (Ref ) In matrix mechanics, observables such as position and momentum are represented by self-adjoint operators. When considering pairs of observables, an important quantity is the commutator. For a pair of operators and , one defines their commutator as In the case of position and momentum, the commutator is the canonical commutation relation The physical meaning of the non-commutativity can be understood by considering the effect of the commutator on position and momentum eigenstates. Let be a right eigenstate of position with a constant eigenvalue . By definition, this means that Applying the commutator to yields where is the identity operator. Suppose, for the sake of proof by contradiction, that is also a right eigenstate of momentum, with constant eigenvalue . If this were true, then one could write On the other hand, the above canonical commutation relation requires that This implies that no quantum state can simultaneously be both a position and a momentum eigenstate. When a state is measured, it is projected onto an eigenstate in the basis of the relevant observable. For example, if a particle's position is measured, then the state amounts to a position eigenstate. This means that the state is not a momentum eigenstate, however, but rather it can be represented as a sum of multiple momentum basis eigenstates. In other words, the momentum must be less precise. This precision may be quantified by the standard deviations, As in the wave mechanics interpretation above, one sees a tradeoff between the respective precisions of the two, quantified by the uncertainty principle. Heisenberg limit In quantum metrology, and especially interferometry, the Heisenberg limit is the optimal rate at which the accuracy of a measurement can scale with the energy used in the measurement. Typically, this is the measurement of a phase (applied to one arm of a beam-splitter) and the energy is given by the number of photons used in an interferometer. Although some claim to have broken the Heisenberg limit, this reflects disagreement on the definition of the scaling resource. Suitably defined, the Heisenberg limit is a consequence of the basic principles of quantum mechanics and cannot be beaten, although the weak Heisenberg limit can be beaten. Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relations The most common general form of the uncertainty principle is the Robertson uncertainty relation. For an arbitrary Hermitian operator we can associate a standard deviation where the brackets indicate an expectation value. For a pair of operators and , we may define their commutator as In this notation, the Robertson uncertainty relation is given by The Robertson uncertainty relation immediately follows from a slightly stronger inequality, the Schrödinger uncertainty relation, where we have introduced the anticommutator, Mixed states The Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation may be generalized in a straightforward way to describe mixed states. The Maccone–Pati uncertainty relations The Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation can be trivial if the state of the system is chosen to be eigenstate of one of the observable. The stronger uncertainty relations proved by Maccone and Pati give non-trivial bounds on the sum of the variances for two incompatible observables. (Earlier works on uncertainty relations formulated as the sum of variances include, e.g., Ref. due to Huang.) For two non-commuting observables and the first stronger uncertainty relation is given by where , , is a normalized vector that is orthogonal to the state of the system and one should choose the sign of to make this real quantity a positive number. The second stronger uncertainty relation is given by where is a state orthogonal to . The form of implies that the right-hand side of the new uncertainty relation is nonzero unless is an eigenstate of . One may note that can be an eigenstate of without being an eigenstate of either or . However, when is an eigenstate of one of the two observables the Heisenberg–Schrödinger uncertainty relation becomes trivial. But the lower bound in the new relation is nonzero unless is an eigenstate of both. Improving the Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation based on decompositions of the density matrix The Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty can be improved noting that it must hold for all components in any decomposition of the density matrix given as Here, for the probailities and hold. Then, using the relation for , it follows that where the function in the bound is defined The above relation very often has a bound larger than that of the original Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation. Thus, we need to calculate the bound of the Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty for the mixed components of the quantum state rather than for the quantum state, and compute an average of their square roots. The following expression is stronger than the Robertson–Schrödinger uncertainty relation where on the right-hand side there is a concave roof over the decompositions of the density matrix. The improved relation above is saturated by all single-qubit quantum states. With similar arguments, one can derive a relation with a convex roof on the right-hand side where denotes the quantum Fisher information and the density matrix is decomposed to pure states as The derivation takes advantage of the fact that the quantum Fisher information is the convex roof of the variance times four. A simpler inequality follows without a convex roof which is stronger than the Heisenberg uncertainty relation, since for the quantum Fisher information we have while for pure states the equality holds. Phase space In the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics, the Robertson–Schrödinger relation follows from a positivity condition on a real star-square function. Given a Wigner function with star product ★ and a function f, the following is generally true: Choosing , we arrive at Since this positivity condition is true for all a, b, and c, it follows that all the eigenvalues of the matrix are non-negative. The non-negative eigenvalues then imply a corresponding non-negativity condition on the determinant, or, explicitly, after algebraic manipulation, Examples Since the Robertson and Schrödinger relations are for general operators, the relations can be applied to any two observables to obtain specific uncertainty relations. A few of the most common relations found in the literature are given below. For position and linear momentum, the canonical commutation relation implies the Kennard inequality from above: For two orthogonal components of the total angular momentum operator of an object: where i, j, k are distinct, and Ji denotes angular momentum along the xi axis. This relation implies that unless all three components vanish together, only a single component of a system's angular momentum can be defined with arbitrary precision, normally the component parallel to an external (magnetic or electric) field. Moreover, for , a choice , , in angular momentum multiplets, ψ = |j, m⟩, bounds the Casimir invariant (angular momentum squared, ) from below and thus yields useful constraints such as , and hence j ≥ m, among others. In non-relativistic mechanics, time is privileged as an independent variable. Nevertheless, in 1945, L. I. Mandelshtam and I. E. Tamm derived a non-relativistic time–energy uncertainty relation, as follows. For a quantum system in a non-stationary state and an observable B represented by a self-adjoint operator , the following formula holds: where σE is the standard deviation of the energy operator (Hamiltonian) in the state , σB stands for the standard deviation of B. Although the second factor in the left-hand side has dimension of time, it is different from the time parameter that enters the Schrödinger equation. It is a lifetime of the state with respect to the observable B: In other words, this is the time interval (Δt) after which the expectation value changes appreciably. An informal, heuristic meaning of the principle is the following: A state that only exists for a short time cannot have a definite energy. To have a definite energy, the frequency of the state must be defined accurately, and this requires the state to hang around for many cycles, the reciprocal of the required accuracy. For example, in spectroscopy, excited states have a finite lifetime. By the time–energy uncertainty principle, they do not have a definite energy, and, each time they decay, the energy they release is slightly different. The average energy of the outgoing photon has a peak at the theoretical energy of the state, but the distribution has a finite width called the natural linewidth. Fast-decaying states have a broad linewidth, while slow-decaying states have a narrow linewidth. The same linewidth effect also makes it difficult to specify the rest mass of unstable, fast-decaying particles in particle physics. The faster the particle decays (the shorter its lifetime), the less certain is its mass (the larger the particle's width). For the number of electrons in a superconductor and the phase of its Ginzburg–Landau order parameter A counterexample Suppose we consider a quantum particle on a ring, where the wave function depends on an angular variable , which we may take to lie in the interval . Define "position" and "momentum" operators and by and where we impose periodic boundary conditions on . The definition of depends on our choice to have range from 0 to . These operators satisfy the usual commutation relations for position and momentum operators, . Now let be any of the eigenstates of , which are given by . These states are normalizable, unlike the eigenstates of the momentum operator on the line. Also the operator is bounded, since ranges over a bounded interval. Thus, in the state , the uncertainty of is zero and the uncertainty of is finite, so that Although this result appears to violate the Robertson uncertainty principle, the paradox is resolved when we note that is not in the domain of the operator , since multiplication by disrupts the periodic boundary conditions imposed on . Thus, the derivation of the Robertson relation, which requires and to be defined, does not apply. (These also furnish an example of operators satisfying the canonical commutation relations but not the Weyl relations.) For the usual position and momentum operators and on the real line, no such counterexamples can occur. As long as and are defined in the state , the Heisenberg uncertainty principle holds, even if fails to be in the domain of or of . Examples (Refs ) Quantum harmonic oscillator stationary states Consider a one-dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator. It is possible to express the position and momentum operators in terms of the creation and annihilation operators: Using the standard rules for creation and annihilation operators on the energy eigenstates, the variances may be computed directly, The product of these standard deviations is then In particular, the above Kennard bound is saturated for the ground state , for which the probability density is just the normal distribution. Quantum harmonic oscillators with Gaussian initial condition In a quantum harmonic oscillator of characteristic angular frequency ω, place a state that is offset from the bottom of the potential by some displacement x0 as where Ω describes the width of the initial state but need not be the same as ω. Through integration over the propagator, we can solve for the -dependent solution. After many cancelations, the probability densities reduce to where we have used the notation to denote a normal distribution of mean μ and variance σ2. Copying the variances above and applying trigonometric identities, we can write the product of the standard deviations as From the relations we can conclude the following: (the right most equality holds only when Ω = ω) . Coherent states A coherent state is a right eigenstate of the annihilation operator, which may be represented in terms of Fock states as In the picture where the coherent state is a massive particle in a quantum harmonic oscillator, the position and momentum operators may be expressed in terms of the annihilation operators in the same formulas above and used to calculate the variances, Therefore, every coherent state saturates the Kennard bound with position and momentum each contributing an amount in a "balanced" way. Moreover, every squeezed coherent state also saturates the Kennard bound although the individual contributions of position and momentum need not be balanced in general. Particle in a box Consider a particle in a one-dimensional box of length . The eigenfunctions in position and momentum space are and where and we have used the de Broglie relation . The variances of and can be calculated explicitly: The product of the standard deviations is therefore For all , the quantity is greater than 1, so the uncertainty principle is never violated. For numerical concreteness, the smallest value occurs when , in which case Constant momentum Assume a particle initially has a momentum space wave function described by a normal distribution around some constant momentum p0 according to where we have introduced a reference scale , with describing the width of the distribution—cf. nondimensionalization. If the state is allowed to evolve in free space, then the time-dependent momentum and position space wave functions are Since and , this can be interpreted as a particle moving along with constant momentum at arbitrarily high precision. On the other hand, the standard deviation of the position is such that the uncertainty product can only increase with time as Additional uncertainty relations Systematic and statistical errors The inequalities above focus on the statistical imprecision of observables as quantified by the standard deviation . Heisenberg's original version, however, was dealing with the systematic error, a disturbance of the quantum system produced by the measuring apparatus, i.e., an observer effect. If we let represent the error (i.e., inaccuracy) of a measurement of an observable A and the disturbance produced on a subsequent measurement of the conjugate variable B by the former measurement of A, then the inequality proposed by Ozawa — encompassing both systematic and statistical errors — holds: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, as originally described in the 1927 formulation, mentions only the first term of Ozawa inequality, regarding the systematic error. Using the notation above to describe the error/disturbance effect of sequential measurements (first A, then B), it could be written as The formal derivation of the Heisenberg relation is possible but far from intuitive. It was not proposed by Heisenberg, but formulated in a mathematically consistent way only in recent years. Also, it must be stressed that the Heisenberg formulation is not taking into account the intrinsic statistical errors and . There is increasing experimental evidence that the total quantum uncertainty cannot be described by the Heisenberg term alone, but requires the presence of all the three terms of the Ozawa inequality. Using the same formalism, it is also possible to introduce the other kind of physical situation, often confused with the previous one, namely the case of simultaneous measurements (A and B at the same time): The two simultaneous measurements on A and B are necessarily unsharp or weak. It is also possible to derive an uncertainty relation that, as the Ozawa's one, combines both the statistical and systematic error components, but keeps a form very close to the Heisenberg original inequality. By adding Robertson and Ozawa relations we obtain The four terms can be written as: Defining: as the inaccuracy in the measured values of the variable A and as the resulting fluctuation in the conjugate variable B, Fujikawa established an uncertainty relation similar to the Heisenberg original one, but valid both for systematic and statistical errors: Quantum entropic uncertainty principle For many distributions, the standard deviation is not a particularly natural way of quantifying the structure. For example, uncertainty relations in which one of the observables is an angle has little physical meaning for fluctuations larger than one period. Other examples include highly bimodal distributions, or unimodal distributions with divergent variance. A solution that overcomes these issues is an uncertainty based on entropic uncertainty instead of the product of variances. While formulating the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957, Hugh Everett III conjectured a stronger extension of the uncertainty principle based on entropic certainty. This conjecture, also studied by Hirschman and proven in 1975 by Beckner and by Iwo Bialynicki-Birula and Jerzy Mycielski is that, for two normalized, dimensionless Fourier transform pairs and where and the Shannon information entropies and are subject to the following constraint, where the logarithms may be in any base. The probability distribution functions associated with the position wave function and the momentum wave function have dimensions of inverse length and momentum respectively, but the entropies may be rendered dimensionless by where and are some arbitrarily chosen length and momentum respectively, which render the arguments of the logarithms dimensionless. Note that the entropies will be functions of these chosen parameters. Due to the Fourier transform relation between the position wave function and the momentum wavefunction , the above constraint can be written for the corresponding entropies as where is Planck's constant. Depending on one's choice of the product, the expression may be written in many ways. If is chosen to be , then If, instead, is chosen to be , then If and are chosen to be unity in whatever system of units are being used, then where is interpreted as a dimensionless number equal to the value of Planck's constant in the chosen system of units. Note | In the phase space formulation of quantum mechanics, the Robertson–Schrödinger relation follows from a positivity condition on a real star-square function. Given a Wigner function with star product ★ and a function f, the following is generally true: Choosing , we arrive at Since this positivity condition is true for all a, b, and c, it follows that all the eigenvalues of the matrix are non-negative. The non-negative eigenvalues then imply a corresponding non-negativity condition on the determinant, or, explicitly, after algebraic manipulation, Examples Since the Robertson and Schrödinger relations are for general operators, the relations can be applied to any two observables to obtain specific uncertainty relations. A few of the most common relations found in the literature are given below. For position and linear momentum, the canonical commutation relation implies the Kennard inequality from above: For two orthogonal components of the total angular momentum operator of an object: where i, j, k are distinct, and Ji denotes angular momentum along the xi axis. This relation implies that unless all three components vanish together, only a single component of a system's angular momentum can be defined with arbitrary precision, normally the component parallel to an external (magnetic or electric) field. Moreover, for , a choice , , in angular momentum multiplets, ψ = |j, m⟩, bounds the Casimir invariant (angular momentum squared, ) from below and thus yields useful constraints such as , and hence j ≥ m, among others. In non-relativistic mechanics, time is privileged as an independent variable. Nevertheless, in 1945, L. I. Mandelshtam and I. E. Tamm derived a non-relativistic time–energy uncertainty relation, as follows. For a quantum system in a non-stationary state and an observable B represented by a self-adjoint operator , the following formula holds: where σE is the standard deviation of the energy operator (Hamiltonian) in the state , σB stands for the standard deviation of B. Although the second factor in the left-hand side has dimension of time, it is different from the time parameter that enters the Schrödinger equation. It is a lifetime of the state with respect to the observable B: In other words, this is the time interval (Δt) after which the expectation value changes appreciably. An informal, heuristic meaning of the principle is the following: A state that only exists for a short time cannot have a definite energy. To have a definite energy, the frequency of the state must be defined accurately, and this requires the state to hang around for many cycles, the reciprocal of the required accuracy. For example, in spectroscopy, excited states have a finite lifetime. By the time–energy uncertainty principle, they do not have a definite energy, and, each time they decay, the energy they release is slightly different. The average energy of the outgoing photon has a peak at the theoretical energy of the state, but the distribution has a finite width called the natural linewidth. Fast-decaying states have a broad linewidth, while slow-decaying states have a narrow linewidth. The same linewidth effect also makes it difficult to specify the rest mass of unstable, fast-decaying particles in particle physics. The faster the particle decays (the shorter its lifetime), the less certain is its mass (the larger the particle's width). For the number of electrons in a superconductor and the phase of its Ginzburg–Landau order parameter A counterexample Suppose we consider a quantum particle on a ring, where the wave function depends on an angular variable , which we may take to lie in the interval . Define "position" and "momentum" operators and by and where we impose periodic boundary conditions on . The definition of depends on our choice to have range from 0 to . These operators satisfy the usual commutation relations for position and momentum operators, . Now let be any of the eigenstates of , which are given by . These states are normalizable, unlike the eigenstates of the momentum operator on the line. Also the operator is bounded, since ranges over a bounded interval. Thus, in the state , the uncertainty of is zero and the uncertainty of is finite, so that Although this result appears to violate the Robertson uncertainty principle, the paradox is resolved when we note that is not in the domain of the operator , since multiplication by disrupts the periodic boundary conditions imposed on . Thus, the derivation of the Robertson relation, which requires and to be defined, does not apply. (These also furnish an example of operators satisfying the canonical commutation relations but not the Weyl relations.) For the usual position and momentum operators and on the real line, no such counterexamples can occur. As long as and are defined in the state , the Heisenberg uncertainty principle holds, even if fails to be in the domain of or of . Examples (Refs ) Quantum harmonic oscillator stationary states Consider a one-dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator. It is possible to express the position and momentum operators in terms of the creation and annihilation operators: Using the standard rules for creation and annihilation operators on the energy eigenstates, the variances may be computed directly, The product of these standard deviations is then In particular, the above Kennard bound is saturated for the ground state , for which the probability density is just the normal distribution. Quantum harmonic oscillators with Gaussian initial condition In a quantum harmonic oscillator of characteristic angular frequency ω, place a state that is offset from the bottom of the potential by some displacement x0 as where Ω describes the width of the initial state but need not be the same as ω. Through integration over the propagator, we can solve for the -dependent solution. After many cancelations, the probability densities reduce to where we have used the notation to denote a normal distribution of mean μ and variance σ2. Copying the variances above and applying trigonometric identities, we can write the product of the standard deviations as From the relations we can conclude the following: (the right most equality holds only when Ω = ω) . Coherent states A coherent state is a right eigenstate of the annihilation operator, which may be represented in terms of Fock states as In the picture where the coherent state is a massive particle in a quantum harmonic oscillator, the position and momentum operators may be expressed in terms of the annihilation operators in the same formulas above and used to calculate the variances, Therefore, every coherent state saturates the Kennard bound with position and momentum each contributing an amount in a "balanced" way. Moreover, every squeezed coherent state also saturates the Kennard bound although the individual contributions of position and momentum need not be balanced in general. Particle in a box Consider a particle in a one-dimensional box of length . The eigenfunctions in position and momentum space are and where and we have used the de Broglie relation . The variances of and can be calculated explicitly: The product of the standard deviations is therefore For all , the quantity is greater than 1, so the uncertainty principle is never violated. For numerical concreteness, the smallest value occurs when , in which case Constant momentum Assume a particle initially has a momentum space wave function described by a normal distribution around some constant momentum p0 according to where we have introduced a reference scale , with describing the width of the distribution—cf. nondimensionalization. If the state is allowed to evolve in free space, then the time-dependent momentum and position space wave functions are Since and , this can be interpreted as a particle moving along with constant momentum at arbitrarily high precision. On the other hand, the standard deviation of the position is such that the uncertainty product can only increase with time as Additional uncertainty relations Systematic and statistical errors The inequalities above focus on the statistical imprecision of observables as quantified by the standard deviation . Heisenberg's original version, however, was dealing with the systematic error, a disturbance of the quantum system produced by the measuring apparatus, i.e., an observer effect. If we let represent the error (i.e., inaccuracy) of a measurement of an observable A and the disturbance produced on a subsequent measurement of the conjugate variable B by the former measurement of A, then the inequality proposed by Ozawa — encompassing both systematic and statistical errors — holds: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, as originally described in the 1927 formulation, mentions only the first term of Ozawa inequality, regarding the systematic error. Using the notation above to describe the error/disturbance effect of sequential measurements (first A, then B), it could be written as The formal derivation of the Heisenberg relation is possible but far from intuitive. It was not proposed by Heisenberg, but formulated in a mathematically consistent way only in recent years. Also, it must be stressed that the Heisenberg formulation is not taking into account the intrinsic statistical errors and . There is increasing experimental evidence that the total quantum uncertainty cannot be described by the Heisenberg term alone, but requires the presence of all the three terms of the Ozawa inequality. Using the same formalism, it is also possible to introduce the other kind of physical situation, often confused with the previous one, namely the case of simultaneous measurements (A and B at the same time): The two simultaneous measurements on A and B are necessarily unsharp or weak. It is also possible to derive an uncertainty relation that, as the Ozawa's one, combines both the statistical and systematic error components, but keeps a form very close to the Heisenberg original inequality. By adding Robertson and Ozawa relations we obtain The four terms can be written as: Defining: as the inaccuracy in the measured values of the variable A and as the resulting fluctuation in the conjugate variable B, Fujikawa established an uncertainty relation similar to the Heisenberg original one, but valid both for systematic and statistical errors: Quantum entropic uncertainty principle For many distributions, the standard deviation is not a particularly natural way of quantifying the structure. For example, uncertainty relations in which one of the observables is an angle has little physical meaning for fluctuations larger than one period. Other examples include highly bimodal distributions, or unimodal distributions with divergent variance. A solution that overcomes these issues is an uncertainty based on entropic uncertainty instead of the product of variances. While formulating the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957, Hugh Everett III conjectured a stronger extension of the uncertainty principle based on entropic certainty. This conjecture, also studied by Hirschman and proven in 1975 by Beckner and by Iwo Bialynicki-Birula and Jerzy Mycielski is that, for two normalized, dimensionless Fourier transform pairs and where and the Shannon information entropies and are subject to the following constraint, where the logarithms may be in any base. The probability distribution functions associated with the position wave function and the momentum wave function have dimensions of inverse length and momentum respectively, but the entropies may be rendered dimensionless by where and are some arbitrarily chosen length and momentum respectively, which render the arguments of the logarithms dimensionless. Note that the entropies will be functions of these chosen parameters. Due to the Fourier transform relation between the position wave function and the momentum wavefunction , the above constraint can be written for the corresponding entropies as where is Planck's constant. Depending on one's choice of the product, the expression may be written in many ways. If is chosen to be , then If, instead, is chosen to be , then If and are chosen to be unity in whatever system of units are being used, then where is interpreted as a dimensionless number equal to the value of Planck's constant in the chosen system of units. Note that these inequalities can be extended to multimode quantum states, or wavefunctions in more than one spatial dimension. The quantum entropic uncertainty principle is more restrictive than the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. From the inverse logarithmic Sobolev inequalities (equivalently, from the fact that normal distributions maximize the entropy of all such with a given variance), it readily follows that this entropic uncertainty principle is stronger than the one based on standard deviations, because In other words, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, is a consequence of the quantum entropic uncertainty principle, but not vice versa. A few remarks on these inequalities. First, the choice of base e is a matter of popular convention in physics. The logarithm can alternatively be in any base, provided that it be consistent on both sides of the inequality. Second, recall the Shannon entropy has been used, not the quantum von Neumann entropy. Finally, the normal distribution saturates the inequality, and it is the only distribution with this property, because it is the maximum entropy probability distribution among those with fixed variance (cf. here for proof). A measurement apparatus will have a finite resolution set by the discretization of its possible outputs into bins, with the probability of lying within one of the bins given by the Born rule. We will consider the most common experimental situation, in which the bins are of uniform size. Let δx be a measure of the spatial resolution. We take the zeroth bin to be centered near the origin, with possibly some small constant offset c. The probability of lying within the jth interval of width δx is To account for this discretization, we can define the Shannon entropy of the wave function for a given measurement apparatus as Under the above definition, the entropic uncertainty relation is Here we note that is a typical infinitesimal phase space volume used in the calculation of a partition function. The inequality is also strict and not saturated. Efforts to improve this bound are an active area of research. The Efimov inequality by Pauli matrices In 1976, Sergei P. Efimov deduced an inequality that refines the Robertson relation by applying high-order commutators. His approach is based on the Pauli matrices. Later V.V. Dodonov used the method to derive relations for several observables by using Clifford algebra. According to Jackiw, the Robertson uncertainty is valid only when the commutator is C-number. The Efimov method is effective for variables that have commutators of high-order - for example for the kinetic energy operator and for coordinate one. Consider two operators and that have commutator : To shorten formulas we use the operator deviations: when new operators have the zero mean deviation. To use the Pauli matrices we can consider the operator: where 2×2 spin matrices have commutators: where antisymmetric symbol. They act in the spin space independently from . Pauli matrices define the Clifford algebra. We take arbitrary numbers in operator to be real. Physical square of the operator is equal to: where is adjoint operator and commutators and are following: Operator is positive-definite, what is essential to get an inequality below . Taking average value of it over state , we get positive-definite matrix 2×2: where used the notion: and analogous one for operators . Regarding that coefficients are arbitrary in the equation, we get the positive-definite matrix 6×6. Sylvester's criterion says that its leading principal minors are non-negative. The Robertson uncertainty follows from minor of forth degree. To strengthen result we calculate determinant of sixth order: The equality is observed only when the state is an eigenstate for the operator and likewise for the spin variables: Found relation we may apply to the kinetic energy operator and for operator of the coordinate : In particular, equality in the formula is observed for the ground state of the oscillator, whereas the right-hand item of the Robertson uncertainty vanishes: Physical meaning of the relation is more clear if to divide it by the squared nonzero average impulse what yields: where is squared effective time within which a particle moves near the mean trajectory (Mass of the particle is equal to 1). The method can be applied for three noncommuting operators of angular momentum . We compile the operator: We recall that the operators are auxiliary and there is no relation between the spin variables of the particle. In such way, their commutative properties are of importance only. Squared and averaged operator gives positive-definite matrix where we get following inequality from: To develop method for a group of operators one may use the Clifford algebra instead of the Pauli matrices. Uncertainty relation with three angular momentum components For a particle of spin- the following uncertainty relation holds where are angular momentum components. The relation can be derived from and The relation can be strengthened as where is the quantum Fisher information. Harmonic analysis In the context of harmonic analysis, a branch of mathematics, the uncertainty principle implies that one cannot at the same time localize the value of a function and its Fourier transform. To wit, the following inequality holds, Further mathematical uncertainty inequalities, including the above entropic uncertainty, hold between a function and its Fourier transform : Signal processing In the context of signal processing, and in particular time–frequency analysis, uncertainty principles are referred to as the Gabor limit, after Dennis Gabor, or sometimes the Heisenberg–Gabor limit. The basic result, which follows from "Benedicks's theorem", below, is that a function cannot be both time limited and band limited (a function and its Fourier transform cannot both have bounded domain)—see bandlimited versus timelimited. Thus where and are the standard deviations of the time and frequency estimates respectively. Stated alternatively, "One cannot simultaneously sharply localize a signal (function ) in both the time domain and frequency domain (, its Fourier transform)". When applied to filters, the result implies that one cannot achieve high temporal resolution and frequency resolution at the same time; a concrete example are the resolution issues of the short-time Fourier transform—if one uses a wide window, one achieves good frequency resolution at the cost of temporal resolution, while a narrow window has the opposite trade-off. Alternate theorems give more precise quantitative results, and, in time–frequency analysis, rather than interpreting the (1-dimensional) time and frequency domains separately, one instead interprets the limit as a lower limit on the support of a function in the (2-dimensional) time–frequency plane. In practice, the Gabor limit limits the simultaneous time–frequency resolution one can achieve without interference; it is possible to achieve higher resolution, but at the cost of different components of the signal interfering with each other. As a result, in order to analyze signals where the transients are important, the wavelet transform is often used instead of the Fourier. Discrete Fourier transform Let be a sequence of N complex numbers and its discrete Fourier transform. Denote by the number of non-zero elements in the time sequence and by the number of non-zero elements in the frequency sequence . Then, This inequality is sharp, with equality achieved when x or X is a Dirac mass, or more generally when x is a nonzero multiple of a Dirac comb supported on a subgroup of the integers modulo N (in which case X is also a Dirac comb supported on a complementary subgroup, and vice versa). More generally, if T and W are subsets of the integers modulo N, let denote the time-limiting operator and band-limiting operators, respectively. Then where the norm is the operator norm of operators on the Hilbert space of functions on the integers modulo N. This inequality has implications for signal reconstruction. When N is a prime number, a stronger inequality holds: Discovered by Terence Tao, this inequality is also sharp. Benedicks's theorem Amrein–Berthier and Benedicks's theorem intuitively says that the set of points where is non-zero and the set of points where is non-zero cannot both be small. Specifically, it is impossible for a function in and its Fourier transform to both be supported on sets of finite Lebesgue measure. A more quantitative version is One expects that the factor may be replaced by , which is only known if either or is convex. Hardy's uncertainty principle The mathematician G. H. Hardy formulated the following uncertainty principle: it is not possible for and to both be "very rapidly decreasing". Specifically, if in is such that and ( an integer), then, if , while if , then there is a polynomial of degree such that This was later improved as follows: if is such that then where is a polynomial of degree and is a real positive definite matrix. This result was stated in Beurling's complete works without proof and proved in Hörmander (the case ) and Bonami, Demange, and Jaming for the general case. Note that Hörmander–Beurling's version implies the case in Hardy's Theorem while the version by Bonami–Demange–Jaming covers the full strength of Hardy's Theorem. A different proof of Beurling's theorem based on Liouville's theorem appeared in ref. A full description of the case as well as the following extension to Schwartz class distributions appears in ref. History Werner Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle at Niels Bohr's institute in Copenhagen, while working on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. In 1925, following pioneering work with Hendrik Kramers, Heisenberg developed matrix mechanics, which replaced the ad hoc old quantum theory with modern quantum mechanics. The central premise was that the classical concept of motion does not fit at the quantum |
a problem in combinatorial optimization Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing Lab (UKP Lab), at | Ukrainian Communist Party Pound sterling (non-standard code) Unbounded knapsack problem, a problem in combinatorial |
two of them. For the first few months of the war, U-boat anticommerce actions observed the "prize rules" of the time, which governed the treatment of enemy civilian ships and their occupants. On 20 October 1914, sank the first merchant ship, the , off Norway. Surface commerce raiders were proving to be ineffective, and on 4 February 1915, the Kaiser assented to the declaration of a war zone in the waters around the British Isles. This was cited as a retaliation for British minefields and shipping blockades. Under the instructions given to U-boat captains, they could sink merchant ships, even potentially neutral ones, without warning. In February 1915, a submarine U-6 (Lepsius) was rammed and both periscopes were destroyed off Beachy Head by the collier SS Thordis commanded by Captain John Bell RNR after firing a torpedo. On 7 May 1915, sank the liner RMS Lusitania. The sinking claimed 1,198 lives, 128 of them American civilians, and the attack of this unarmed civilian ship deeply shocked the Allies. According to the ship's manifest, Lusitania was carrying military cargo, though none of this information was relayed to the citizens of Britain and the United States who thought that the ship contained no ammunition or military weaponry whatsoever and it was an act of brutal murder. Munitions that it carried were thousands of crates full of ammunition for rifles, 3-inch (76 mm) artillery shells, and also various other standard ammunition used by infantry. The sinking of the Lusitania was widely used as propaganda against the German Empire and caused greater support for the war effort. A widespread reaction in the U.S was not seen until the attack on the ferry which carried many citizens of the United States of America. The initial U.S. response was to threaten to sever diplomatic ties, which persuaded the Germans to issue the Sussex pledge that reimposed restrictions on U-boat activity. The U.S. reiterated its objections to German submarine warfare whenever U.S. civilians died as a result of German attacks, which prompted the Germans to fully reapply prize rules. This, however, removed the effectiveness of the U-boat fleet, and the Germans consequently sought a decisive surface action, a strategy that culminated in the Battle of Jutland. Although the Germans claimed victory at Jutland, the British Grand Fleet remained in control at sea. It was necessary to return to effective anticommerce warfare by U-boats. Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, Commander in Chief of the High Seas Fleet, pressed for all-out U-boat war, convinced that a high rate of shipping losses would force Britain to seek an early peace before the United States could react effectively. The renewed German campaign was effective, sinking 1.4 million tons of shipping between October 1916 and January 1917. Despite this, the political situation demanded even greater pressure, and on 31 January 1917, Germany announced that its U-boats would engage in unrestricted submarine warfare beginning 1 February. On 17 March, German submarines sank three American merchant vessels, and the U.S. declared war on Germany in April 1917. Unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was initially very successful, sinking a major part of Britain-bound shipping. With the introduction of escorted convoys, shipping losses declined and in the end, the German strategy failed to destroy sufficient Allied shipping. An armistice became effective on 11 November 1918. Of the surviving German submarines 14 U-boats were scuttled and 122 surrendered. Of the 373 German submarines that had been built, 178 were lost by enemy action. Of these 40 were sunk by mines, 30 by depth charges and 13 by Q-ships. 512 officers and 4894 enlisted men were killed. They sank 10 battleships, 18 cruisers and several smaller naval vessels. They further destroyed 5,708 merchant and fishing vessels for a total of 11,108,865 tons and the loss of about 15,000 sailors. The Pour le Mérite, the highest decoration for gallantry for officers, was awarded to 29 U-boat commanders. 12 U-boat crewmen were decorated with the Goldene Militär-Verdienst-Kreuz, the highest bravery award for non-commissioned officers and enlisted men. The most successful U-boat commanders of World War I were Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière (189 merchant vessels and two gunboats with 446,708 tons), followed by Walter Forstmann (149 ships with 391,607 tons), and Max Valentiner (144 ships with 299,482 tons). Their records have not been surpassed in any subsequent conflict. Classes Körting kerosene-powered boats Type U 1, Type U 2, Type U 3, Type U 5, Type U 9, Type U 13, Type U 16, Type U 17 Mittel-U MAN diesel boats Type U 19, Type U 23, Type U 27, Type U 31, Type U 43, Type U 51, Type U 57, Type U 63, Type U 66, Type Mittel U U-Cruisers and Merchant U-boats Type U 139, Type U 142, Type U 151, Type UD 1 UB coastal torpedo attack boats Type UB I, Type UB II, Type UB III, Type UF, Type UG UC coastal minelayers Type UC I, Type UC II, Type UC III UE ocean minelayers Type UE I, Type UE II Surrender of the fleet Under the terms of armistice, all U-boats were to immediately surrender. Those in home waters sailed to the British submarine base at Harwich. The entire process was done quickly and in the main without difficulty, after which the vessels were studied, then scrapped or given to Allied navies. Stephen King-Hall wrote a detailed eyewitness account of the surrender. Interwar years (1919–1939) The Treaty of Versailles ending World War I signed at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 restricted the total tonnage of the German surface fleet. The treaty also restricted the independent tonnage of ships and forbade the construction of submarines. However, a submarine design office was set up in the Netherlands and a torpedo research program was started in Sweden. Before the start of World War II, Germany started building U-boats and training crews, labeling these activities as "research" or concealing them using other covers. When this became known, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement limited Germany to parity with Britain in submarines. When World War II started, Germany already had 65 U-boats, with 21 of those at sea, ready for war. World War II (1939–1945) During World War II, U-boat warfare was the major component of the Battle of the Atlantic, which began in 1939 and ended with Germany's surrender in 1945. The Armistice of 11 November 1918 ending World War I had scuttled most of the old Imperial German Navy and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles of 1919 limited the surface navy of Germany's new Weimar Republic to only six battleships (of less than 10,000 tons each), six cruisers, and 12 destroyers. To compensate, Germany's new navy, the Kriegsmarine, developed the largest submarine fleet going into World War II. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later wrote "The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril." In the early stages of the war, the U-boats were extremely | lack of sufficient electronic countermeasures. Early on, the Germans experimented with the idea of the Schnorchel (snorkel) from captured Dutch submarines, but saw no need for them until rather late in the war. The Schnorchel was a retractable pipe that supplied air to the diesel engines while submerged at periscope depth, allowing the boats to cruise and recharge their batteries while maintaining a degree of stealth. It was far from a perfect solution, however. Problems occurred with the device's valve sticking shut or closing as it dunked in rough weather; since the system used the entire pressure hull as a buffer, the diesels would instantaneously suck huge volumes of air from the boat's compartments, and the crew often suffered painful ear injuries. Speed was limited to , lest the device snap from stress. The Schnorchel also had the effect of making the boat essentially noisy and deaf in sonar terms. Finally, Allied radar eventually became sufficiently advanced that the Schnorchel mast could be detected beyond visual range. Several other pioneering innovations included acoustic- and electro-absorbent coatings to make them less of an ASDIC or RADAR target. The Germans also developed active countermeasures such as facilities to release artificial chemical bubble-making decoys, known as Bold, after the mythical kobold. Classes Type I: first prototypes Type II: small submarines used for training purposes Type V: uncompleted experimental midget submarines Type VII: the "workhorse" of the U-boats with 709 completed in World War II Type IX: these long-range U-boats operated as far as the Indian Ocean with the Japanese (Monsun Gruppe), and the South Atlantic Type X: long-range minelayers and cargo transports Type XI: uncompleted experimental artillery boats Type XIV: used to resupply other U-boats; nicknamed the Milchkuh ("Milk Cow") Type XVII: small coastal submarines powered by experimental hydrogen peroxide propulsion systems Type XXI: known as the Elektroboot; first subs to operate primarily submerged Type XXIII: smaller version of the XXI used for coastal operations Midget submarines, including Biber, Hai, Molch, and Seehund Uncompleted U-boat projects Countermeasures Advances in convoy tactics, high-frequency direction finding (referred to as ("Huff-Duff"), radar, active sonar (called ASDIC in Britain), depth charges, ASW spigot mortars (also known as "hedgehog"), the intermittent cracking of the German Naval Enigma code, the introduction of the Leigh light, the range of escort aircraft (especially with the use of escort carriers), the use of mystery ships, and the full entry of the U.S. into the war with its enormous shipbuilding capacity, all turned the tide against the U-boats. In the end, the U-boat fleet suffered extremely heavy casualties, losing 793 U-boats and about 28,000 submariners (a 75% casualty rate, the highest of all German forces during the war). At the same time, the Allies targeted the U-boat shipyards and their bases with strategic bombing. Enigma machine The British had a major advantage in their ability to read some German naval Enigma codes. An understanding of the German coding methods had been brought to Britain via France from Polish code-breakers. Thereafter, code books and equipment were captured by raids on German weather ships and from captured U-boats. A team including Alan Turing used special purpose "Bombes" and early computers to break new German codes as they were introduced. The speedy decoding of messages was vital in directing convoys away from wolf packs and allowing interception and destruction of U-boats. This was demonstrated when the Naval Enigma machines were altered in February 1942 and wolf-pack effectiveness greatly increased until the new code was broken. The , a Type IXB, was captured in 1941 by the Royal Navy, and its Enigma machine and documents were removed. was also captured by the British in October 1942; three sailors boarded her as she was sinking, and desperately threw all the code books out of the submarine so as to salvage them. Two of them, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and Lieutenant Francis Anthony Blair Fasson, continued to throw code books out of the ship as it went under water, and went down with it. Further code books were captured by raids on weather ships. was boarded by crew from the Canadian ship on 6 March 1944, and codes were taken from her, but by this time in the war, most of the information was known. The , a Type IXC, was captured by the United States Navy in June 1944. It is now a museum ship in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. Battle of Bell Island Two events in the battle took place in 1942 when German U-boats attacked four allied ore carriers at Bell Island, Newfoundland. The carriers and were sunk by on 5 September 1942, while the and PLM 27 were sunk by on 2 November with the loss of 69 lives. When the submarine launched a torpedo at the loading pier, Bell Island became the only location in North America to be subject to direct attack by German forces in World War II. Operation Deadlight "Operation Deadlight" was the code name for the scuttling of U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of the war. Of the 154 U-boats surrendered, 121 were scuttled in deep water off Lisahally, Northern Ireland, or Loch Ryan, Scotland, in late 1945 and early 1946. Memorial Post–World War II and Cold War (after 1945) From 1955, the West German Bundesmarine was allowed to have a small navy. Initially, two sunken Type XXIIIs and a Type XXI were raised and repaired. In the 1960s, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) re-entered the submarine business. Because West Germany was initially restricted to a 450-tonne displacement limit, the Bundesmarine focused on small coastal submarines to protect against the Soviet threat in the Baltic Sea. The Germans sought to use advanced technologies to offset the small displacement, such as amagnetic steel to protect against naval mines and magnetic anomaly detectors. The initial Type 201 was a failure because of hull cracking; the subsequent Type 205, first commissioned in 1967, was a success, and 12 were built for the German navy. To continue the U-boat tradition, the new boats received the classic "U" designation starting with the U-1. With the Danish government's purchase of two Type 205 boats, the West German government realized the potential for the submarine as an export, developing a customized version Type 207. Small and agile submarines were built during the Cold War to operate in the shallow Baltic Sea resulting in the Type 206. Three of the improved Type 206 boats were later sold to the Israeli Navy, becoming the Type 540. The German Type 209 diesel-electric submarine was the most popular export-sales submarine in the world from the late 1960s into the first years of the 21st century. With a larger 1,000–1,500 tonne displacement, the class was very customizable and has seen service with 14 navies with 51 examples being built as of 2006. Germany would continue to reap successes with derivations or on the basis of the successful type 209, as are the Type 800 sold to Israel and the TR-1700 sold to Argentina. Germany would continue to succeed as an exporter of submarines as the Klasse 210 sold to Norway, considered the most silent and maneuverable submarines in the world. This would demonstrate its capacity and put its export seal on the world. Germany has brought the U-boat name into the 21st century with the new Type 212. The 212 features an air-independent propulsion system using hydrogen fuel cells. This system is safer than previous closed-cycle diesel engines and steam turbines, cheaper than a nuclear reactor and quieter than either. While the Type 212 is also being purchased by Italy and Norway, the Type 214 has been designed as the follow-on export model and has been sold to Greece, South Korea, Turkey, and based on it would get the Type U 209PN sold to Portugal. In recent years Germany introduced new models such as the Type 216 and the Type 218 the latter being sold to Singapore. In 2016, Germany commissioned its newest U-boat, the U-36, a Type 212. See also List of U-boats of Germany List of U-boats never deployed List of successful U-boats Das Boot, 1981 German U-boat film Greyhound, 2020 American war film Decoys Bold (decoy) Sieglinde (decoy) Karl Dönitz List of Knight's Cross recipients of the U-boat service Orkney Wireless Museum contains an example of a U-boat radio I-boat, Japanese equivalent References Further reading Abbatiello, John (2005) Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I: British Naval Aviation and the Defeat of the U-Boats Buchheim, Lothar-Günther. Das Boot (original German edition 1973, eventually translated into English and many other Western languages). Movie adaptation in 1981, directed by Wolfgang Petersen Gannon, Michael (1998) Black May. Dell Publishing. Gannon, Michael (1990) Operation Drumbeat. Naval Institute Press. Gray, Edwyn A. (1994) The U-Boat War, 1914–1918 Hans Joachim Koerver (2010) German Submarine Warfare 1914–1918 in the Eyes of British Intelligence, LIS Reinisch, Kurson, Robert (2004) Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II. Random House Publishing. Möller, Eberhard and Werner Brack (2006) The Encyclopedia of U-Boats: From 1904 to the Present, O'Connor, Jerome M. (June 2000) "Inside the Grey Wolves' Den." Naval History. The US Naval Institute Author of the Year feature describes the building and operation of the German U-boat bases in France. Preston, Anthony (2005) The World's Greatest Submarines. Stern, Robert C. (1999) Battle Beneath the Waves: U-boats at war. Arms and Armor/Sterling Publishing. . Showell, Jak Mallmann (2006) The U-boat Century: German Submarine Warfare, 1906–2006, van der Vat, Dan (1988) The Atlantic Campaign. Harper & Row. Connects submarine and antisubmarine operations between World War I and World War II, and suggests a continuous war. Von Scheck, Karl. U122: The Diary of a U-boat Commander. Diggory Press, Georg von Trapp and Elizabeth M. Campbell (2007) To the Last Salute: Memories of an Austrian U-Boat Commander Westwood, David (2005) U-Boat War: Doenitz and the evolution of the German Submarine Service 1935–1945, Werner, Herbert. Iron Coffins: A Personal Account of the German U-Boat Battles of World War II, External links TheSubPen The Sub "Pen," your home for submarine and U-boat history. uboat.net Comprehensive reference source for WW I and WW II U-boat information. uboat-bases.com The German U-boat bases of the WW-II in France: Brest, Lorient, St-Nazaire, La Rochelle, Bordeaux. ubootwaffe.net Comprehensive reference source for WW II U-boat information. WWII German UBoats German sub sank near U.S., The Augusta Chronicle U Boat Sanctuary – Inside The Indestructible U Boat Bases In Brittany History Articles U-112 and U-53 Submarine Collection at Dartmouth College Library 01 Submarines of Germany Submarines of the Imperial German Navy Submarines of the Kriegsmarine German Empire in World War I Germany in World War II Submarines World War I submarines |
also refer to: Arts and media U.K. (band), a progressive rock supergroup U.K. (album), by U.K. UK Records, a record label Educational institutions Charles University (), in Prague, Czech Republic Comenius University (), in Bratislava, Slovakia | U.K. UK Records, a record label Educational institutions Charles University (), in Prague, Czech Republic Comenius University (), in Bratislava, Slovakia Kongo University (), in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Universidad Argentina John F. Kennedy, Argentina University of Kara, Togo University |
on time." → "Wube nubeed tuboo gubet tuboo Plubantubashubon Ruboad ubon tubime." "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." → "Uball hubumuban bubeubings ubare buborn frubee uband ubeq-wub-al ubin dubignubituby uband rubights. Thubey ubare ubendubowed wubith rubeasubon uband cubonscubience uband shubould ubact tubowubards "w-ub-on" ubanubothuber ubin uba spubirubit ubof brubothuberhubood." Uses Ubbi Dubbi has also been popularized as the signature speech pattern of the cartoon character Mushmouth from the animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, voiced by Bill Cosby. Cosby also used this speech variation in his famous "Dentist" monologue to illustrate the effects of a dose of Novocaine. It was used in the episode "Mentalo Case" from the TV series The King Of Queens, between character Spence Olchin (Patton Oswalt) and a salesman at a | revived in 1999 on PBS, Ubbi dubbi was again a feature of the show. Variations of Ubbi Dubbi include Obbish, Ob, Ib, Arpy Darpy, and Iz. Rules Ubbi dubbi works by adding -ub- before each vowel sound in a syllable. (A linguist would say "Insert [ˈʌb] after each syllable onset".) The stress falls on the "ub" of the syllable that is stressed in the original word. So in "hello", which is stressed on the "-lo" syllable, the stress falls on the "lub" in "hubellubo". The method of adding "ub" before each vowel sound has been described as "iterative infixation". Examples Good day → "Gubood dubay" Speak → "spubeak" Hello → "hubellubo" Extra → "ubextruba" Hubba Bubba bubblegum → "Hububbuba Bububbuba bubububblegubum" Mississippi → "Mubissubissubippubi" Ubbi Dubbi → "Ububbubi Dububbubi" Zoom → "Zuboom" Subaru → "Subububarubu" "Hi, how are |
under international law, for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008–2012. The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference produced an agreement stating that future global warming should be limited to below 2 °C (3.6 °F) relative to the pre-industrial level. The Kyoto Protocol had two commitment periods, the first of which lasted from 2008 to 2012. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the second one for the period 2013–2020 in the Doha Amendment. One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC was for signatory nations to establish national greenhouse gas inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990 benchmark levels for accession of Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment of those countries to GHG reductions. Updated inventories must be submitted annually by Annex I countries. The US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada denounced it in 2012. The Kyoto Protocol was ratified by all the other Annex I Parties. All Annex I Parties, excluding the US, participated in the 1st Kyoto commitment period. 37 Annex I countries and the EU agreed to second-round Kyoto targets. These countries are Australia, all members of the European Union, Belarus, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine stated that they might withdraw from the Protocol or not put into legal force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia participated in Kyoto's first round but did not take on new targets in the second commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets were Canada (which withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012) and the United States. All countries that remained parties to the Kyoto Protocol met their first commitment period targets. National communication A "National Communication" is a type of report submitted by the countries that have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developed countries are required to submit National Communications every four years and developing countries should do so. Some Least Developed Countries have not submitted National Communications in the past 5–15 years, largely due to capacity constraints. National Communication reports are often several hundred pages long and cover a country's measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as well as a description of its vulnerabilities and impacts from climate change. National Communications are prepared according to guidelines that have been agreed by the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. The (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that form the basis of the Paris Agreement are shorter and less detailed but also follow a standardized structure and are subject to technical review by experts. Paris Agreement The parties met in Durban, South Africa in 2011 and expressed "grave concern" that efforts to limit global warming to less than 2 or 1.5 °C, relative to the pre-industrial level, appeared inadequate. They committed to develop an "agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties". At the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris the then-196 parties agreed to aim to limit global warming to less than 2 °C, and try to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016 in those countries that had ratified the Agreement, and other countries had ratified the Agreement since. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions At the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties in Warsaw in 2013, the UNFCCC created a mechanism for Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to be submitted in the run up to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties in Paris (COP21) in 2015. Countries were given freedom and flexibility to ensure that these climate change mitigation and adaptation plans were nationally appropriate. This flexibility, especially regarding the types of actions to be undertaken, allowed for developing countries to tailor their plans to their specific adaptation and mitigation needs, as well as towards other needs. In the aftermath of COP21, these INDCs became Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as each country ratified the Paris Agreement, unless a new NDC was submitted to the UNFCCC at the same time. The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakesh focused on these Nationally Determined Contributions and their implementation, after the Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016. The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) created a guide for NDC implementation, for the use of decision makers in Less Developed Countries. In this guide, CDKN identified a series of common challenges countries face in NDC implementation, including how to: build awareness of the need for, and benefits of, action among stakeholders, including key government ministries; mainstream and integrate climate change into national planning and development processes; strengthen the links between subnational and national government plans on climate change; build capacity to analyse, develop and implement climate policy; establish a mandate for coordinating actions around NDCs and driving their implementation; and address resource constraints for developing and implementing climate change policy. Other decisions In addition to the Kyoto Protocol (and its amendment) and the Paris Agreement, parties to the Convention have agreed to further commitments during UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties. These include the Bali Action Plan (2007), the Copenhagen Accord (2009), the Cancún agreements (2010), and the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (2012). Bali Action Plan As part of the Bali Action Plan, adopted in 2007, all developed country Parties have agreed to "quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, while ensuring the comparability of efforts among them, taking into account differences in their national circumstances." Developing country Parties agreed to "[nationally] appropriate mitigation actions context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner." 42 developed countries have submitted mitigation targets to the UNFCCC secretariat, as have 57 developing countries and the African Group (a group of countries within the UN). Copenhagen Accord and Cancún agreements As part of the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations, a number of countries produced the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord states that global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F). The Accord does not specify what the baseline is for these temperature targets (e.g., relative to pre-industrial or 1990 temperatures). According to the UNFCCC, these targets are relative to pre-industrial temperatures. 114 countries agreed to the Accord. The UNFCCC secretariat notes that "Some Parties ... stated in their communications to the secretariat specific understandings on the nature of the Accord and related matters, based on which they have agreed to [the Accord]." The Accord was not formally adopted by the Conference of the Parties. Instead, the COP "took note of the Copenhagen Accord." As part of the Accord, 17 developed country Parties and the EU-27 submitted mitigation targets, as did 45 developing country Parties. Some developing country Parties noted the need for international support in their plans. As part of the Cancún agreements, developed and developing countries submitted mitigation plans to the UNFCCC. These plans were compiled with those made as part of the Bali Action Plan. UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs At the 2021 annual meeting UNFCCC launched the 'UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs'. The aim of the campaign is to transform 20 sectors of the economy in order to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of each sector should take specific measures, and 10 sectors should be transformed before COP 26 in Glasgow. According to the organizers, 20% is a tipping point, after which the whole sector begins to irreversibly change. Developing countries At Berlin, Cancún, and Durban, the development needs of developing country parties were reiterated. For example, the Durban Platform reaffirms that: Interpreting article 2 The ultimate objective of the Framework Convention is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-caused] interference with the climate system". Article 2 of the convention says this "should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner". To stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations, global anthropogenic GHG emissions would need to peak then decline (see climate change mitigation). Lower stabilization levels would require emissions to peak and decline earlier compared to higher stabilization levels. The graph above shows projected changes in annual global GHG emissions (measured in CO2-equivalents) for various stabilization scenarios. The other two graphs show the associated changes in atmospheric GHG concentrations (in CO2-equivalents) and global mean temperature for these scenarios. Lower stabilization levels are associated with lower magnitudes of global warming compared to higher stabilization levels. There is uncertainty over how GHG concentrations and global temperatures will change in response to anthropogenic emissions (see climate change feedback and climate sensitivity). The graph opposite shows global temperature changes in the year 2100 for a range of emission scenarios, including uncertainty estimates. Dangerous anthropogenic interference There are a range of views over what level of climate change is dangerous. Scientific analysis can provide information on the risks of climate change, but deciding which risks are dangerous requires value judgements. The global warming that has already occurred poses a risk to some human and natural systems (e.g., coral reefs). Higher magnitudes of global warming will generally increase the risk of negative impacts. According to Field et al. (2014), climate change risks are "considerable" with 1 to 2 °C of global warming, relative to pre-industrial levels. 4 °C warming would lead to significantly increased risks, with potential impacts including widespread loss of biodiversity and reduced global and regional food security. Climate change policies may lead to costs that are relevant to the article 2. For example, more stringent policies to control GHG emissions may reduce the risk of more severe climate change, but may also be more expensive to implement. Projections There is considerable uncertainty over future changes in anthropogenic GHG emissions, atmospheric GHG concentrations, and associated climate change. Without mitigation policies, increased energy demand and extensive use of fossil fuels could lead to global warming (in 2100) of 3.7 to 4.8 °C relative to pre-industrial levels (2.5 to 7.8 °C including climate uncertainty). To have a likely chance of limiting global warming (in 2100) to below 2 °C, GHG concentrations would need to be limited to around 450 ppm CO2-eq. The current trajectory of global emissions does not appear to be consistent with limiting global warming to below 1.5 or 2 °C. Precautionary principle In decision making, the precautionary principle is considered when possibly dangerous, irreversible, or catastrophic events are identified, but scientific evaluation of the potential damage is not sufficiently certain (Toth et al., 2001, pp. 655–656). The precautionary principle implies an emphasis on the need to prevent such adverse effects. Uncertainty is associated with each link of the causal chain of climate change. For example, future GHG emissions are uncertain, as are climate change damages. However, following the precautionary principle, uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, and this is acknowledged in Article 3.3 of the UNFCCC (Toth et al., 2001, p. 656). Parties As of 2015, the UNFCCC has 197 parties including all United Nations member states, United Nations General Assembly observer State of Palestine, UN non-member states Niue and the Cook Islands and the supranational union European Union. The Holy See is not a member state, but is an observer. Classification of Parties and their commitments Parties to the UNFCCC are classified as: Annex I: There are 43 Parties to the UNFCCC listed in Annex I of the convention, including the European Union. These Parties are classified as industrialized (developed) countries and "economies in transition" (EITs). The 14 EITs are the former centrally-planned (Soviet) economies of Russia and Eastern Europe. Annex II: Of the Parties listed in Annex I of the convention, 24 are also listed in Annex II of the convention, including the European Union. These Parties are made up of members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): these Parties consist of the members of the OECD in 1992, minus Turkey, plus the EU. Annex II Parties are required to provide financial and technical support to the EITs and developing countries to assist them in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions (climate change mitigation) and manage the impacts of climate change (climate change adaptation). Least-developed countries (LDCs): 49 Parties are LDCs, and are given special status under the treaty in view of their limited capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change. Non-Annex I: Parties to the UNFCCC not listed in Annex I of the convention are mostly low-income developing countries. Developing countries may volunteer to become Annex I countries when they are sufficiently developed. List of parties Annex I countries There are 43 Annex I Parties including the European Union. These countries are classified as industrialized countries and economies in transition. Of these, 24 are Annex II Parties, including the European Union, and 14 are Economies in Transition. Australia Austria Belarus Belgium Bulgaria Canada Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia EU Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Japan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Monaco Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russian Federation Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States of America Notes Conferences of the Parties The United Nations Climate Change Conference are yearly conferences held in the framework of the UNFCCC. They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC Parties (Conferences of the Parties) (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. From 2005 to 2020 the Conferences also served as the Meetings of Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). The first conference (COP1) was held in 1995 in Berlin. The 3rd conference (COP3) was held in Kyoto and resulted in the Kyoto protocol, which was amended during the 2012 Doha Conference (COP18, CMP 8). The COP21 (CMP11) conference was held in Paris and resulted in adoption of the Paris Agreement. | of technology and will take fully into account that economic and social development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of the developing country Parties. The Framework Convention specifies the aim of Annex I Parties stabilizing their greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases not regulated under the Montreal Protocol) at 1990 levels, by the year 2000. "UNFCCC" is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, and the UN Campus (known as Langer Eugen) in Bonn, Germany. From 2010 to 2016 the head of the secretariat was Christiana Figueres. In July 2016, Patricia Espinosa succeeded Figueres. The Secretariat, augmented through the parallel efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aims to gain consensus through meetings and the discussion of various strategies. Since the signing of the UNFCCC treaty, Conferences of the Parties (COPs) have discussed how to achieve the treaty's aims. Kyoto Protocol The 1st Conference of the Parties (COP-1) decided that the aim of Annex I Parties stabilizing their emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 was "not adequate", and further discussions at later conferences led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The Kyoto Protocol was concluded and established legally binding obligations under international law, for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008–2012. The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference produced an agreement stating that future global warming should be limited to below 2 °C (3.6 °F) relative to the pre-industrial level. The Kyoto Protocol had two commitment periods, the first of which lasted from 2008 to 2012. The Protocol was amended in 2012 to encompass the second one for the period 2013–2020 in the Doha Amendment. One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC was for signatory nations to establish national greenhouse gas inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990 benchmark levels for accession of Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment of those countries to GHG reductions. Updated inventories must be submitted annually by Annex I countries. The US did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while Canada denounced it in 2012. The Kyoto Protocol was ratified by all the other Annex I Parties. All Annex I Parties, excluding the US, participated in the 1st Kyoto commitment period. 37 Annex I countries and the EU agreed to second-round Kyoto targets. These countries are Australia, all members of the European Union, Belarus, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine stated that they might withdraw from the Protocol or not put into legal force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia participated in Kyoto's first round but did not take on new targets in the second commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets were Canada (which withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012) and the United States. All countries that remained parties to the Kyoto Protocol met their first commitment period targets. National communication A "National Communication" is a type of report submitted by the countries that have ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developed countries are required to submit National Communications every four years and developing countries should do so. Some Least Developed Countries have not submitted National Communications in the past 5–15 years, largely due to capacity constraints. National Communication reports are often several hundred pages long and cover a country's measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as well as a description of its vulnerabilities and impacts from climate change. National Communications are prepared according to guidelines that have been agreed by the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC. The (Intended) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that form the basis of the Paris Agreement are shorter and less detailed but also follow a standardized structure and are subject to technical review by experts. Paris Agreement The parties met in Durban, South Africa in 2011 and expressed "grave concern" that efforts to limit global warming to less than 2 or 1.5 °C, relative to the pre-industrial level, appeared inadequate. They committed to develop an "agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties". At the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris the then-196 parties agreed to aim to limit global warming to less than 2 °C, and try to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. The Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016 in those countries that had ratified the Agreement, and other countries had ratified the Agreement since. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions At the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties in Warsaw in 2013, the UNFCCC created a mechanism for Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to be submitted in the run up to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties in Paris (COP21) in 2015. Countries were given freedom and flexibility to ensure that these climate change mitigation and adaptation plans were nationally appropriate. This flexibility, especially regarding the types of actions to be undertaken, allowed for developing countries to tailor their plans to their specific adaptation and mitigation needs, as well as towards other needs. In the aftermath of COP21, these INDCs became Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as each country ratified the Paris Agreement, unless a new NDC was submitted to the UNFCCC at the same time. The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakesh focused on these Nationally Determined Contributions and their implementation, after the Paris Agreement entered into force on 4 November 2016. The Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) created a guide for NDC implementation, for the use of decision makers in Less Developed Countries. In this guide, CDKN identified a series of common challenges countries face in NDC implementation, including how to: build awareness of the need for, and benefits of, action among stakeholders, including key government ministries; mainstream and integrate climate change into national planning and development processes; strengthen the links between subnational and national government plans on climate change; build capacity to analyse, develop and implement climate policy; establish a mandate for coordinating actions around NDCs and driving their implementation; and address resource constraints for developing and implementing climate change policy. Other decisions In addition to the Kyoto Protocol (and its amendment) and the Paris Agreement, parties to the Convention have agreed to further commitments during UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties. These include the Bali Action Plan (2007), the Copenhagen Accord (2009), the Cancún agreements (2010), and the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (2012). Bali Action Plan As part of the Bali Action Plan, adopted in 2007, all developed country Parties have agreed to "quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, while ensuring the comparability of efforts among them, taking into account differences in their national circumstances." Developing country Parties agreed to "[nationally] appropriate mitigation actions context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner." 42 developed countries have submitted mitigation targets to the UNFCCC secretariat, as have 57 developing countries and the African Group (a group of countries within the UN). Copenhagen Accord and Cancún agreements As part of the 2009 Copenhagen negotiations, a number of countries produced the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord states that global warming should be limited to below 2.0 °C (3.6 °F). The Accord does not specify what the baseline is for these temperature targets (e.g., relative to pre-industrial or 1990 temperatures). According to the UNFCCC, these targets are relative to pre-industrial temperatures. 114 countries agreed to the Accord. The UNFCCC secretariat notes that "Some Parties ... stated in their communications to the secretariat specific understandings on the nature of the Accord and related matters, based on which they have agreed to [the Accord]." The Accord was not formally adopted by the Conference of the Parties. Instead, the COP "took note of the Copenhagen Accord." As part of the Accord, 17 developed country Parties and the EU-27 submitted mitigation targets, as did 45 developing country Parties. Some developing country Parties noted the need for international support in their plans. As part of the Cancún agreements, developed and developing countries submitted mitigation plans to the UNFCCC. These plans were compiled with those made as part of the Bali Action Plan. UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs At the 2021 annual meeting UNFCCC launched the 'UN Race-to-Zero Emissions Breakthroughs'. The aim of the campaign is to transform 20 sectors of the economy in order to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of each sector should take specific measures, and 10 sectors should be transformed before COP 26 in Glasgow. According to the organizers, 20% is a tipping point, after which the whole sector begins to irreversibly change. Developing countries At Berlin, Cancún, and Durban, the development needs of developing country parties were reiterated. For example, the Durban Platform reaffirms that: Interpreting article 2 The ultimate objective of the Framework Convention is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-caused] interference with the climate system". Article 2 of the convention says this "should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner". To stabilize atmospheric GHG concentrations, global anthropogenic GHG emissions would need to peak then decline (see climate change mitigation). Lower stabilization levels would require emissions to peak and decline earlier compared to higher stabilization levels. The graph above shows projected changes in annual global GHG emissions (measured in CO2-equivalents) for various stabilization scenarios. The other two graphs show the associated changes in atmospheric GHG concentrations (in CO2-equivalents) and global mean temperature for these scenarios. Lower stabilization levels are associated with lower magnitudes of global warming compared to higher stabilization levels. There is uncertainty over how GHG concentrations and global temperatures will change in response to anthropogenic emissions (see climate change feedback and climate sensitivity). The graph opposite shows global temperature changes in the year 2100 for a range of emission scenarios, including uncertainty estimates. Dangerous anthropogenic interference There are a range of views over what level of climate change is dangerous. |
that "all human beings are created equal", instead of "all men are created equal", to better reflect gender quality. Charles Theodore Te Water of South Africa fought very hard to have the word dignity removed from the declaration, saying that "dignity had no universal standard and that it was not a 'right'". Te Water believed correctly as it turned out that listing human dignity as a universal human right would lead to criticism of the apartheid system that had just been introduced by the new National Party government of South Africa. Malik in response stated it was Prime Minister Jan Smuts of South Africa who had played an important role in drafting the UN Charter in 1945 and it was Smuts who inserted the word dignity as a universal human right into the charter. Despite te Water's efforts, the word dignity was included in the declaration as a universal human right. With a vote of 12 in favour, none opposed, and four abstaining, the CHR approved the proposed Declaration, though was unable to examine the contents and implementation of the proposed Covenant. The Commission forwarded the approved text of the Declaration, as well as the Covenant, to the Economic and Social Council for its review and approval during its seventh session in July and August 1948. The Council adopted Resolution 151(VII) of 26 August 1948, transmitting the draft International Declaration of Human Rights to the UN General Assembly. The Third Committee of the General Assembly, which convened from 30 September to 7 December 1948 during the third session of the United Nations General Assembly, held 81 meetings concerning the draft Declaration, including debating and resolving 168 proposals for amendments by UN member states. On its 178th meeting on 6 December, the Third Committee adopted the Declaration with 29 votes in favour, none opposed and seven abstentions. The document was subsequently submitted to the wider General Assembly for its consideration on 9 and 10 December 1948. Adoption The Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly as UN Resolution A/RES/217(III)[A] on 10 December 1948 in Palais de Chaillot, Paris. Of the 58 UN members at the time, 48 voted in favour, none against, eight abstained, and Honduras and Yemen failed to vote or abstain. Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with having been instrumental in mustering support for the Declaration's adoption, both in her native U.S. and across the world, owing to her ability to appeal to different and often opposing political blocs. The meeting record provides firsthand insight into the debate on the Declaration's adoption. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration. Saudi Arabia's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief", and Article 16, on equal marriage rights. The abstentions by the six communist nations centred on the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism; Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the actual point of contention as being Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries. Other observers point to the Soviet bloc's opposition to the Declaration's "negative rights", such as provisions calling on governments not to violate certain civil and political rights. The British delegation, while voting in favor of the Declaration, expressed frustration that the proposed document had moral obligations but lacked legal force; it would not be until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration. The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are: Eight countries abstained: Two countries did not vote: The majority of current UN member states gained sovereignty and joined the organisation later, which accounts for the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote. International Human Rights Day 10 December, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, is celebrated annually as World Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and of human rights general. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us". Likewise, the 70th anniversary in 2018 was marked by the global #StandUpForHumanRights campaign, which targeted youth. Impact Significance At the time of the Declaration's adoption by the General Assembly in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt said: In giving our approval to the declaration today, it is of primary importance that we keep clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms, to be stamped with the approval of the General Assembly by formal vote of its members, and to serve as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations. The UDHR is considered groundbreaking for providing a comprehensive and universal set of principles in a secular, apolitical document that explicitly transcends cultures, religions, legal systems, and political ideologies. Its claim to universality has been described as "boundlessly idealistic" and the "most ambitious feature". The Declaration was officially adopted as a bilingual document in English and French, with official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish, all of which are official working languages of the UN. Due to its inherently universalist nature, the UN has made a concerted effort to translate the document into as many languages as possible, in collaboration with private and public entities and individuals. In 1999, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document", with 298 translations; the record was once again certified a decade later when the text reached 370 different languages and dialects. The UDHR achieved a milestone of over 500 translations in 2016, and as of 2021, has been translated into 530 languages, remaining the most translated document. In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the text as a declaration, rather than as a treaty, because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States. Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been incorporated into or influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, subnational, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights. The Declaration's all-encompassing provisions serve as a "yardstick" and point of reference by which countries' commitments to human rights are judged, such as through the treaty bodies and other mechanisms of various human rights treaties that monitor implementation. Legal effect In international law, a declaration is distinct from a treaty in that it generally states aspirations or understandings among the parties, rather than binding obligations. The Declaration was explicitly adopted to reflect and elaborate on the customary international law reflected in the "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" referenced in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations and, by extension, all 193 parties of the UN Charter. Nevertheless, the status of the Declaration as a legally enforceable document varies widely around the world: some countries have incorporated it into their domestic laws, while other countries consider it merely a statement of ideals, with no binding provisions. Many international lawyers believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate its articles. One prominent international jurist described the UDHR as being "universally regarded as expounding generally accepted norms." Other legal scholars have further argued that the Declaration constitutes jus cogens, fundamental principles of international law from which no state may deviate or derogate. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in other binding international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights. National law One scholar estimates that at least 90 national constitutions drafted since the Declaration's adoption in 1948 "contain statements of fundamental rights which, where they do not faithfully reproduce the provisions of the Universal Declaration, are at least inspired by it." At least 20 African nations that attained independence in the decades immediately following 1948 explicitly referenced the UDHR in their constitutions. As of 2014, the constitutions that still directly cite the Declaration are those of Afghanistan, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Mali, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Niger, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Somalia, Spain, Togo and Yemen. Moreover, the constitutions of Portugal, Romania, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Spain compel their courts to "interpret" constitutional norms consistently with the Universal Declaration. Judicial and political figures in many nations have directly invoked the UDHR as an influence or inspiration on their courts, constitutions, or legal codes. Indian courts have ruled the Indian Constitution "[embodies] most of the articles contained in the Declaration". Nations as diverse as Antigua, Chad, Chile, Kazakhstan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Zimbabwe have derived constitutional and legal provisions from the Declaration. In some cases, specific provisions of the UDHR are incorporated or otherwise reflected in national law. The right to health or to protection of health is found in the constitutions of Belgium, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, and Togo; constitutional obligations on the government to provide health services exist in Armenia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Finland, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Thailand, and Yemen. A survey of U.S. cases through 1988 found five references to the Declaration by the United States Supreme Court; sixteen references by federal courts of appeal; twenty-four references by federal district courts; one reference by a bankruptcy court; and several references by five state courts. Likewise, research conducted in 1994 identified 94 references to the Declaration by federal and state courts across the U.S. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law", and that the political branches of the U.S. federal government can "scrutinize" the nation's obligations to international instruments and their enforceability. However, U.S. courts and legislatures may still use the Declaration to inform or interpret laws concerned with human rights, a position shared by the courts of Belgium, the Netherlands, India, and Sri Lanka. Reaction Praise and support The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable activists, jurists, and political leaders. Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance", while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that helped draft the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international | and Yemen failed to vote or abstain. Eleanor Roosevelt is credited with having been instrumental in mustering support for the Declaration's adoption, both in her native U.S. and across the world, owing to her ability to appeal to different and often opposing political blocs. The meeting record provides firsthand insight into the debate on the Declaration's adoption. South Africa's position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated several articles in the Declaration. Saudi Arabia's abstention was prompted primarily by two of the Declaration's articles: Article 18, which states that everyone has the right "to change his religion or belief", and Article 16, on equal marriage rights. The abstentions by the six communist nations centred on the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism; Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the actual point of contention as being Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries. Other observers point to the Soviet bloc's opposition to the Declaration's "negative rights", such as provisions calling on governments not to violate certain civil and political rights. The British delegation, while voting in favor of the Declaration, expressed frustration that the proposed document had moral obligations but lacked legal force; it would not be until 1976 that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, giving a legal status to most of the Declaration. The 48 countries that voted in favour of the Declaration are: Eight countries abstained: Two countries did not vote: The majority of current UN member states gained sovereignty and joined the organisation later, which accounts for the relatively small number of states entitled to the historical vote. International Human Rights Day 10 December, the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration, is celebrated annually as World Human Rights Day or International Human Rights Day. The commemoration is observed by individuals, community and religious groups, human rights organizations, parliaments, governments, and the United Nations. Decadal commemorations are often accompanied by campaigns to promote awareness of the Declaration and of human rights general. 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, and was accompanied by year-long activities around the theme "Dignity and justice for all of us". Likewise, the 70th anniversary in 2018 was marked by the global #StandUpForHumanRights campaign, which targeted youth. Impact Significance At the time of the Declaration's adoption by the General Assembly in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt said: In giving our approval to the declaration today, it is of primary importance that we keep clearly in mind the basic character of the document. It is not a treaty; it is not an international agreement. It is not and does not purport to be a statement of law or of legal obligation. It is a declaration of basic principles of human rights and freedoms, to be stamped with the approval of the General Assembly by formal vote of its members, and to serve as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations. The UDHR is considered groundbreaking for providing a comprehensive and universal set of principles in a secular, apolitical document that explicitly transcends cultures, religions, legal systems, and political ideologies. Its claim to universality has been described as "boundlessly idealistic" and the "most ambitious feature". The Declaration was officially adopted as a bilingual document in English and French, with official translations in Chinese, Russian and Spanish, all of which are official working languages of the UN. Due to its inherently universalist nature, the UN has made a concerted effort to translate the document into as many languages as possible, in collaboration with private and public entities and individuals. In 1999, the Guinness Book of Records described the Declaration as the world's "Most Translated Document", with 298 translations; the record was once again certified a decade later when the text reached 370 different languages and dialects. The UDHR achieved a milestone of over 500 translations in 2016, and as of 2021, has been translated into 530 languages, remaining the most translated document. In its preamble, governments commit themselves and their people to progressive measures that secure the universal and effective recognition and observance of the human rights set out in the Declaration. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the adoption of the text as a declaration, rather than as a treaty, because she believed that it would have the same kind of influence on global society as the United States Declaration of Independence had within the United States. Even though it is not legally binding, the Declaration has been incorporated into or influenced most national constitutions since 1948. It has also served as the foundation for a growing number of national laws, international laws, and treaties, as well as for a growing number of regional, subnational, and national institutions protecting and promoting human rights. The Declaration's all-encompassing provisions serve as a "yardstick" and point of reference by which countries' commitments to human rights are judged, such as through the treaty bodies and other mechanisms of various human rights treaties that monitor implementation. Legal effect In international law, a declaration is distinct from a treaty in that it generally states aspirations or understandings among the parties, rather than binding obligations. The Declaration was explicitly adopted to reflect and elaborate on the customary international law reflected in the "fundamental freedoms" and "human rights" referenced in the United Nations Charter, which is binding on all member states. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a fundamental constitutive document of the United Nations and, by extension, all 193 parties of the UN Charter. Nevertheless, the status of the Declaration as a legally enforceable document varies widely around the world: some countries have incorporated it into their domestic laws, while other countries consider it merely a statement of ideals, with no binding provisions. Many international lawyers believe that the Declaration forms part of customary international law and is a powerful tool in applying diplomatic and moral pressure to governments that violate its articles. One prominent international jurist described the UDHR as being "universally regarded as expounding generally accepted norms." Other legal scholars have further argued that the Declaration constitutes jus cogens, fundamental principles of international law from which no state may deviate or derogate. The 1968 United Nations International Conference on Human Rights advised that the Declaration "constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community" to all persons. The Declaration has served as the foundation for two binding UN human rights covenants: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The principles of the Declaration are elaborated in other binding international treaties such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and many more. The Declaration continues to be widely cited by governments, academics, advocates, and constitutional courts, and by individuals who appeal to its principles for the protection of their recognised human rights. National law One scholar estimates that at least 90 national constitutions drafted since the Declaration's adoption in 1948 "contain statements of fundamental rights which, where they do not faithfully reproduce the provisions of the Universal Declaration, are at least inspired by it." At least 20 African nations that attained independence in the decades immediately following 1948 explicitly referenced the UDHR in their constitutions. As of 2014, the constitutions that still directly cite the Declaration are those of Afghanistan, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Mali, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Niger, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Somalia, Spain, Togo and Yemen. Moreover, the constitutions of Portugal, Romania, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Spain compel their courts to "interpret" constitutional norms consistently with the Universal Declaration. Judicial and political figures in many nations have directly invoked the UDHR as an influence or inspiration on their courts, constitutions, or legal codes. Indian courts have ruled the Indian Constitution "[embodies] most of the articles contained in the Declaration". Nations as diverse as Antigua, Chad, Chile, Kazakhstan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Zimbabwe have derived constitutional and legal provisions from the Declaration. In some cases, specific provisions of the UDHR are incorporated or otherwise reflected in national law. The right to health or to protection of health is found in the constitutions of Belgium, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, and Togo; constitutional obligations on the government to provide health services exist in Armenia, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Finland, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Thailand, and Yemen. A survey of U.S. cases through 1988 found five references to the Declaration by the United States Supreme Court; sixteen references by federal courts of appeal; twenty-four references by federal district courts; one reference by a bankruptcy court; and several references by five state courts. Likewise, research conducted in 1994 identified 94 references to the Declaration by federal and state courts across the U.S. In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain that the Declaration "does not of its own force impose obligations as a matter of international law", and that the political branches of the U.S. federal government can "scrutinize" the nation's obligations to international instruments and their enforceability. However, U.S. courts and legislatures may still use the Declaration to inform or interpret laws concerned with human rights, a position shared by the courts of Belgium, the Netherlands, India, and Sri Lanka. Reaction Praise and support The Universal Declaration has received praise from a number of notable activists, jurists, and political leaders. Lebanese philosopher and diplomat Charles Malik called it "an international document of the first order of importance", while Eleanor Roosevelt—first chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that helped draft the Declaration—stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere." At the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights, one of the largest international gatherings on human rights, diplomats and officials representing 100 nations reaffirmed their governments' "commitment to the purposes and principles contained in the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" and emphasized that the Declaration as "the source of inspiration and has been the basis for the United Nations in making advances in standard setting as contained in the existing international human rights instruments." In a speech on 5 October 1995, Pope John Paul II called the Declaration "one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time", despite the Vatican never adopting it. In a statement on 10 December 2003 on behalf of the European Union, Marcello Spatafora said that the Declaration "placed human rights at the centre of the framework of principles and obligations shaping relations within the international community." As a pillar of international human rights, the UDHR enjoys widespread support among international and nongovernmental organizations. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), one of the oldest human rights organizations, has as its core mandate the promotion of the respect for all rights set out in the Declaration, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Amnesty International, the third oldest international human rights organization, has regularly observed Human Rights Day and organised worldwide events to bring awareness and support of the UDHR. Some organisations, such as the Quaker United Nations Office, the American Friends Service Committee, and Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) have developed curriculum or programs to educate young people on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Specific provisions of the UDHR are cited or elaborated by interest groups in relation to their specific area of focus. In 1997, the council of the American Library Association (ALA) endorsed Articles 18 through 20 concerning freedoms of thought, opinion, and expression, which were codified in the ALA Universal Right to Free Expression and the Library Bill of Rights. The Declaration formed the basis of the ALA's claim that censorship, invasion of privacy, and interference of opinions are human rights violations. Criticism Islamic countries Most Muslim-majority countries that were then members of the UN signed the Declaration in 1948, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Syria; Turkey, which had an overwhelmingly Muslim population but an officially secular government, also voted in favor. Saudi Arabia was the sole abstainer on the Declaration among Muslim nations, claiming that it violated Sharia law. Pakistan, officially an Islamic state, signed the declaration and critiqued the Saudi position, strongly arguing in favour of including freedom of religion. Moreover, some Muslim diplomats would later help draft other UN human rights treaties. For example, Iraq's representative to the UN, Bedia Afnan's insistence on wording that recognized gender equality resulted in Article 3 within the ICCPR and ICESCR, which, together with the UDHR, form the International Bill of Rights. Pakistani diplomat Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah influenced the drafting of the Declaration, especially with respect to women's rights, and played a role in the preparation of the 1951 Genocide Convention. In 1982, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, who represented the country's newly installed Islamic republic, said that the Declaration was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition" that could not be implemented by Muslims without conflict with Sharia. On 30 June 2000, member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which represents most of the Muslim world, officially resolved to support the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, an alternative document that says people have "freedom and right to a dignified life in accordance with the Islamic Shari'ah", without any discrimination on grounds of "race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations". The Cairo Declaration is widely acknowledged to be a response to the UDHR, and uses similar universalist language, albeit derived solely from Islamic jurisprudence. Regarding the promulgation of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, T. Jeremy Gunn, Professor of Law and Political Science at the International University of Rabat in Morocco, has stated: the twenty-two-member League of Arab States (Arab League)–each of whose members also belongs to the OIC and is majority-Muslim–created its own human rights instruments and institutions (based in Cairo) that set it apart from the international human rights regime. While the term “Arab” denotes an ethnicity and “Muslim” references a religion, all majority-Arab countries are also majority-Muslim countries, though the opposite does not hold. Indeed, the preponderance of Muslim-majority countries is not Arab. It has long been recognized that the Muslim-majority Arab world ranks particularly poorly with respect to human rights. According to the 2009 Arab Human Development Report, written by Arab experts for the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Arab States, “Arab states seem content to ratify certain international human rights treaties, but do not go so far as to recognize the role of international mechanisms in making human rights effective.” [...] The resistance to implementation of international human rights standards in parts of the Muslim and Arab worlds is perhaps most salient with the panoply of rights related to religion. In terms of the UDHR, the core of the resistance is centered on issues of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion (Article 18), prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religion (Article 2), and the prohibition of discrimination against women (preamble, Article 2, Article 16). The same resistance to universal standards, already present in the UDHR, continued in subsequent elaborations of human rights, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. A number of scholars in different fields have expressed concerns with the Declaration's alleged Western bias. Abdulaziz Sachedina observes that Muslims broadly agree with the Declaration's universalist premise, which is shared by Islam, but differ on specific contents, which many find "insensitive to particular Muslim cultural values, especially when it comes to speaking about individual rights in the context of collective and family values in Muslim society". However, he notes that most Muslim scholars, while opposing the inherently secular framework of the document, do respect and acknowledge some of its "foundations". Sachedina adds that many Christians similarly criticise the Declaration for reflecting a secular and liberal bias in opposition to certain religious values. Kazakh religion scholars Galym Zhussipbek and Zhanar Nagayeva have argued that the rejection or failed implementation of human rights in Muslim-majority countries and their seeming incompatibility with Sharia law originates from the current "epistemological crisis of conservative Islamic scholarship and Muslim mind", rooted in the centuries-old confinement of a role for reason within strict limits, and in the disappearance of rationalistic discursive theology (kalam) as a dynamic science. Furthermore, they affirm the necessity of undertaking an epistemological reform in Islamic scholarship, which denotes the incorporation of international standards of human rights and justice into the epistemology and methodology of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh). Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani-born Muslim theologian, has argued: What needs to be pointed out to those who uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be the highest, or sole, model, of a charter of equality and liberty for all human beings, is that given the Western origin and orientation of this Declaration, the "universality" of the assumptions on which it is based isat the very leastproblematic and subject to questioning. Furthermore, the alleged incompatibility between the concept of human rights and religion in general, or particular religions such as Islam, needs to be examined in an unbiased way. Faisal Kutty, a Muslim Canadian human rights activist, opines that a "strong argument can be made that the current formulation of international human rights constitutes a cultural structure in which western society finds itself easily at home ... It is important to acknowledge and appreciate that other societies may have equally valid alternative conceptions of human rights." Irene Oh, the director of the peace studies program at Georgetown University, has proposed that Muslim opposition to the UDHR, and the broader debate about the document's secular and Western bias, could be resolved through mutual dialogue grounded in comparative descriptive ethics. "The Right to Refuse to Kill" Groups such as |
for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men." (RSV) Romans 11:32 "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (NIV) Mistranslations Christian universalists point towards the mistranslations of the Greek word αιών (Lit. aion), as giving rise to the idea of Eternal Hell, and the idea that some people will not be saved. This Greek word is the origin of the modern English word eon, which refers to a period of time or an epoch. The 19th century theologian Marvin Vincent wrote about the word aion, and the supposed connotations of "eternal" or "temporal": Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. [...] Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting." Dr. Ken Vincent writes that "When it (aion) was translated into Latin Vulgate, "aion" became "aeternam" which means "eternal". Catholicism The Catholic church believes that God judges everyone based only on their moral acts, that no one should be subject to human misery, that everyone is equal in dignity yet distinct in individuality before God, that no one should be discriminated against because of their sin or concupiscence, and that apart from coercion God exhausts every means to save mankind from evil: original holiness being intended for everyone, the irrevocable Old Testament covenants, each religion being a share in the truth, elements of sanctification in non-Catholic Christian communities, the good people of every religion and nation, everyone being called to baptism and confession, and Purgatory, suffrages, and indulgences for the dead. The church believes that everyone is predestined to Heaven, that no one is predestined to Hell, that everyone is redeemed by Christ's Passion, that no one is excluded from the church except by sin, and that everyone can either love God by loving others unto going to Heaven or reject God by sin unto going to Hell. The church believes that God's predestination takes everything into account, and that his providence brings out of evil a greater good, as evidenced, the church believes, by the Passion of Christ being all at once predestined by God, foretold in Scripture, necessitated by original sin, authored by everyone who sins, caused by Christ's executioners, and freely planned and undergone by Christ. The church believes that everyone who goes to Heaven joins the church, and that from the beginning God intended Israel to be the beginning of the church, wherein God would unite all persons to each other and to God. The church believes that Heaven and Hell are eternal. Hinduism Author David Frawley says that Hinduism has a "background universalism" and its teachings contain a "universal relevance." Hinduism is also naturally religiously pluralistic. A well-known Rig Vedic hymn says: "Truth is One, though the sages know it variously." Similarly, in the Bhagavad Gītā (4:11), God, manifesting as an incarnation, states: "As people approach me, so I receive them. All paths lead to me." The Hindu religion has no theological difficulties in accepting degrees of truth in other religions. Hinduism emphasizes that everyone actually worships the same God, whether one knows it or not. While Hinduism has an openness and tolerance towards other religions, it also has a wide range of diversity within it. There are considered to be six orthodox Hindu schools of philosophy/theology, as well as multiple unorthodox or "heterodox" traditions called darshanas. Hindu universalism Hindu universalism, also called Neo-Vedanta and neo-Hinduism, is a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to western colonialism and orientalism. It denotes the ideology that all religions are true and therefore worthy of toleration and respect. It is a modern interpretation that aims to present Hinduism as a "homogenized ideal of Hinduism" with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine. For example, it presents that: Hinduism embraces universalism by conceiving the whole world as a single family that deifies the one truth, and therefore it accepts all forms of beliefs and dismisses labels of distinct religions which would imply a division of identity. This modernised re-interpretation has become a broad current in Indian culture, extending far beyond the Dashanami Sampradaya, the Advaita Vedanta Sampradaya founded by Adi Shankara. An early exponent of Hindu Universalism was Ram Mohan Roy, who established the Brahmo Samaj. Hindu Universalism was popularised in the 20th century in both India and the west by Vivekananda and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. Veneration for all other religions was articulated by Gandhi: Western orientalists played an important role in this popularisation, regarding Vedanta to be the "central theology of Hinduism". Oriental scholarship portrayed Hinduism as a "single world religion", and denigrated the heterogeneousity of Hindu beliefs and practices as 'distortions' of the basic teachings of Vedanta. Islam Islam recognizes to a certain extent the validity of the Abrahamic religions, the Quran identifying Jews, Christians, and "Sabi'un" (usually taken as a reference to the Mandaeans) as "people of the Book" (ahl al-kitab). Later Islamic theologians expanded this definition to include Zoroastrians, and later even Hindus, as the early Islamic empire brought many people professing these religions under its dominion, but the Qur'an explicitly identifies only Jews, Christians, and Sabians as People of the Book., , The relation between Islam and universalism has assumed crucial importance in the context of political Islam or Islamism, particularly in reference to Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and one of the key contemporary philosophers of Islam. There are several views within Islam with respect to Universalism. According to the most inclusive teachings, common among the liberal Muslim movements, all monotheistic religions or people of the book | view, the unity of humanity is one of the central teachings of the Baháʼí Faith. The Baháʼí teachings state that since all humans have been created in the image of God, God does not make any distinction between people with regard to race, colour or religion. Thus, because all humans have been created equal, they all require equal opportunities and treatment. Hence the Baháʼí view promotes the unity of humanity, and that people's vision should be world-embracing and that people should love the whole world rather than just their nation. The teaching, however, does not equate unity with uniformity; instead the Baháʼí writings advocate the principle of unity in diversity where the variety in the human race is valued. Operating on a worldwide basis this cooperative view of the peoples and nations of the planet culminates in a vision of the practicality of the progression in world affairs towards, and the inevitability of, world peace. Buddhism The idea of universal salvation is key to the Mahayana school of Buddhism. All practitioners of this school of Buddhism aspire to become fully enlightened, so as to save other beings. There are many such vows or sentiments that people on this path focus on, the most famous being "Beings are numberless. I vow to save them all." Adherents to Pure Land Buddhism point to Amitabha Buddha as a Universal Savior. Before becoming a Buddha Amitabha vowed that he would save all beings and according to The Pure Land Sutras (scriptures), all beings will be eventually saved through the work of Amida Buddha. Christianity The fundamental idea of Christian universalism is universal reconciliation – that all humans will eventually receive salvation. They will eventually enter God's kingdom in Heaven, through the grace and works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian universalism teaches that an eternal Hell does not exist, and that it was not what Jesus had taught. They point to historical evidence showing that some early fathers of the church were universalists, and attribute the origin of the idea of hell as eternal to mistranslation, as well as many Bible verses, to argue that historically the concept of eternal hell isn't supported either in Judaism or early Christianity. Universalists cite numerous biblical passages which reference the salvation of all beings. In addition, they argue that an eternal hell is both unjust, and against the nature and attributes of a loving God. The remaining beliefs of Christian universalism are generally compatible with the fundamentals of Christianity God is the loving Parent of all peoples, see Love of God. Jesus Christ reveals the nature and character of God, and is the spiritual leader of humankind. Humankind is created with an immortal soul, which death can not end—or a mortal soul that shall be resurrected and preserved by God. A soul which God will not wholly destroy. Sin has negative consequences for the sinner either in this life or the afterlife. All of God's punishments for sin are corrective and remedial. None of such punishments will last forever, or result in the permanent destruction of a soul. Some Christian Universalists believe in the idea of a Purgatorial Hell, or a temporary place of purification that some must undergo before their entrance into Heaven. In 1899 the Universalist General Convention, later called the Universalist Church of America, adopted the Five Principles: the belief in God, Jesus Christ, the immortality of the human soul, the reality of sin and universal reconciliation. History Universalist writers such as George T. Knight have claimed that Universalism was a widely held view among theologians in Early Christianity. These included such important figures such as Alexandrian scholar Origen as well as Clement of Alexandria, a Christian theologian. Origen and Clement both included the existence of a non-eternal Hell in their teachings. Hell was remedial, in that it was a place one went to purge one's sins before entering into Heaven. The first undisputed documentations of Christian Universalist ideas occurred in 17th-century England and 18th-century Europe as well as in colonial America. Between 1648-1697 English activist Gerrard Winstanley, writer Richard Coppin, and dissenter Jane Leade, each taught that God would grant all human beings salvation. The same teachings were later spread throughout 18th-century France and America by George de Benneville. People who taught this doctrine in America would later become known as the Universalist Church of America. The first Universalist Church in America was founded by John Murray (minister). The Greek term apocatastasis came to be related by some to the beliefs of Christian universalism, but central to the doctrine was the restitution, or restoration of all sinful beings to God, and to His state of blessedness. In early Patristics, usage of the term is distinct. Universalist theology Universalist theology is grounded in history, scripture and assumptions about the nature of God. Thomas Whittemore wrote the book "100 Scriptural Proofs that Jesus Christ Will Save All Mankind" quoting both Old and New Testament verses which support the Universalist viewpoint. Some Bible verses he cites and are cited by other Christian Universalists are: Luke 3:6 "And all people will see God's salvation." (NIV) John 17:2 "since thou hast given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom thou hast given him." (RSV) 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." (ESV) 2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (ESV) 1 Timothy 2:3–6 "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for ALL men—the testimony given in its proper time." (NIV) 1 John 2:2 "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (NIV) 1 Timothy 4:10 "For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe." (ESV) Romans 5:18 "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men." (RSV) Romans 11:32 "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (NIV) Mistranslations Christian universalists point towards the mistranslations of the Greek word αιών (Lit. aion), as giving rise to the idea of Eternal Hell, and the idea that some people will not be saved. This Greek word is the origin of the modern English word eon, which refers to a period of time or an epoch. The 19th century theologian Marvin Vincent wrote about the word aion, and the supposed connotations of "eternal" or "temporal": Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. [...] Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting." Dr. Ken Vincent writes that "When it (aion) was translated into Latin Vulgate, "aion" became "aeternam" which means "eternal". Catholicism The Catholic church believes that God judges everyone based only on their moral acts, that no one should be subject to human misery, that everyone is equal in dignity yet distinct in individuality before God, that no one should be discriminated against because of their sin or concupiscence, and that apart from coercion God exhausts every means to save mankind from evil: original holiness being intended for everyone, the irrevocable Old Testament covenants, each religion being a share in the truth, elements of sanctification in non-Catholic Christian communities, the good people of every religion and nation, everyone being called to baptism and confession, and Purgatory, suffrages, and indulgences for the dead. The church believes that everyone is predestined to Heaven, that no one is predestined to Hell, that everyone is redeemed by Christ's Passion, that no one is excluded from the church except by sin, and that everyone can either love God by loving others unto going to Heaven or reject God by sin unto going to Hell. The church believes that God's predestination takes everything into account, and that his providence brings out of evil a greater good, as evidenced, the church believes, by the Passion of Christ being all at once predestined by God, foretold in Scripture, necessitated by original sin, authored by everyone who sins, caused by Christ's executioners, and freely planned and undergone by Christ. The church believes that everyone who goes to Heaven joins the church, and that from the beginning God intended Israel to be the beginning of the church, wherein God would unite all persons to each other and to God. The church believes that Heaven and Hell are eternal. Hinduism Author David Frawley says that Hinduism has a "background universalism" and its teachings contain a "universal relevance." Hinduism is also naturally religiously pluralistic. A well-known Rig Vedic hymn says: "Truth is One, though the sages know it variously." Similarly, in the Bhagavad Gītā (4:11), God, manifesting as an incarnation, states: "As people approach me, so I receive them. All paths lead to me." The Hindu religion has no theological difficulties in accepting degrees of truth in other religions. Hinduism emphasizes that everyone actually worships the same God, whether one knows it or not. While Hinduism has an openness and tolerance towards other religions, it also has a wide range of diversity within it. There are considered to be six orthodox Hindu schools of philosophy/theology, as well as multiple unorthodox or "heterodox" traditions called darshanas. Hindu universalism Hindu universalism, also called Neo-Vedanta and neo-Hinduism, is a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed |
as a creedal test." General Assembly General Assembly (GA) is held every year in June in a different city in the USA. Member congregations (and three associate member organizations) send delegates and conventioneers to participate in the plenary sessions, workshops, district gatherings, and worship services. Finances and membership fees The UUA requests annual contributions from its member congregations. The requested contribution, known as Fair Share, is calculated for each congregation by multiplying an annually determined membership fee times the number of registered members of that congregation. The UUA also has alternative modes of raising funds. In order for congregations to participate in certain programming, they will pay a nominal fee. Some funds are earned through charitable gifts or estate planning. Additionally, the UUA pools together investment funds from congregations or other constituents and manages them for a small percentage. Alternate growth strategies UUA leaders concerned with membership numbers fluctuating from barely perceptible growth to slight decline, are working with a variety of experimental UU communities that represent alternative models of congregational formation—or that may point to new forms of affiliation. Related organizations Two non-congregational organizations belong to the UUA as Associate Member organizations. Associate Member organizations are esteemed as inherently integral to the work of the UUA and its member congregations, and are accorded two voting delegates each to the annual General Assembly. The Associate Member organizations are the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), which is active in social change actions, and the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation, which provides education and advocacy on women's issues. The Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, which is a center of information and action at the United Nations, was an Associate Member organization until it became an office within the UUA in 2011. The UUA also recognizes many organizations as Independent Affiliate organizations. These organizations are created by Unitarian Universalists as needed to meet the special needs of the diversity within Unitarian Universalism. These groups may provide specialized spiritual support, work for specific social justice issues, provide support for religious professionals, etc. The UUA owns Beacon Press, a nationally known publisher of both fiction and non-fiction books. Skinner House Books publishes books primarily of interest to Unitarian Universalists. The UUA also participates in interfaith organizations such as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Governance The UUA is governed by delegates elected to the annual General Assembly. GA delegates elect the president, the moderator, and members of the Board of Trustees. From when the association was established in 1961 until 2010, the president and moderator were each elected to four-year terms by delegates at General Assembly. An individual could not be elected to more than two successive terms. Candidates ran by petition. The 2010 General Assembly adopted a bylaw amendment, to take effect in stages beginning in 2013, making changes in the composition of the Board of Trustees and in the terms and election procedures for president and moderator. Under the new system, the president and moderator are each limited to a single term of six years. A Presidential Search Committee nominates candidates for president. The Board of Trustees nominates candidates for moderator. Individuals who are not nominated by the committee or the board may run by petition. The 2010 amendment also reduced the size of the Board of Trustees and changed the election process so that all trustees are elected by General Assembly. (The prior board consisted of one trustee elected by each UUA district and several at-large trustees elected by General Assembly.) President The president of the UUA is its CEO and the religious leader of Unitarian Universalism in the United States. The current UUA president is Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, who was elected at the 2017 UUA General Assembly in New Orleans, Louisiana; she will be the first president to serve a single six-year term, per a 2010 bylaw change. Frederick-Gray is the first woman to be elected as president of the UUA. Moderator and Co-Moderators The moderator of the UUA is the chair of the Board of Trustees and is the presiding officer at General Assembly. The moderator is the highest UUA position traditionally held by laity. Because of the amount of work needed for the moderator position, in 2017, the position was split into two co-moderator positions. Moderator Jim Key was elected for a six-year term at General Assembly in 2013. Due to "significant health concerns", Key resigned from office on May 13, 2017, less than a month before his death. In August 2017, Mr. Barb Greve and Elandria Williams were appointed to serve as | Unitarian Universalists. The UUA also participates in interfaith organizations such as the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Governance The UUA is governed by delegates elected to the annual General Assembly. GA delegates elect the president, the moderator, and members of the Board of Trustees. From when the association was established in 1961 until 2010, the president and moderator were each elected to four-year terms by delegates at General Assembly. An individual could not be elected to more than two successive terms. Candidates ran by petition. The 2010 General Assembly adopted a bylaw amendment, to take effect in stages beginning in 2013, making changes in the composition of the Board of Trustees and in the terms and election procedures for president and moderator. Under the new system, the president and moderator are each limited to a single term of six years. A Presidential Search Committee nominates candidates for president. The Board of Trustees nominates candidates for moderator. Individuals who are not nominated by the committee or the board may run by petition. The 2010 amendment also reduced the size of the Board of Trustees and changed the election process so that all trustees are elected by General Assembly. (The prior board consisted of one trustee elected by each UUA district and several at-large trustees elected by General Assembly.) President The president of the UUA is its CEO and the religious leader of Unitarian Universalism in the United States. The current UUA president is Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, who was elected at the 2017 UUA General Assembly in New Orleans, Louisiana; she will be the first president to serve a single six-year term, per a 2010 bylaw change. Frederick-Gray is the first woman to be elected as president of the UUA. Moderator and Co-Moderators The moderator of the UUA is the chair of the Board of Trustees and is the presiding officer at General Assembly. The moderator is the highest UUA position traditionally held by laity. Because of the amount of work needed for the moderator position, in 2017, the position was split into two co-moderator positions. Moderator Jim Key was elected for a six-year term at General Assembly in 2013. Due to "significant health concerns", Key resigned from office on May 13, 2017, less than a month before his death. In August 2017, Mr. Barb Greve and Elandria Williams were appointed to serve as Interim Co-Moderators until a special election for Moderator can be held at the 2018 General Assembly, where they were elected as co-moderators. In 2020, Rev. Meg Riley was elected as co-moderator, the first minister to serve as moderator of the UUA. Boy Scouts of America controversy The Religion in Life religious emblems program of UUA is no longer recognized by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). The UUA published statements opposing the BSA's policies on homosexuals, atheists, and agnostics in 1992; and in 1993, the UUA updated Religion in Life to include criticism of these BSA policies. In 1998, the BSA withdrew recognition of Religion in Life, stating that such information was incompatible with BSA programs. The UUA removed the material from their curriculum and the BSA renewed their recognition of the program. When the BSA found that the UUA was issuing supplemental material with the Religion in Life workbooks that included statements critical of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or personal religious viewpoint, the BSA again withdrew recognition. The Unitarian Universalist Scouters Organization (UUSO) created the Living Your Religion program in 2004 as a parallel award for Unitarian Universalist youth. The program was approved by the BSA Religious Relationships committee in 2005 and was promoted at the 2005 National Scout Jamboree as well as at the following jamborees in 2010 and 2013. The UUA stated that the UUSO was not recognized as an affiliate organization despite the stated UUSO goal to create a set of awards that are recognized by the UUA and BSA. In 2013, BSA opened membership to gay youth, followed by opening membership to gay adults in 2015; this policy change resolved the main UUA objection to supporting BSA and by December 2015, the UUSO had self-dissolved and the UUA religious emblems programs were again recognized by BSA. Alternative UU-friendly scouting organizations In the wake of this controversy, a number of SpiralScouts International circles and dozens of Navigators USA Chapters have formed within congregations of the UUA, despite having no official affiliation with the UUA. Navigators USA, was founded by volunteers of All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City after terminating its charter with Boy Scout Troop 103 because of the BSA policies. Its founders describe as "...committed to providing a quality scouting experience that is inclusive and available to all children and families regardless of gender, race, religion, economic status, sexual orientation and social background." There are currently 120 chapters in the United States, |
presence in Europe. UNU as a degree-granting institution In December 2009, the UN General Assembly amended the UNU Charter to make it possible for UNU to "grant and confer master's degrees and doctorates, diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions under conditions laid down for that purpose in the statutes by the Council." In 2013, UNU-ISP announced its intention to seek accreditation from the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) which is the Japanese accreditation agency for higher education institutions. UNU-IAS was formally accredited in April 2015, making it the first international organization to be recognized by the NIAD-UE. In 2014 UNU-MERIT, in collaboration with Maastricht University, started to grant a double-degree Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development. In 2018, the programme was re-accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) and received the official EAPAA accreditation by the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation. Locations The university has several campuses spread over five continents. Its headquarters are located at the UNU Centre in Tokyo, Japan. Research The role of the UN University is to generate new knowledge, educate, enhance individual and institutional capacities, and disseminate its useful information to relevant audiences. Within the scope of these five thematic clusters, the UN University undertakes: Cross-cultural, interdisciplinary research (utilizing innovative, science-based techniques and methodologies to study important global processes and elaborate forward-looking solutions) and targeted foresight and policy studies (aimed at developing policy-relevant prescriptions and evaluating the feasibility and comparative advantages of each option); Postgraduate-level education (degree-oriented programmes and specialized training focused on problems and solutions rather than academic disciplines) and capacity development activities (aimed at helping developing and transitional countries to enhance local potential to address current problems/confront emergent challenges); and Knowledge sharing and transfer (to deliver relevant information about UN University research, current scientific advances and best practices, in a timely manner and in a usable form, to those who most need it and can best utilize it). As prescribed in the United Nations University Strategic Plan 2011–2014, the 26 major topics of focus of the UN University's academic work fall within five interdependent thematic clusters: Peace, Security and Human Rights; Peace building and peace keeping, Conflict resolution and human security, Fostering dialogue among civilizations, religions and cultures, Human rights and ethics, Gender equality and mainstreaming, Human and Socio-economic Development and Good Governance; Growth and economic development, Alleviating poverty and inequalities, Good governance, Enhancing educational capacities, Fair trade, Processes and consequences of regional integration and cooperation, Leadership, management and entrepreneurship. Global Health, Population and Sustainable Livelihoods; Global health, Safe water and sanitation, Food and nutrition for human and social development, Combating HIV/AIDS, Population changes and migration. Global Change and Sustainable Development; Climate change – adaptation and mitigation, Ecological health and biodiversity, New risk and vulnerabilities, Sustainable land, agriculture and natural resources management, Green economy. Science, Technology, Innovation and Society; Science, technology and innovation, Sustainable energy futures, Sustainable urban futures, Sustainable housing and construction. Collectively, these thematic clusters define the programme space within which the UN University undertakes its academic activities. Some key perspectives (such as gender equality, human rights and sustainability) pervade all aspects of the UN University's | University and is composed of 12 members who are appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations with the concurrence of the Director-General of UNESCO. History The University was formally established in 1972 and began its activities in 1975 following the signature of the permanent headquarters agreement between the United Nations and Japan. The creation of the United Nations University was set in motion by Secretary-General U Thant in 1969. UNU Institutes and Vice-Rectorate Over the years, several Institutes of UNU were created to help with the research initiatives of the United Nations. Most notably, in 2007, a vice-rectorate was established in Bonn (UNU-ViE), Germany, as a way of strengthening UNU's presence in Europe. UNU as a degree-granting institution In December 2009, the UN General Assembly amended the UNU Charter to make it possible for UNU to "grant and confer master's degrees and doctorates, diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions under conditions laid down for that purpose in the statutes by the Council." In 2013, UNU-ISP announced its intention to seek accreditation from the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) which is the Japanese accreditation agency for higher education institutions. UNU-IAS was formally accredited in April 2015, making it the first international organization to be recognized by the NIAD-UE. In 2014 UNU-MERIT, in collaboration with Maastricht University, started to grant a double-degree Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development. In 2018, the programme was re-accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) and received the official EAPAA accreditation by the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation. Locations The university has several campuses spread over five continents. Its headquarters are located at the UNU Centre in Tokyo, Japan. Research The role of the UN University is to generate new knowledge, educate, enhance individual and institutional capacities, and disseminate its useful information to relevant audiences. Within the scope of these five thematic clusters, the UN University undertakes: Cross-cultural, interdisciplinary research (utilizing innovative, science-based techniques and methodologies to study important global processes and elaborate forward-looking solutions) and targeted foresight and policy studies (aimed at developing policy-relevant prescriptions and evaluating the feasibility and comparative advantages of each option); Postgraduate-level education (degree-oriented programmes and specialized training focused on problems and solutions rather than academic disciplines) and capacity development activities (aimed at helping developing and transitional countries to enhance local potential to address current problems/confront emergent challenges); and Knowledge sharing and transfer (to deliver relevant information about UN University research, current scientific advances and best practices, in a timely manner and in a usable form, to those who most need it and can best utilize it). As prescribed in the United Nations University Strategic Plan 2011–2014, the 26 major topics of focus of the UN University's academic work fall within five interdependent thematic clusters: Peace, Security and Human Rights; Peace building and peace keeping, Conflict resolution and human security, Fostering dialogue among civilizations, religions and cultures, Human rights and ethics, Gender equality and mainstreaming, Human and Socio-economic Development and Good Governance; Growth and economic development, Alleviating poverty and inequalities, Good governance, Enhancing educational |
of the image, then played it back at normal speed. Graeme Revell composed the theme and other music for the film. For additional music, Wenders commissioned original songs from a number of his favorite recording artists, asking them to anticipate the kind of music they would be making a decade later, when the film was set. His desire to use all of the pieces he received contributed to his decision to make the film as long as it turned out to be. Reception The truncated version of Until the End of the World that received a theatrical release was poorly received, being both a critical and commercial failure. In the United States, the film was released by Warner Bros. in December 1991 on 4 screens. The total U.S. box office gross was just under $830,000. In January 1992, reviewing the theatrical version of the film, Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars out of 4, describing it as lacking the "narrative urgency" required to sustain interest in the story, and wrote that it "plays like a film that was photographed before it was written, and edited before it was completed". He went on to say that a documentary about the globe-trekking production would likely have been more interesting than the film itself. Later critics – some responding to Wenders' director's cut – were more favorable toward it. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an 88% approval rating based on 17 reviews. Versions The initial cut of the film was, reportedly, 20 hours long. Several shortened versions of the film have been commercially distributed or publicly screened. Wenders was contractually obligated by his backers to deliver a standard feature-length film, so he edited it down to the 158- and 179-minute American and European cuts, which he refers to as the "Reader's Digest" versions of the film. Meanwhile, he and his editor Peter Przygodda secretly made a complete copy of the film negatives for themselves at their own expense, and over the next year they worked on a 5-hour version of the film, which they then screened at events over the next decade. A version similar to the one shown at these screenings was released at one point as a 280-minute trilogy of films. There is also a 239-minute letter-boxed and subtitled laserdisc release from Japan, and there are several unauthorized fan edits that combine portions of the aforementioned releases. A 4K digital restoration from the original Super 35mm camera negative of the 287-minute director's cut was commissioned by the Wim Wenders Foundation in 2014. The restoration, which was supervised by the director and his wife Donata, was undertaken by ARRI Film & TV Services Berlin, with the support of the CNC. This version was screened for the first time in the U.S. at several art house theaters in the fall of 2015 as part of a retrospective tour of Wenders' filmography by Janus Films. It was in two parts, with an intermission at 2 hours, 11 minutes, and debuted on television in the U.S. on Turner Classic Movies in July 2017. In September 2019, The Criterion Collection announced a special edition Blu-ray and DVD of the 4K restoration of the 287-minute director's cut of the film, which was released on 10 December 2019. Soundtrack Until The End of the World: Music From the Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on December 10, 1991, and includes the following tracks: "Opening Title" – Graeme Revell "Sax and Violins" – Talking Heads "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears" – Julee Cruise "Move with Me (Dub)" – Neneh Cherry "The Adversary" – Crime & the City Solution "What's Good" – Lou Reed "Last Night Sleep" – Can "Fretless" – R.E.M. "Days" – Elvis Costello "Claire's Theme" – Graeme Revell "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World" – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds "It Takes Time" – Patti Smith (with Fred Smith) "Death's Door" – Depeche Mode "Love Theme" – Graeme Revell "Calling All Angels" (Remix Version) – Jane Siberry with k.d. lang "Humans from Earth" – T Bone Burnett "Sleeping in the Devil's Bed" – Daniel Lanois "Until the End of the World" – U2 "Finale" – Graeme Revell Songs used in the film, but not included on the soundtrack, include: "Trois Jeux d'enfants: Nze-nze-nze", performed by Aka Pygmies (Aka people) (from Centre Afrique: Anthologie de la musique des Pygmées Aka (Ocora C559012 13, 1987)) "Blood of Eden", written and performed by Peter Gabriel (a different version, which features Sinead O'Connor, appears on his 1992 album Us, and was released as a single; the version in the film is only available on the CD single of the version released on Us) "Breakin' the Rules", written and performed by Robbie Robertson (also released on Robertson's album Storyville) "Lagoons", performed by Gondwanaland (also released on their album "Wide Skies") "Travelin' Light", performed by the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Orchestra "The Twist", performed by Chubby Checker "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears", performed by Elvis Presley "La Vieil Homme De La Mer", performed by Laurent Petitgand The German film director Uli M Schueppel made a documentary film about the recording of "(I'll Love You) Till The End of the World" by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. The film was released in 1990 as The Song and re-released in 2004 under a new arrangement. Notes References External links Official website Article on the imagery in the film Until the End of the World: The End of the Road an essay by Bilge Ebiri at The Criterion Collection The Sound of Yesterday’s Future: Notes on the Until the End of the World Soundtrack an essay by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at the Criterion Collection Until the End of the World at the National Film and Sound Archive Until the End of the World at Oz Movies 1991 films Films about Aboriginal Australians 1990s science fiction drama films American films American science fiction drama films Australian films Australian science fiction drama films French films French science fiction drama films German films German epic films German science fiction drama films 1990s English-language films English-language French films English-language German films 1990s French-language films 1990s German-language films Italian-language films Japanese-language films Cyberpunk films Films scored by Graeme Revell Films about telepresence Films directed by Wim Wenders Films set in the future Films set in 1999 Films set in 2000 Films set in Australia Films shot in South Australia Australian road movies Australian action adventure films Warner Bros. films Films about dreams Films about technology Fiction | named Burt, so Claire agrees to let Trevor travel to Paris with her. After reaching the house of her estranged lover, Eugene, Claire discovers that Trevor stole some of the stolen money while she slept. Claire crosses paths with Burt and is able to find out that he is going to Berlin. She makes the trip as well and hires missing-persons detective Phillip Winter to help her locate Trevor. Using his computer, he learns that Trevor has a substantial bounty on his head for stealing opal from a mining syndicate in Australia, and access to Trevor's passport and financial information allows him to determine the man has just boarded a flight to Lisbon. When Claire and Winter catch up with Trevor, Winter handcuffs Trevor to Claire, but she voluntarily goes along with Trevor when he runs away. They go to a hotel, where Winter finds them having sex, though Trevor is able to handcuff both Winter and Claire to the bed and escape with more of Claire's money. Still after the bounty, Winter takes Claire with him to Moscow, where they meet up with Eugene, who Claire has asked to bring her more money. A local bounty hunter with a more advanced computer than Winter has helps them discover that Trevor is actually Sam Farber, who is wanted by the U.S. government for industrial espionage and has a significantly larger bounty on his head than Trevor McPhee does. Winter says he is quitting the job and going home, and Eugene buys a tracking computer to help Claire, who sees Burt again and learns that Sam is wanted for stealing a camera he had helped develop at a lab in Palo Alto. When Sam buys a ticket to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the computer alerts Claire and she leaves Eugene while she thinks he is sleeping. Sam evades Claire, and she ends up traveling through China alone for months. She finally calls Eugene, who tells her to go to Tokyo and meets her there. They go to the capsule hotel where Sam is supposed to be staying, only to find a tied-up Winter and get shot at by various bounty hunters and international government agents who have been tipped off by the bounty hunter they consulted in Moscow. Claire is able to escape and happens upon Sam, who is rapidly losing his eyesight, at a pachinko parlor. She buys them train tickets to a random mountain inn, where the kindly innkeepers provide herbs that heal Sam's eyes. Sam reveals to Claire that the prototype camera he stole was invented by his father, Henry, and is a device that, by recording brain impulses of the photographer for later transfer, takes pictures blind people can see. Though the recording process is hard on his eyes, he has been traveling around the world making recordings of places and people that are important to his mother, Edith, who is blind, so she can see them. The next stop on Sam's itinerary is San Francisco. He and Claire get robbed by a used car salesman shortly after arriving, so Claire calls Chico, one of the French bank robbers, for help, and he brings more money. Sam cannot get the camera to work when he is trying to make a recording of his sister and niece, so Claire takes over. The final recording done, Sam, Claire, and Chico board a small boat to Australia, where Sam's parents are. Act 2 Eugene and Winter, who teamed up and went to Coober Pedy, Australia, to wait for Claire and Sam after losing track of them in Tokyo, pick up the trail when Claire uses her credit card to place a video call nearby. When Eugene sees Sam in town, he punches Sam and they have a brief fight before they are arrested. While Winter tries to bail them out, Burt arrives looking for Sam and the camera, but Chico is able to subdue him. The next day, Sam only takes Claire with him when he takes off to fly to the compound where his parents are hiding and his father has built a secret lab, but the others are able to follow thanks to a secret tracking device that is still on the bag Chico gave to Claire when she first transported the money to Paris. While Claire and Sam are in the air, the Indian nuclear satellite is shot down by the U.S. government, and the resulting NEMP effect wipes the memories of and interferes with the functioning of unshielded electronics. The engine of his plane stops, so Sam has to execute an emergency landing. He and Claire walk across the desert until they are found by Sam's friend David, who has Eugene, Winter, and Chico in the bed of his hand-cranked diesel-powered truck. David takes everyone to Sam's father's lab, which is sheltered in a massive cave. Burt eventually arrives as well and everyone settles in to wait and see whether communications with the outside world will be restored. Eugene, who was writing a novel about Claire and her adventures before it was erased from his computer by the NEMP, begins rewriting it on an antique typewriter. The process Henry developed requires the person who recorded the images to watch them while being monitored in the lab before they can be transmitted to someone else's brain. Sam, who has a strained relationship with his father, attempts to do this immediately after arriving, but he fails because he is too tired to perform well, which leads to a argument with Henry. Claire tries the experiment with her recording of Sam's sister with phenomenal success, and Sam later succeeds with his recordings. Although Edith is at first exhilarated to be able to "see" again, the ugly, pixellated images she receives begin to contribute to her growing despondency. On New Year's Eve, the same evening the group have intercepted a mundane radio broadcast that indicates human civilization has not ended, she "just let[s] go" and passes away quietly. After Edith's burial, Winter, Chico, and Burt leave the compound to go home. Henry, hoping to win a Nobel Prize, begins working on how to use his technology to record human dreams, but the Aborigines who have been assisting him disagree with this turn in the research and abandon him. He continues by experimenting on himself, Sam, and Claire, who eventually become addicted to viewing their dreams on portable video screens. Eugene finds a catatonic Claire and takes her away from the lab, driving her into painful withdrawal when he refuses to replace the batteries for her screen. He finishes his novel, in which he writes her as being healthy and happy, and gives it to her, using the "truth of the words" to cure her of the "disease of images". Meanwhile, Sam wanders away from the lab and is ultimately cured by David and an Aboriginal ritual, and Henry is taken by the CIA while lying in the lab's dream-recording chair. Eugene and Claire break up for good, but remain friends. On her 30th birthday, Eugene's book comes out and he, Winter, and the French bank robbers call Claire, who is in the middle of a six-month stint as an ecological observer on a space station, to sing her "Happy Birthday". Cast Solveig Dommartin as Claire Tourneur Chick Ortega as Chico Rémy Eddy Mitchell as Raymond Monnet William Hurt as Sam Farber, alias Trevor McPhee Adelle Lutz as Makiko Ernie Dingo as Burt Sam Neill as Eugene Fitzpatrick Rüdiger Vogler as Philip Winter Elena Smirnova as Krasikova Kuniko Miyake as Mrs. Mori Chishū Ryū as Mr. Mori Allen Garfield as Used-Car Dealer Lois Chiles as Elsa Farber David Gulpilil as David Jeanne Moreau as Edith Farber Jimmy Little as Peter Max von Sydow as Henry Farber Production Wenders began working on the film as early as late 1977, when, during his first visit to Australia, it struck him that his surroundings would be the perfect setting for a science fiction film. In addition to fleshing out the complex plot, preproduction also involved extensive still photography. It was not until Wenders found commercial success with Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, however, that he was able to secure funding for the project. With a budget of around $22 million ($3.7 million of which came from he Australian Film Finance Corporation), which was more than he had spent on all |
is a proper subset of ). Every ultrafilter falls into exactly one of two categories: principal and free. A principal (or fixed, or trivial) ultrafilter is a filter containing a least element. Consequently, principal ultrafilters are of the form for some (but not all) elements of the given poset. In this case is called the of the ultrafilter. Any ultrafilter that is not principal is called a free (or non-principal) ultrafilter. For ultrafilters on a powerset a principal ultrafilter consists of all subsets of that contain a given element Each ultrafilter on that is also a principal filter is of this form. Therefore, an ultrafilter on is principal if and only if it contains a finite set. If is infinite, an ultrafilter on is hence non-principal if and only if it contains the Fréchet filter of cofinite subsets of If is finite, every ultrafilter is principal. If is infinite then the Fréchet filter is not an ultrafilter on the power set of but it is an ultrafilter on the finite–cofinite algebra of Every filter on a Boolean algebra (or more generally, any subset with the finite intersection property) is contained in an ultrafilter (see ultrafilter lemma) and that free ultrafilters therefore exist, but the proofs involve the axiom of choice (AC) in the form of Zorn's lemma. On the other hand, the statement that every filter is contained in an ultrafilter does not imply AC. Indeed, it is equivalent to the Boolean prime ideal theorem (BPIT), a well-known intermediate point between the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZF) and the ZF theory augmented by the axiom of choice (ZFC). In general, proofs involving the axiom of choice do not produce explicit examples of free ultrafilters, though it is possible to find explicit examples in some models of ZFC; for example, Gödel showed that this can be done in the constructible universe where one can write down an explicit global choice function. In ZF without the axiom of choice, it is possible that every ultrafilter is principal. Ultrafilter on a Boolean algebra An important special case of the concept occurs if the considered poset is a Boolean algebra. In this case, ultrafilters | if is nonempty, for every there exists some element such that and and for every and implies that is in too; a proper subset of is called an ultrafilter on if is a filter on and there is no proper filter on that properly extends (that is, such that is a proper subset of ). Every ultrafilter falls into exactly one of two categories: principal and free. A principal (or fixed, or trivial) ultrafilter is a filter containing a least element. Consequently, principal ultrafilters are of the form for some (but not all) elements of the given poset. In this case is called the of the ultrafilter. Any ultrafilter that is not principal is called a free (or non-principal) ultrafilter. For ultrafilters on a powerset a principal ultrafilter consists of all subsets of that contain a given element Each ultrafilter on that is also a principal filter is of this form. Therefore, an ultrafilter on is principal if and only if it contains a finite set. If is infinite, an ultrafilter on is hence non-principal if and only if it contains the Fréchet filter of cofinite subsets of If is finite, every ultrafilter is principal. If is infinite then the Fréchet filter is not an ultrafilter on the power set of but it is an ultrafilter on the finite–cofinite algebra of Every filter on a Boolean algebra (or more generally, any subset with the finite intersection property) is contained in an ultrafilter (see ultrafilter lemma) and that free ultrafilters therefore exist, but the proofs involve the axiom of choice (AC) in the form of Zorn's lemma. On the other hand, the statement that every filter is contained in an ultrafilter does not imply AC. Indeed, it is equivalent to the Boolean prime ideal theorem (BPIT), a well-known intermediate point between the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (ZF) and the ZF theory augmented by the axiom of choice (ZFC). In general, proofs involving the axiom of choice do not produce explicit examples of free ultrafilters, though it is possible to find explicit examples in some models of ZFC; for example, Gödel showed that this can be done in the constructible universe where one can write down an explicit global choice function. In ZF without the axiom of choice, it is possible that every ultrafilter is principal. Ultrafilter on a Boolean algebra An important special case of the concept occurs if the considered poset is a Boolean algebra. In this case, ultrafilters are characterized by containing, for each element of the Boolean algebra, exactly one of the elements and (the latter being the Boolean complement of ): If is a Boolean algebra and is a proper filter on then |
be anglicized as Utgard, Utgardar and in other ways.) Útgarðar surrounded a stronghold of the Ettings. They are associated with Útgarða-Loki, a great and devious giant featured in one of the myths concerning Thor and the other Loki who competed in rigged competitions held in the Outyards. These outdoor arenas contrasted with the putrid, indoor cave where Útgarða-Loki is said to | myths concerning Thor and the other Loki who competed in rigged competitions held in the Outyards. These outdoor arenas contrasted with the putrid, indoor cave where Útgarða-Loki is said to have dwelt, when chained, in the Gesta Danorum (12th century). In another version of Norse mythology, Utgard is thought to be the last of the three worlds connected to Yggdrasil being the home of the external cosmic forces. Utgard needs be compared with the Midgard, the world of human affairs, and Asgard, |
U of R. As a work-in-progress critique space, this exhibition space provides students the opportunity to develop their work in a semi-professional space. The Gallery at the Art and Music Library features work from students and local artists in the highly trafficked Rush Rhees Art and Music Library. Hartnett Gallery, in Wilson Commons, is a student supported gallery that showcases international and professional contemporary artists as well as an annual juried student exhibition. The pasSAGE is an annex of the Sage Art Center which features long term exhibition selected by a faculty committee. There is also a Senior Thesis Gallery in the Sage Arts Center that features senior undergraduate works. Medical Campus The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is the primary campus for the university's medical education and research as well as the main patient care facility. The Medical Center is next to the River Campus and is dominated by Strong Memorial Hospital, the School of Medicine and Dentistry building and the Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building. URMC also houses the School of Nursing and a variety of research centers, including the Wilmot Cancer Center, the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences, and the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. The Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is situated on its own campus in downtown Rochester, which includes a residence for students, classroom and performance facilities, and the Eastman Theatre, a 2,326-seat concert hall which also serves as the primary venue of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. The campus also features the Sibley Music Library, which is the largest academic music library in North America, as well as the largest privately owned collection of sheet music. Students are housed at 100 Gibbs Street, a dormitory building constructed in 1991. South Campus The South Campus is in Brighton, immediately south of Rochester proper. The campus includes the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy-funded national lab, the Center for Optics Manufacturing, the Center for Optoelectronics and Imaging, and the now defunct Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory (NSRL). Graduate student housing is also provided at the Whipple Park complex. Mount Hope Campus The Mount Hope Campus consists of a number of old mansion homes including the Witmer Family House, which serves as the official residence of the President of the university, and the Patrick Barry House, which serves as the official residence of the Provost of the university. Bristol Mountain Observatory An observatory owned and operated by the university is named in honor of the scientist C. E. Kenneth Mees, university professor and Eastman Kodak scientist. Prince Street Campus and Memorial Art Gallery The university's first permanent campus was at the former farm of Azariah Boody. While a number of buildings still stand including Anderson Hall, the Eastman Laboratories, and a number of student dormitories, these buildings have been absorbed by private companies or the Rochester School of the Arts. The university retains control of a few acres of land including the land under the Sibley Library (razed), old campus gates, the Memorial Art Gallery old and new wings, and the Cutler Union, a prime example of the Collegiate Gothic style of 20th century architecture. The Memorial Art Gallery was founded in 1913 as a part of the University of Rochester through a gift from Emily Sibley Watson as a memorial to her son, James George Averell. It was designed by the prominent American architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White and occupies the southern half of the university's Prince Street campus. It is the focal point of fine arts activity in the region and hosts the biennial Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition and the annual Clothesline Festival. Academics The University of Rochester's undergraduate enrollment includes approximately 5,800 full-time and about 200 part-time students from across the U.S. and over 115 countries. Graduate enrollment includes approximately 3,900 full-time and about 1,100 part-time graduate students. The university has more than 103,000 living alumni and employs nearly 2,300 tenure-track faculty, with more than 20,000 faculty and staff across the university and the Strong Health System. The only required undergraduate course is the first year writing seminar. In lieu of a core curriculum, undergraduates complete coursework in each of three disciplines: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students choose a major, consisting of more than ten courses, and a cluster, consisting of three related courses. The student must ensure at least a cluster is met in each discipline; however, second majors and minors are often used to fulfill these requirements. Students who pursue accredited engineering fields including biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering or mechanical engineering, are exempt from this system and are only required to have one humanities or social science cluster. Rochester offers juniors and seniors the opportunity to apply for full funding for a fifth year of study. These programs include Take Five Scholars program and the Kauffman Entrepreneurial Year (KEY) Scholarship. "Take-Five" and "Key", as they are colloquially known, allow for study in a field unrelated to an undergraduate major or the pursuit of an innovative entrepreneurial project with an impact on the local area, respectively. The university further offers a number of combined undergraduate - graduate tracks. These include Rochester Early Medical Scholars (REMS), Rochester Early Business Scholar (REBS), Graduate Engineering At Rochester (GEAR), and Guaranteed Rochester Accelerated Degree in Education (GRADE) programs. These programs are open to prospective students, who must apply for these prior to entering the university. Rankings UR was one of the 25 New Ivies in the 2007 Kaplan/Newsweek "How to Get into College Guide." The list names institutions whose caliber of students is considered to rival traditional Ivy League schools. The rankings are based on admissions statistics as well as interviews with administrators, students, faculty, and alumni. UR is ranked 34th among national universities and 140th among global universities by U.S. News & World Report. The Eastman School of Music ranks first among music schools in the U.S. Research Rochester is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". Rochester had a research expenditure of $370 million in 2018. In 2008, Rochester ranked 44th nationally in research spending, but this ranking has declined gradually to 68 in 2018. Some of the major research centers include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser-based nuclear fusion facility, and the extensive research facilities at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Recently, the university has also engaged in a series of new initiatives to expand its programs in biomedical engineering and optics, including the construction of the new $37 million Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics on the River Campus. Other new research initiatives include a cancer stem cell program and a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. UR also has the ninth highest technology revenue among U.S. higher education institutions, with $46 million being paid for commercial rights to university technology and research in 2009. Notable patents include Zoloft and Gardasil. WeBWorK, a web-based system for checking homework and providing immediate feedback for students, was developed by University of Rochester professors Gage and Pizer. The system is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges, as well as several secondary and primary schools. Rochester scientists work in diverse areas. For example, physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces, such as platinum, titanium and brass, with powerful lasers, enabling self-cleaning surfaces that repel water droplets and will not rust if tilted at a 4 degree angle; and medical researchers are exploring how brains rid themselves of toxic waste during sleep. Colleges and schools College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering - Undergraduate and graduate programs in a large number of fields. This is the largest college of the university by both undergraduate and graduate enrollment. The college is divided into two schools: The School of Arts and Sciences and the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The college is primarily on the River Campus. The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory offering both undergraduate and graduate education in a number of music fields, including composition, theory, and performance. The Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development is the university's graduate school of education. It is on the River Campus in LeChase Hall. The School of Medicine and Dentistry is a medical and dental school with both research and clinical programs. The school of dentistry is known as the University of Rochester Eastman Institute for Oral Health. It is in the University of Rochester Medical Center. The School of Nursing is a nursing school. It is also on the campus of the University of Rochester Medical Center. Simon Business School is the graduate business school. It is on the River Campus. Student life UR's official symbol is the seal of the university, which features a book, representing arts and sciences, a lyre symbolizing music, and a modified symbol of medicine. The official flower of the university is the dandelion, purportedly prolific on the cow pasture that became the university's second campus. The official mascot of the university is a predatory wasp found throughout Rochester, the Yellowjacket. From 1983 to 2008, the yellowjacket mascot was named "URBee." However, when the university re-designed the mascot during the 2007–2008 academic year, a new name was chosen and as of February 1, 2008, the school's mascot is now known as "Rocky". The university uses Dandelion Yellow and Rochester Blue as its official colors, which are the prominent colors on the official regalia. The motto of UR is Meliora, which loosely translates to "better" with the connotation of "ever better," the meaning adopted by the university. The image of Rush Rhees Library's main dome serves as an additional icon for the University of Rochester. Rush Rhees Library at The University of Rochester was featured on the cover of the "Princeton Review 373 Best Colleges 2011 Edition". The song most often sung at college events, led often by the school's many a cappella groups, is The Genesee, written by former Rochester student Thomas Thackeray Swinburne (Class of 1892). Although less frequently used, the university also has an official Alma Mater, The Dandelion Yellow. Student organizations The student body at the University of Rochester is both ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. There are over 200 active Students' Association recognized groups on campus, which range from cultural dance groups to U of R's comedy improv troupe In Between the Lines. Since 1873, the university has regularly printed its student newspaper, the Campus Times. There is also the student-run, online-only publication,The Rival Rochester. This is a source of opinion, commentary, and satire. Several a cappella groups play a prominent role in campus life. The YellowJackets competed on Season 3 of NBC's "The Sing-Off" during the fall 2011 season, finishing 7th nationwide. The Midnight Ramblers are the centerpiece of the university's admissions video Remember oUR Name. The University of Rochester is also home to its own radio station, WRUR. Residences The majority of undergraduate students at the university live and take classes on the River Campus. Underclassmen are generally required to live on campus while upperclassmen have the option to live off campus. Some graduate housing is provided by the university, but a significant number also live off campus. Housing is provided at multiple locations spread across the several campuses. River Campus River Campus residences house primarily undergraduates, with some graduate students serving as Graduate Head Residents (GHRs). Residences include: Fraternity Quadrangle consists of nine houses, including six fraternities (Alpha Delta Phi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, Sigma Chi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and Theta Chi); in addition, two special interest housing groups—the Douglass Leadership House and the Drama House—maintain housing here. Freshman Housing - Consists of Susan B. Anthony Halls (Gannett, Gates, Hollister, and Morgan), near Rush Rhees Library, Hoeing Hall, Tiernan Hall, Gilbert Hall, and Lovejoy Hall which are on the Residence Quad. Freshmen live together in these specially designated residences that feature increased supervision, regulation, and residence-related activities by upperclassmen Dandelions (affectionately known as D'Lions) and Freshman Fellows, along with Residential Advisers in living areas. Hill Court - Upperclass housing consisting of Chambers, Fairchild, Gale, Kendrick, Munro, and Slater houses, which are connected by tunnels. This residence area, opened in 1969, is colloquially known as "Phase" and was the newest residential area on the River Campus prior to the construction of the Riverview Complex. Residence Quad (ResQuad) - Consists of Burton, Lovejoy and Crosby Halls for upperclassmen, as well as Hoeing, Gilbert, Tiernan and Lovejoy Halls for freshmen. Burton and Crosby were the original dormitories on the River Campus, constructed in 1930, while the other four were built during the 1950s. All ResQuad buildings were fully renovated in the 1990s. (Lovejoy Hall is mostly upperclassmen but has included a freshman floor due to an increase in enrollment.) River Campus Towers - Consists of O'Brien Hall, and Anderson and Wilder Towers. It houses upperclassmen and several Special Interest Housing groups. The formal name for the area is Jackson Court (formerly known as "Founders Court"), but it is simply called "Towers" by most students. Built in 1962, they are scheduled to undergo extensive renovations in the near future. O'Brien Hall opened up to students in 2012. Southside - Southside consists of the Valentine and deKiewiet Towers, as well as several single-story house-style "maisonettes", which offer apartment style living to upperclassmen. The residences are south of the River Campus near the medical center, but house River Campus undergraduate students. The campus master plan shows that this complex will eventually be razed. Riverview - The only housing complex on the western side of the Genesee River, Riverview opened for the 2008–2009 school year, making it the first addition to the campus's housing in nearly 40 years. The complex consists of five buildings, which can house up to 400 undergraduates. The complex is made up of fully furnished two-to-four person apartments. Special Interest floors and Fraternity floors also exist within the residence halls. Special Interest Housing groups include Greenspace (Burton 1), Tiernan Project (Burton 2), Inter-Class Living Community (Crosby 1), Delta Upsilon (Wilder 3), Sigma Delta Tau (Wilder 4), Chi Omega (Wilder 5), Kappa Delta (Wilder 6), Music Interest Floor (Wilder 9), Computer Interest Floor (Anderson 3), Anime Interest Floor (Anderson 7), Phi Kappa Tau (Munro 1), Alpha Phi (Munro 2), Sigma Nu (Kendrick 1), Phi Sigma Sigma (Kendrick 2), Alpha Epsilon Pi (Gale 2), Delta Gamma (Fairchild 2), and Gamma Phi Beta (Fairchild 1). Eastman School of Music Campus Housing is provided at the Eastman School of Music campus at the Eastman Student Living Center at 100 Gibbs Street in downtown Rochester. The new building was opened in 1991 at the northeast corner of Main and Gibbs Streets, replacing the University Avenue dormitories built nearly 70 years earlier. It is a four-story quadrangle and 16-story tower surrounding a landscaped inner courtyard. URMC and Mount Hope Campuses Graduate student housing is provided at several locations near the URMC. These facilities also house select River Campus, non-traditional students who have been deemed too old for traditional housing. George Washington Goler House (GHS) immediately adjacent to the grounds of the URMC. It is a high-rise apartment building with 321 apartments. The building also houses university community members, including faculty and staff. University Park (UPK) is a complex of two-story buildings that include 40 studio, 86 one-bedroom, and 80 two-bedroom unfurnished apartments. UPK is near the URMC, directly across from Southside off of Kendrick Road. Graduate students and their families are the primary occupants of these apartments, but some non-traditional undergraduate students are housed here who have been deemed too old for traditional undergraduate housing on the River Campus. Students who live here typically take up residence year round. South Campus The South Campus has graduate student housing at the Whipple Park (WPK) complex, which features 250 garden apartments and townhouses with ample storage space. WPK also features a park-like setting with large wooded and lawn areas, playgrounds, areas for gardens and low street noise. Some housing is also provided at the River Road complex, which tends to serve as overflow housing for both undergraduate and graduate students. Students' Association The Students' Association (SA) is the primary student governing body and includes most of the student groups at UR. It is governed by the SA Senate, President and Vice President, all of whom are elected by the student body. The SA President may choose to appoint an advisory cabinet made up of a group of volunteer students. There is also a judicial branch, composed of the All Campus Judicial Council (ACJC), the members of whom are nominated by an interview committee and approved by the SA Senate. The SA Senate meets weekly and the longest meeting on record lasted longer than 8 hours. The offices of the SA are in the Wilson Commons student union. All student groups are required to have a constitution, elected officers, and approval from senate in order to be recognized by the SA and have access to university funds. These funds are given yearly based on budgets submitted to the Students' Association Appropriation Committee (SAAC) with supplemental funds available through special forms. All funds are derived from the mandatory Student Activities Fee. Athletics UR's athletics teams are called the Yellowjackets. They participate in the Division III of the NCAA and in the University Athletic Association and Liberty League. One exception to this is the men's squash team, which is consistently ranked top 5 in Division I. The university fields men's teams in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, rowing, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, and track and field. On the women's side, UR sponsors teams in basketball, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, rowing, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. Popular club sports include Hockey, ultimate frisbee, rugby, and soccer, which all have men's and women's teams. The Men's Rugby team has enjoyed recent success, with a New York State Conference Championship in 2011. The team was ranked 9th in the nation out of 151 Division III teams for the 2011–2012 season. In 2009 women's soccer coach Terry Gurnett set records with over 400 lifetime wins. In March 2010 the women's basketball team made it to the NCAA's Final Four. The men's soccer team made it to the NCAA Elite 8 in 2017 and the NCAA Final Four in 2018. There are also numerous club and intramural athletics groups. The main athletics facilities of the university are in the Robert B. Goergen Athletic Center | a semi-professional space. The Gallery at the Art and Music Library features work from students and local artists in the highly trafficked Rush Rhees Art and Music Library. Hartnett Gallery, in Wilson Commons, is a student supported gallery that showcases international and professional contemporary artists as well as an annual juried student exhibition. The pasSAGE is an annex of the Sage Art Center which features long term exhibition selected by a faculty committee. There is also a Senior Thesis Gallery in the Sage Arts Center that features senior undergraduate works. Medical Campus The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is the primary campus for the university's medical education and research as well as the main patient care facility. The Medical Center is next to the River Campus and is dominated by Strong Memorial Hospital, the School of Medicine and Dentistry building and the Arthur Kornberg Medical Research Building. URMC also houses the School of Nursing and a variety of research centers, including the Wilmot Cancer Center, the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences, and the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. The Eastman School of Music The Eastman School of Music is situated on its own campus in downtown Rochester, which includes a residence for students, classroom and performance facilities, and the Eastman Theatre, a 2,326-seat concert hall which also serves as the primary venue of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. The campus also features the Sibley Music Library, which is the largest academic music library in North America, as well as the largest privately owned collection of sheet music. Students are housed at 100 Gibbs Street, a dormitory building constructed in 1991. South Campus The South Campus is in Brighton, immediately south of Rochester proper. The campus includes the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy-funded national lab, the Center for Optics Manufacturing, the Center for Optoelectronics and Imaging, and the now defunct Nuclear Structure Research Laboratory (NSRL). Graduate student housing is also provided at the Whipple Park complex. Mount Hope Campus The Mount Hope Campus consists of a number of old mansion homes including the Witmer Family House, which serves as the official residence of the President of the university, and the Patrick Barry House, which serves as the official residence of the Provost of the university. Bristol Mountain Observatory An observatory owned and operated by the university is named in honor of the scientist C. E. Kenneth Mees, university professor and Eastman Kodak scientist. Prince Street Campus and Memorial Art Gallery The university's first permanent campus was at the former farm of Azariah Boody. While a number of buildings still stand including Anderson Hall, the Eastman Laboratories, and a number of student dormitories, these buildings have been absorbed by private companies or the Rochester School of the Arts. The university retains control of a few acres of land including the land under the Sibley Library (razed), old campus gates, the Memorial Art Gallery old and new wings, and the Cutler Union, a prime example of the Collegiate Gothic style of 20th century architecture. The Memorial Art Gallery was founded in 1913 as a part of the University of Rochester through a gift from Emily Sibley Watson as a memorial to her son, James George Averell. It was designed by the prominent American architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White and occupies the southern half of the university's Prince Street campus. It is the focal point of fine arts activity in the region and hosts the biennial Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition and the annual Clothesline Festival. Academics The University of Rochester's undergraduate enrollment includes approximately 5,800 full-time and about 200 part-time students from across the U.S. and over 115 countries. Graduate enrollment includes approximately 3,900 full-time and about 1,100 part-time graduate students. The university has more than 103,000 living alumni and employs nearly 2,300 tenure-track faculty, with more than 20,000 faculty and staff across the university and the Strong Health System. The only required undergraduate course is the first year writing seminar. In lieu of a core curriculum, undergraduates complete coursework in each of three disciplines: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students choose a major, consisting of more than ten courses, and a cluster, consisting of three related courses. The student must ensure at least a cluster is met in each discipline; however, second majors and minors are often used to fulfill these requirements. Students who pursue accredited engineering fields including biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering or mechanical engineering, are exempt from this system and are only required to have one humanities or social science cluster. Rochester offers juniors and seniors the opportunity to apply for full funding for a fifth year of study. These programs include Take Five Scholars program and the Kauffman Entrepreneurial Year (KEY) Scholarship. "Take-Five" and "Key", as they are colloquially known, allow for study in a field unrelated to an undergraduate major or the pursuit of an innovative entrepreneurial project with an impact on the local area, respectively. The university further offers a number of combined undergraduate - graduate tracks. These include Rochester Early Medical Scholars (REMS), Rochester Early Business Scholar (REBS), Graduate Engineering At Rochester (GEAR), and Guaranteed Rochester Accelerated Degree in Education (GRADE) programs. These programs are open to prospective students, who must apply for these prior to entering the university. Rankings UR was one of the 25 New Ivies in the 2007 Kaplan/Newsweek "How to Get into College Guide." The list names institutions whose caliber of students is considered to rival traditional Ivy League schools. The rankings are based on admissions statistics as well as interviews with administrators, students, faculty, and alumni. UR is ranked 34th among national universities and 140th among global universities by U.S. News & World Report. The Eastman School of Music ranks first among music schools in the U.S. Research Rochester is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". Rochester had a research expenditure of $370 million in 2018. In 2008, Rochester ranked 44th nationally in research spending, but this ranking has declined gradually to 68 in 2018. Some of the major research centers include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a laser-based nuclear fusion facility, and the extensive research facilities at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Recently, the university has also engaged in a series of new initiatives to expand its programs in biomedical engineering and optics, including the construction of the new $37 million Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics on the River Campus. Other new research initiatives include a cancer stem cell program and a Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute. UR also has the ninth highest technology revenue among U.S. higher education institutions, with $46 million being paid for commercial rights to university technology and research in 2009. Notable patents include Zoloft and Gardasil. WeBWorK, a web-based system for checking homework and providing immediate feedback for students, was developed by University of Rochester professors Gage and Pizer. The system is now in use at over 800 universities and colleges, as well as several secondary and primary schools. Rochester scientists work in diverse areas. For example, physicists developed a technique for etching metal surfaces, such as platinum, titanium and brass, with powerful lasers, enabling self-cleaning surfaces that repel water droplets and will not rust if tilted at a 4 degree angle; and medical researchers are exploring how brains rid themselves of toxic waste during sleep. Colleges and schools College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering - Undergraduate and graduate programs in a large number of fields. This is the largest college of the university by both undergraduate and graduate enrollment. The college is divided into two schools: The School of Arts and Sciences and the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The college is primarily on the River Campus. The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory offering both undergraduate and graduate education in a number of music fields, including composition, theory, and performance. The Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development is the university's graduate school of education. It is on the River Campus in LeChase Hall. The School of Medicine and Dentistry is a medical and dental school with both research and clinical programs. The school of dentistry is known as the University of Rochester Eastman Institute for Oral Health. It is in the University of Rochester Medical Center. The School of Nursing is a nursing school. It is also on the campus of the University of Rochester Medical Center. Simon Business School is the graduate business school. It is on the River Campus. Student life UR's official symbol is the seal of the university, which features a book, representing arts and sciences, a lyre symbolizing music, and a modified symbol of medicine. The official flower of the university is the dandelion, purportedly prolific on the cow pasture that became the university's second campus. The official mascot of the university is a predatory wasp found throughout Rochester, the Yellowjacket. From 1983 to 2008, the yellowjacket mascot was named "URBee." However, when the university re-designed the mascot during the 2007–2008 academic year, a new name was chosen and as of February 1, 2008, the school's mascot is now known as "Rocky". The university uses Dandelion Yellow and Rochester Blue as its official colors, which are the prominent colors on the official regalia. The motto of UR is Meliora, which loosely translates to "better" with the connotation of "ever better," the meaning adopted by the university. The image of Rush Rhees Library's main dome serves as an additional icon for the University of Rochester. Rush Rhees Library at The University of Rochester was featured on the cover of the "Princeton Review 373 Best Colleges 2011 Edition". The song most often sung at college events, led often by the school's many a cappella groups, is The Genesee, written by former Rochester student Thomas Thackeray Swinburne (Class of 1892). Although less frequently used, the university also has an official Alma Mater, The Dandelion Yellow. Student organizations The student body at the University of Rochester is both ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. There are over 200 active Students' Association recognized groups on campus, which range from cultural dance groups to U of R's comedy improv troupe In Between the Lines. Since 1873, the university has regularly printed its student newspaper, the Campus Times. There is also the student-run, online-only publication,The Rival Rochester. This is a source of opinion, commentary, and satire. Several a cappella groups play a prominent role in campus life. The YellowJackets competed on Season 3 of NBC's "The Sing-Off" during the fall 2011 season, finishing 7th nationwide. The Midnight Ramblers are the centerpiece of the university's admissions video Remember oUR Name. The University of Rochester is also home to its own radio station, WRUR. Residences The majority of undergraduate students at the university live and take classes on the River Campus. Underclassmen are generally required to live on campus while upperclassmen have the option to live off campus. Some graduate housing is provided by the university, but a significant number also live off campus. Housing is provided at multiple locations spread across the several campuses. River Campus River Campus residences house primarily undergraduates, with some graduate students serving as Graduate Head Residents (GHRs). Residences include: Fraternity Quadrangle consists of nine houses, including six fraternities (Alpha Delta Phi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Psi Upsilon, Sigma Chi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and Theta Chi); in addition, two special interest housing groups—the Douglass Leadership House and the Drama House—maintain housing here. Freshman Housing - Consists of Susan B. Anthony Halls (Gannett, Gates, Hollister, and Morgan), near Rush Rhees Library, Hoeing Hall, Tiernan Hall, Gilbert Hall, and Lovejoy Hall which are on the Residence Quad. Freshmen live together in these specially designated residences that feature increased supervision, regulation, and residence-related activities by upperclassmen Dandelions (affectionately known as D'Lions) and Freshman Fellows, along with Residential Advisers in living areas. Hill Court - Upperclass housing consisting of Chambers, Fairchild, Gale, Kendrick, Munro, and Slater houses, which are connected by tunnels. This residence area, opened in 1969, is colloquially known as "Phase" and was the newest residential area on the River Campus prior to the construction of the Riverview Complex. Residence Quad (ResQuad) - Consists of Burton, Lovejoy and Crosby Halls for upperclassmen, as well as Hoeing, Gilbert, Tiernan and Lovejoy Halls for freshmen. Burton and Crosby were the original dormitories on the River Campus, constructed in 1930, while the other four were built during the 1950s. All ResQuad buildings were fully renovated in the 1990s. (Lovejoy Hall is mostly upperclassmen but has included a freshman floor due to an increase in enrollment.) River Campus Towers - Consists of O'Brien Hall, and Anderson and Wilder Towers. It houses upperclassmen and several Special Interest Housing groups. The formal name for the area is Jackson Court (formerly known as "Founders Court"), but it is simply called "Towers" by most students. Built in 1962, they are scheduled to undergo extensive renovations in the near future. O'Brien Hall opened up to students in 2012. Southside - Southside consists of the Valentine and deKiewiet Towers, as well as several single-story house-style "maisonettes", which offer apartment style living to upperclassmen. The residences are south of the River Campus near the medical center, but house River Campus undergraduate students. The campus master plan shows that this complex will eventually be razed. Riverview - The only housing complex on the western side of the Genesee River, Riverview opened for the 2008–2009 school year, making it the first addition to the campus's housing in nearly 40 years. The complex consists of five buildings, which can house up to 400 undergraduates. The complex is made up of fully furnished two-to-four person apartments. Special Interest floors and Fraternity floors also exist within the residence halls. Special Interest Housing groups include Greenspace (Burton 1), Tiernan Project (Burton 2), Inter-Class Living Community (Crosby 1), Delta Upsilon (Wilder 3), Sigma Delta Tau (Wilder 4), Chi Omega (Wilder 5), Kappa Delta (Wilder 6), Music Interest Floor (Wilder 9), Computer Interest Floor (Anderson 3), Anime Interest Floor (Anderson 7), Phi Kappa Tau (Munro 1), Alpha Phi (Munro 2), Sigma Nu (Kendrick 1), Phi Sigma Sigma (Kendrick 2), Alpha Epsilon Pi (Gale 2), Delta Gamma (Fairchild 2), and Gamma Phi Beta (Fairchild 1). Eastman School of Music Campus Housing is provided at the Eastman School of Music campus at the Eastman Student Living Center at 100 Gibbs Street in downtown Rochester. The new building was opened in 1991 at the northeast corner of Main and Gibbs Streets, replacing the University Avenue dormitories built nearly 70 years earlier. It is a four-story quadrangle and 16-story tower surrounding a landscaped inner courtyard. URMC and Mount Hope Campuses Graduate student housing is provided at several locations near the URMC. These facilities also house select River Campus, non-traditional students who have been deemed too old for traditional housing. George Washington Goler House (GHS) immediately adjacent to the grounds of the URMC. It is a high-rise apartment building with 321 apartments. The building also houses university community members, including faculty and staff. University Park (UPK) is a complex of two-story buildings that include 40 studio, 86 one-bedroom, and 80 two-bedroom unfurnished apartments. UPK is near the URMC, directly across from Southside off of Kendrick Road. Graduate students and their families are the primary occupants of these apartments, but some non-traditional undergraduate students are housed here who have been deemed too old for traditional undergraduate housing on the River Campus. Students who live here typically take up residence year round. South Campus The South Campus has graduate student housing at the Whipple Park (WPK) complex, which features 250 garden apartments and townhouses with ample storage space. WPK also features a park-like setting with large wooded and lawn areas, playgrounds, areas for gardens and low street noise. Some housing is also provided at the River Road complex, which tends to serve as overflow housing for both undergraduate and graduate students. Students' Association The Students' Association (SA) is the primary student governing body and includes most of the student groups at UR. It is governed by the SA Senate, President and Vice President, all of whom are elected by the student body. The SA President may choose to appoint an advisory cabinet made up of a group of volunteer students. There is also a judicial branch, composed of the All Campus Judicial Council (ACJC), the members of whom are nominated by an interview committee and approved by the SA Senate. The SA Senate meets weekly and the longest meeting on record lasted longer than 8 hours. The offices of the SA are in the Wilson Commons student union. All student groups are required to have a constitution, elected officers, and approval from senate in order to be recognized by the SA and have access to university funds. These funds are given yearly based on budgets submitted to the Students' Association Appropriation Committee (SAAC) with supplemental funds available through special forms. All funds are derived from the mandatory Student Activities Fee. Athletics UR's athletics teams are called the Yellowjackets. They participate in the Division III of the NCAA and in the University Athletic Association and Liberty League. One exception to this is the men's squash team, which is consistently ranked top 5 in Division I. The university fields men's teams in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, rowing, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, and track and field. On the women's side, UR sponsors teams in basketball, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, rowing, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, and volleyball. Popular club sports include Hockey, ultimate frisbee, rugby, and soccer, which all have men's and women's teams. The Men's Rugby team has enjoyed recent success, with a New York State Conference Championship in 2011. The team was ranked 9th in the nation out of 151 Division III teams for the 2011–2012 season. In 2009 women's soccer coach Terry Gurnett set records with over 400 lifetime wins. In March 2010 the women's basketball team made it to the NCAA's Final Four. The men's soccer team made it to the NCAA Elite 8 in 2017 and the NCAA Final Four in 2018. There are also numerous club and intramural athletics groups. The main athletics facilities of the university are in the Robert B. Goergen Athletic Center and Fauver Stadium on the River Campus, with other facilities in the Spurrier building (River Campus) and the URMC. Campus |
of Regents to gain admission in 1873. Until 1906, the faculty of the medical school had provided care at the City-County Hospital (San Francisco General Hospital, 1915–2016, but Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH) since 2016), but the medical school still did not have a teaching hospital of its own. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, more than 40,000 people were relocated to a makeshift tent city in Golden Gate Park and were treated by the faculty of the Affiliated Colleges. This brought the Affiliated Colleges, which until then were located on the western outskirts of the city, in contact with significant population numbers. By fueling the Affiliated Colleges' commitment to civic responsibility and health care, the earthquake increased the momentum towards the eventual construction of their own healthcare facilities. Within a month after the 1906 earthquake, the faculty of the medical school voted to make room in their building for a teaching hospital by moving the three departments responsible for the first two years of preclinical instruction—anatomy, pathology, and physiology—across San Francisco Bay to the Berkeley campus. As a result, for over 50 years, students pursuing the M.D. degree took their first two years at Berkeley and their last two years at Parnassus Heights. By October 1906, an outpatient clinic was operational on the first floor of the medical building, and by April 1907, the new teaching hospital started to admit inpatients. This created the need to train nursing students, of whom the first was informally admitted in June; in December 1907, the UC Training School for Nurses was formally established, adding a fourth professional school to the Affiliated Colleges. Around this time, the Affiliated Colleges agreed to submit to the Regents' governance during the term of President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, as the Board of Regents had come to recognize the problems inherent in the existence of independent entities that shared the UC brand but over which UC had no real control. The last of the Affiliated Colleges to become an integral part of the university was the pharmacy school, in 1934. Post-War 20th century The schools continued to grow in numbers and reputation in the following years. One notable event was the incorporation of the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research in 1914, a medical research institute second only to the Rockefeller Institute. This addition bolstered the prestige of the Parnassus site during the long-running dispute over whether the schools should consolidate at Parnassus or in Berkeley. The final decision came in 1949 when the Regents of the University of California designated the Parnassus campus as the UC Medical Center in San Francisco. After the medical facilities were updated and expanded, the preclinical departments returned to San Francisco in 1958, and from that point forward the M.D. degree program was again provided entirely in Parnassus Heights. During this period a number of research institutes were established, and many new facilities were added, such as the 225-bed UC Hospital (1917), the Clinics Building (1934), the Langley Porter Clinic (1942) and the Herbert C. Moffitt Hospital (1955). In 1958, the addition of the Guy S. Millberry Union offered dorms and services for students. With medical education again concentrated in San Francisco, the UC Medical Center gained more independence and autonomy from the Berkeley campus during the 1960s. The four departments were renamed as "School of ..." and the Graduate Division was founded in 1961. Further along this line, in 1964 the institution obtained full administrative independence under the name University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, becoming the ninth campus in the University of California system and the only one devoted exclusively to the health sciences. The first Chancellor under the new independent configuration was John B. de C.M. Saunders, previously Provost, who had a strong preference for medical training over research. This stance led to his resignation and the naming of Willard C. Fleming, DDS, as the second Chancellor in 1966. Fleming brought balance between clinicians and researchers and a new level of stability to the administration. By the end of the 1960s, the university was starting to become a leading research center; its research enterprise was bolstered by the opening of Health Sciences East and Health Sciences West the same year. Under the guidance of the third Chancellor, Philip R. Lee, the institution was renamed to its current form, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), a symbol of its coequal status as a UC campus and a research university, while the Medical Center name was kept for its hospital facilities. Lee also was crucial in guiding UCSF through the turmoil of the late 1960s and worked to increase minority recruitment and enrollment. By then, UCSF had already reached the top ranks of US schools in the health sciences through its innovative programs that blended basic science, research, and clinical instruction. This stature was further augmented by Francis A. Sooy, fourth Chancellor, who dedicated his ten years to recruiting the top physicians and scientists in the field. Late 20th century The 1970s saw a dramatic expansion of UCSF, both in its medical capacities and as a research institute. The increase in researchers, physicians and students brought a need for additional space. The nursing school opened its own building in 1972 and the medical center opened the Ambulatory Care Center in 1973. The discovery of recombinant DNA technology by UCSF and Stanford scientists in the mid-1970s opened many new avenues of research and attracted more people. UCSF scientists also played a central role in the birth and development of the biotechnology industry in the San Francisco Bay area during this period. Herbert Boyer, a Professor of UCSF’s biochemistry and biophysics department co-founded Genentech, the first therapeutic biotech firm, and UCSF scientists were also involved in the formation of most other major biotech firms in the San Francisco region that date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Furthermore, a 2006 analysis of the roots of the ten largest biotech firms measured in terms of their market capitalization in the San Francisco region highlighted the central position of UCSF continued to play within the region’s industry: six biotech firms out of the top ten were either directly or indirectly linked to UCSF—a direct link meaning that the firm was founded by a UCSF scientist, an indirect link meaning that the firm was spun-off from a firm founded by a UCSF scientist. On the clinical side, great advances in patient care, diagnostics, and treatments advanced UCSF's reputation in the health field. 1975 also saw the opening of the UCSF Center in Fresno. Julius R. Krevans, the fifth Chancellor from 1982 to 1993, was a strong advocate of biomedical research and public policy in the health sciences. During his tenure, UCSF rose to become one of the leading recipients of NIH funding. This led to the need for new space, and additions included the Marilyn Reed Lucia Child Care Center in 1978, the Dental Clinics Building (1980), the new Joseph M. Long Hospital in 1983 (which was integrated with the existing Moffitt Hospital), the Beckman Vision Center and the Koret Vision Research Laboratory (1988), and the Kalmanovitz Library (1990). Due to the space constraints of the Parnassus Heights campus, UCSF started looking into expanding into other areas of the city. The university opened UCSF Laurel Heights in 1985 in the Laurel Heights neighborhood. Initially intended for pharmacy school laboratory research and instruction, neighborhood concerns pushed the university to instead employ the building for academic desktop research, social and behavioral science departments, and administrative offices. On the western side of the city, the university acquired Mount Zion Hospital in 1990, which became the second major clinical site and since 1999 has hosted the first comprehensive cancer center in Northern California. Under the chancellorship of Joseph B. Martin, UCSF attempted a short-lived merger of its health system with Stanford Health and laid the groundwork for the expansion into Mission Bay. 21st century A pivotal moment in UCSF history was the deal between Vice Chancellor Bruce Spaulding and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown for the development of the Mission Bay campus in 1999. The development of a second campus in San Francisco was planned carefully and with business and community input. The Mission Bay neighborhood was occupied by old warehouses and rail yards. Initially, the campus consisted of 29.2 acres donated by the Catellus Development Corporation and 13.2 acres donated by the City and County of San Francisco. A later addition of a 14.5-acre parcel brought the total campus area to about 57 acres. The Mission Bay expansion was overseen by a one-year chancellorship of surgeon Haile Debas. Under his guidance, UCSF further increased its lead in the field of surgery, transplant surgery, and surgical training. The Mission Bay Campus doubled the university's research and provided new opportunities for biomedical discovery and student training. The first phase of construction cost $800 million and included four research buildings, a community center, a student housing complex, two parking structures, and development of large open spaces. Scientist J. Michael Bishop, a Nobel Prize in Medicine recipient, became the eighth Chancellor in 1998. He oversaw one of UCSF's transition and growth periods, including the expanding Mission Bay development and philanthropic support recruitment. During his tenure, he unveiled the first comprehensive, campus-wide, strategic plan to promote diversity and foster a supportive work environment. During this time, UCSF also adopted a new mission: "advancing health worldwide"™. In 2009, Susan Desmond-Hellmann became the ninth Chancellor and first woman to lead UCSF. She was tasked with guiding the university through the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. In the same year, UCSF professor Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and in 2012 UCSF professor Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The 2010s saw increased construction and expansion at Mission Bay, with the Smith Cardiovascular Research Building, the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, the Benioff Children's Hospital in 2010, the Sandler Neuroscience Center in 2012, Mission Hall and the Baker Cancer Hospital in 2013. The Children's Hospital was named after Marc Benioff, who donated $100 million toward the new facility. In 2011, expansion also resumed at the Parnassus campus, with the construction of the Regeneration Medicine Building, a $123 million construction designed by New York architect Rafael Viñoly. The Stem Cell Center was named in honor of Eli Broad, who donated $25 million to the cause of research for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. In 2014, UCSF celebrated its 150th anniversary with a year of events. That same year Neonatologist and Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine Sam Hawgood, MBBS, became the tenth Chancellor. In 2015, the Mission Bay campus saw the grand opening of the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, a 289-bed integrated hospital complex dedicated to serving children, women and cancer patients. Since 2015 UCSF has increased its focus on novel biomedical research and has attracted many acts of philanthropy. UCSF became one of the three institutions (together with UC Berkeley and Stanford University) which comprise the Biohub, which is housed on the Mission Bay campus. The project consists of a medical science research center funded by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and UCSF alumna pediatrician Priscilla Chan, his wife. In January 2017, UCSF announced a $500 million gift from the Helen Diller Foundation to increase financial aid for faculty and students, invest in cutting-edge research projects, and expand scholarships for dental, medical, nursing and pharmacy students. This gift is tied with that of Nike Inc. co-founder Phil Knight for the largest single donation ever to a public university. In 2017, UCSF launched a capital campaign, The Campaign, to raise $5 billion to increase the endowment and funds for research and medical services. In 2018, UCSF received a commitment of $500 million for the construction of a new hospital, which will be built at Parnassus, replacing the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. In June 2020 the UCSF paid $1.1 million in 116 bitcoins to the Netwalker criminal gang who had attacked their computer systems with malware and stole student data. The university negotiated with the gang after initially offering $780,000 which was rejected by the criminals due to their perception of UCSF's wealth. USCF said in a statement to the BBC that they had "made the difficult decision to pay some portion of the ransom...to the individuals behind the malware attack in exchange for a tool to unlock the encrypted data and the return of the data they obtained. It would be a mistake to assume that all of the statements and claims made in the negotiations are factually accurate". Campus UCSF operates four major campus sites within the city of San Francisco and one in Fresno, California, as well as numerous other minor sites scattered through San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. Parnassus The Parnassus Heights campus was the site of the Affiliated Colleges, which later evolved into the present-day institution. The site was established along Parnassus Avenue in 1898 on land donated by Mayor Adolph Sutro. At the time, the site was in the remote and uninhabited western part of San Francisco, but its medical facilities became vital in saving lives when 40,000 people were hosted in the nearby Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake. In the early 1900s, the medical research operations of the medical center were split between Parnassus and UC Berkeley, and discussions arose about which site should become the center of medical activity. In 1914, the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research decided to move its research work to the Parnassus site, becoming the first medical research foundation in the United States to be incorporated into a university. This expansion led to a 1949 decision by the UC Board of Regents designating the UCSF campus, rather than UC Berkeley, as the main site for all medical sciences of the UC system. The 20th century saw remarkable growth, with the expansion of new research institutes and facilities, which led to the administrative independence of UCSF and the selection of John B. de C.M. Saunders as the first Chancellor in 1964. Parnassus serves as the main campus of the University and includes administration offices, numerous research labs, the 600-bed UCSF Medical Center, the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, the Mulberry Student Union, and the UCSF Library. Additionally, the Schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Medicine, Nursing are also located at Parnassus. It also houses the UCSF neurology outpatient practice that serves as a referral center for most of northern California and Reno, Nevada. UCSF's Beckman Vision Center is also located at the Parnassus campus. It is a center for the diagnosis, treatment, and research of all areas of eye care, including vision correction surgery. Also located on the Parnassus campus is the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center, a multidisciplinary care center dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term follow-up of fetal birth defects. Mission Bay UCSF's Mission Bay Campus, also located in San Francisco, is the largest ongoing biomedical construction project in the world. The Mission Bay campus, opened in 2003 with construction still ongoing, contains additional research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences companies. It will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise over the next 10 years. The biotechnology company Genentech contributed $50 million toward construction of a building as part of a settlement regarding alleged theft of UCSF technology several decades earlier. Also located on the Mission Bay campus, the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Hall was designed by César Pelli and opened in February 2004. The building is named in honor of Arthur Rock and his wife, who made a $25 million gift to the university. Byers Hall serves as the headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), a cooperative effort between the UC campuses at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz. The building is named after venture capitalist Brook Byers, co-chair of UCSF's capital campaign that concluded in 2005 and raised over $1.6 billion. Additionally, the William J. Rutter Center, designed along with the adjacent 600-space parking structure by Ricardo Legorreta, opened in October 2005 and contains a fitness and recreation center, swimming pools, student services, and conference facilities. The building is named in honor of William J. Rutter, former Chairman of the university's Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics and co-founder of Chiron Corporation. A housing complex for 750 students and postdoctoral fellows and an 800-space parking garage also opened in late 2005. And a fourth research building, designed by Rafael Viñoly and named the Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building, opened in June 2009. Two additional research buildings designated for neuroscience and cardiovascular research are currently in the planning and design phase. A new specialty hospital focused on women, children, and cancer on the Mission Bay campus opened in February 2015. Other centers, institutes, and programs The Mount Zion Campus contains UCSF's NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, its Women's Health Center, the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and outpatient resources. The San Francisco General Hospital campus cares for the indigent population of San Francisco and contains San Francisco's only Level I trauma center. The hospital itself is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, but all of its doctors are UCSF faculty physicians and UCSF maintains research laboratories at the hospital campus. The earliest cases of HIV/AIDS were discovered at San Francisco General Hospital in the 1980s. To this | was planned carefully and with business and community input. The Mission Bay neighborhood was occupied by old warehouses and rail yards. Initially, the campus consisted of 29.2 acres donated by the Catellus Development Corporation and 13.2 acres donated by the City and County of San Francisco. A later addition of a 14.5-acre parcel brought the total campus area to about 57 acres. The Mission Bay expansion was overseen by a one-year chancellorship of surgeon Haile Debas. Under his guidance, UCSF further increased its lead in the field of surgery, transplant surgery, and surgical training. The Mission Bay Campus doubled the university's research and provided new opportunities for biomedical discovery and student training. The first phase of construction cost $800 million and included four research buildings, a community center, a student housing complex, two parking structures, and development of large open spaces. Scientist J. Michael Bishop, a Nobel Prize in Medicine recipient, became the eighth Chancellor in 1998. He oversaw one of UCSF's transition and growth periods, including the expanding Mission Bay development and philanthropic support recruitment. During his tenure, he unveiled the first comprehensive, campus-wide, strategic plan to promote diversity and foster a supportive work environment. During this time, UCSF also adopted a new mission: "advancing health worldwide"™. In 2009, Susan Desmond-Hellmann became the ninth Chancellor and first woman to lead UCSF. She was tasked with guiding the university through the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. In the same year, UCSF professor Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and in 2012 UCSF professor Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The 2010s saw increased construction and expansion at Mission Bay, with the Smith Cardiovascular Research Building, the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, the Benioff Children's Hospital in 2010, the Sandler Neuroscience Center in 2012, Mission Hall and the Baker Cancer Hospital in 2013. The Children's Hospital was named after Marc Benioff, who donated $100 million toward the new facility. In 2011, expansion also resumed at the Parnassus campus, with the construction of the Regeneration Medicine Building, a $123 million construction designed by New York architect Rafael Viñoly. The Stem Cell Center was named in honor of Eli Broad, who donated $25 million to the cause of research for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, HIV/AIDS, and cancer. In 2014, UCSF celebrated its 150th anniversary with a year of events. That same year Neonatologist and Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine Sam Hawgood, MBBS, became the tenth Chancellor. In 2015, the Mission Bay campus saw the grand opening of the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, a 289-bed integrated hospital complex dedicated to serving children, women and cancer patients. Since 2015 UCSF has increased its focus on novel biomedical research and has attracted many acts of philanthropy. UCSF became one of the three institutions (together with UC Berkeley and Stanford University) which comprise the Biohub, which is housed on the Mission Bay campus. The project consists of a medical science research center funded by a $600 million commitment from Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg and UCSF alumna pediatrician Priscilla Chan, his wife. In January 2017, UCSF announced a $500 million gift from the Helen Diller Foundation to increase financial aid for faculty and students, invest in cutting-edge research projects, and expand scholarships for dental, medical, nursing and pharmacy students. This gift is tied with that of Nike Inc. co-founder Phil Knight for the largest single donation ever to a public university. In 2017, UCSF launched a capital campaign, The Campaign, to raise $5 billion to increase the endowment and funds for research and medical services. In 2018, UCSF received a commitment of $500 million for the construction of a new hospital, which will be built at Parnassus, replacing the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. In June 2020 the UCSF paid $1.1 million in 116 bitcoins to the Netwalker criminal gang who had attacked their computer systems with malware and stole student data. The university negotiated with the gang after initially offering $780,000 which was rejected by the criminals due to their perception of UCSF's wealth. USCF said in a statement to the BBC that they had "made the difficult decision to pay some portion of the ransom...to the individuals behind the malware attack in exchange for a tool to unlock the encrypted data and the return of the data they obtained. It would be a mistake to assume that all of the statements and claims made in the negotiations are factually accurate". Campus UCSF operates four major campus sites within the city of San Francisco and one in Fresno, California, as well as numerous other minor sites scattered through San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area. Parnassus The Parnassus Heights campus was the site of the Affiliated Colleges, which later evolved into the present-day institution. The site was established along Parnassus Avenue in 1898 on land donated by Mayor Adolph Sutro. At the time, the site was in the remote and uninhabited western part of San Francisco, but its medical facilities became vital in saving lives when 40,000 people were hosted in the nearby Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake. In the early 1900s, the medical research operations of the medical center were split between Parnassus and UC Berkeley, and discussions arose about which site should become the center of medical activity. In 1914, the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research decided to move its research work to the Parnassus site, becoming the first medical research foundation in the United States to be incorporated into a university. This expansion led to a 1949 decision by the UC Board of Regents designating the UCSF campus, rather than UC Berkeley, as the main site for all medical sciences of the UC system. The 20th century saw remarkable growth, with the expansion of new research institutes and facilities, which led to the administrative independence of UCSF and the selection of John B. de C.M. Saunders as the first Chancellor in 1964. Parnassus serves as the main campus of the University and includes administration offices, numerous research labs, the 600-bed UCSF Medical Center, the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, the Mulberry Student Union, and the UCSF Library. Additionally, the Schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Medicine, Nursing are also located at Parnassus. It also houses the UCSF neurology outpatient practice that serves as a referral center for most of northern California and Reno, Nevada. UCSF's Beckman Vision Center is also located at the Parnassus campus. It is a center for the diagnosis, treatment, and research of all areas of eye care, including vision correction surgery. Also located on the Parnassus campus is the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center, a multidisciplinary care center dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and long-term follow-up of fetal birth defects. Mission Bay UCSF's Mission Bay Campus, also located in San Francisco, is the largest ongoing biomedical construction project in the world. The Mission Bay campus, opened in 2003 with construction still ongoing, contains additional research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and life sciences companies. It will double the size of UCSF's research enterprise over the next 10 years. The biotechnology company Genentech contributed $50 million toward construction of a building as part of a settlement regarding alleged theft of UCSF technology several decades earlier. Also located on the Mission Bay campus, the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Hall was designed by César Pelli and opened in February 2004. The building is named in honor of Arthur Rock and his wife, who made a $25 million gift to the university. Byers Hall serves as the headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), a cooperative effort between the UC campuses at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz. The building is named after venture capitalist Brook Byers, co-chair of UCSF's capital campaign that concluded in 2005 and raised over $1.6 billion. Additionally, the William J. Rutter Center, designed along with the adjacent 600-space parking structure by Ricardo Legorreta, opened in October 2005 and contains a fitness and recreation center, swimming pools, student services, and conference facilities. The building is named in honor of William J. Rutter, former Chairman of the university's Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics and co-founder of Chiron Corporation. A housing complex for 750 students and postdoctoral fellows and an 800-space parking garage also opened in late 2005. And a fourth research building, designed by Rafael Viñoly and named the Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building, opened in June 2009. Two additional research buildings designated for neuroscience and cardiovascular research are currently in the planning and design phase. A new specialty hospital focused on women, children, and cancer on the Mission Bay campus opened in February 2015. Other centers, institutes, and programs The Mount Zion Campus contains UCSF's NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, its Women's Health Center, the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and outpatient resources. The San Francisco General Hospital campus cares for the indigent population of San Francisco and contains San Francisco's only Level I trauma center. The hospital itself is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco, but all of its doctors are UCSF faculty physicians and UCSF maintains research laboratories at the hospital campus. The earliest cases of HIV/AIDS were discovered at San Francisco General Hospital in the 1980s. To this day SF General Hospital has one of the world's leading HIV/AIDS treatment and research centers. UCSF is also affiliated with the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the J. David Gladstone Institutes, a private biomedical research entity that has recently moved to a new building adjacent to UCSF's Mission Bay campus. Since 2014, there has also been an affiliation with UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland (formerly Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland). UCSF has its own police department, which serves its two major campuses as well as all satellite sites within the city and South San Francisco. Health policy Among the related Institutes that are part of UCSF is the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, founded in 1972 by Philip Randolph Lee. UCSF cooperates with the Hastings College of Law, a separate University of California institution located in San Francisco. This includes the formation of the UCSF/Hastings Consortium on Law, Science, and Health Policy. The program offers an LLM and MSL Degree program for health and science professionals. The Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies is a partner in this consortium. UCSF is home to the Industry Documents Library (IDL), a digital library of previously secret internal industry documents, including over 14 million documents in the internationally known Truth Tobacco Industry Documents, the Food Industry Documents Archive, Chemical Industry Documents Archive and the Drug Industry Documents Archive. The IDL contains millions of documents created by major companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities. Academics University of California, San Francisco is unique among University of California campuses in that it performs only biomedical and patient-centered research in its Schools of Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, and Dentistry, and the Graduate Division, and their hundreds of associated laboratories. The university is known for innovation in medical research, public service, and patient care. UCSF's faculty includes five Nobel Prize winners, 31 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 69 members of the Institute of Medicine, and 30 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. UCSF confers a number of degrees, including Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Pharmacy, Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Dental Surgery, and Doctor of Physical Therapy in a variety of fields. Rankings UCSF is considered one of the world's preeminent medical and life sciences universities. In 2019, the Academic Ranking of World Universities, published annually by Shanghai Jiaotong University, ranked UCSF 1st in the world for Clinical Medicine and 2nd in the world for Pharmacy. Previously, UCSF had been second in the world for Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy from 2007–2015, ceding the #2 position to the University of Washington in 2016. The professional schools of the University of California, San Francisco are among the top in the nation, according to current U.S. News & World Report graduate school and other rankings. The schools also rank at or near the top in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. Among U.S. medical schools, UCSF is ranked 6th for research and ranked 2nd for clinical training in the primary care specialties (internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics) by U.S. News and World Report. The UCSF Medical Center is the nation's 8th-ranked hospital and California's 3rd highest-ranked hospital (behind UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which are both located in Los Angeles) according to U.S. News & World Report. Faculty UCSF has 3,000 full-time faculty. Among its 2018 faculty members are: 6 Nobel Prize winners 53 members of the National Academy of Sciences 100 members of the National Academy of Medicine 3 MacArthur Foundation “geniuses” 18 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators 38 NIH Innovator and Young Innovator Awards 9 members of the Royal Society 65 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 68 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences winners 4 National Medal of Science winners 6 Shaw Prize winners 10 Lasker Award winners School of Medicine The UCSF school of medicine is the oldest in the Western United States. In 2020, the School of Medicine was the top recipient of National Institutes of Health research funds among all US medical schools (followed by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine) receiving awards totaling $680 million. In 2016, the School of Medicine launched the Bridges curriculum, more than half of which is dedicated to diagnostic reasoning. In 2017, 8,078 people applied and 505 were interviewed for 145 positions in the entering class. Graduate Division The Graduate Division, established in 1961, is home to 1,600 students enrolled in 31 degree programs (both PhD and Masters) and 1,100 postdoctoral scholars. Programs are based basic, translational, clinical, social, and population sciences, and focus on the understanding of the mechanisms of biology, analyzing the social, cultural, and historical determinants of health, alleviating human disease, reducing health disparities, and advancing health worldwide. U.S. News & World Report. In 2018, UCSF graduate programs ranked 1st in immunology and molecular biology, 3rd in neuroscience, 4th in cell biology and biochemistry, fifth in biochemistry/biophysics/structural biology. School of Nursing The School of Nursing was established in 1907, following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which lead to UCSF becoming active in providing health care in San Francisco. It is recognized as one of the premier nursing schools in the United States. In the U.S. News & World Report for 2016, the UCSF School of Nursing tied for 2nd overall in the nation. UCSF also ranked in the top 10 in all six of its rated nursing specialties, including ranking #1 for its psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner program, and ranking #2 for its family nurse practitioner program. Previously, in 2012, the nursing specialties were ranked as #1 for adult/medical-surgical nurse, family nurse practitioner and psychiatric/mental health nurse programs, and #2 for its adult nurse practitioner program. The School of Nursing in 2016 ranked first nationally in total NIH research funds with $7.85 million, for the 10th time in the last dozen years. This was the second year in a row that all four of UCSF's professional schools (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Dentistry) ranked first for "federal biomedical research funding in their fields." School of Pharmacy Founded in 1872, it is the oldest pharmacy school in California and the western United States. For 39 consecutive years it has been the number one pharmacy school by NIH funding, with close to $29 million in 2018. In 2015, U.S. News & World Report ranked the UCSF School of Pharmacy number three in its "America's Best Graduate Schools" edition. In 2014, the School of Pharmacy also ranked first in NIH research funding among all US pharmacy schools, receiving awards totaling $31.8 million. The UCSF School of Pharmacy was also ranked as the top program in the US, according to a 2002 survey published in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, which weighed key criteria, including funding for research and the frequency of scientific publications by faculty, that are not considered in other rankings. In 2013, the UCSF pharmacy program implemented the multiple mini interview, developed by McMaster University Medical School, as a replacement for the more traditional panel interview as the MMI had shown to be a better predictor of subsequent performance in school. School of Dentistry Founded in 1881, the School of Dentistry is the oldest dental school in the state of California and in the Western United States. It is accredited by the American Dental Association and offers the Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS), PhD in Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, MS in Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, and MS in Dental Hygiene degrees. The School of Dentistry in 2016 ranked first among all dental schools in NIH research funding for the 25th consecutive year, with $19.5 million in awards. In Quacquarelli Symonds's Dentistry Subject Ranking in 2021, UCSF was ranked 7th in the world and 2nd in the United States. UCSF Health UCSF Medical Center In 2021-22, U.S. News & World Report named the UCSF Medical Center the 9th hospital in the nation, the 3rd in California (behind UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, which are both located in Los Angeles). UCSF received following ranking in 16 adult medical specialities: The UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay opened February 1, 2015 and hosts three hospitals (UCSF Benioff children's hospital, UCSF Betty Irene Moore Women's Hospital, and UCSF Bakar Cancer Hospital) and an outpatient facility. Research UCSF is among the world's leading institutions in biological and medical research. Its departments span all fields of biomedical science, from basic to translational sciences. In fiscal year 2018, it spent $1.596 billion in research and development, the third most among institutions of higher education in the U.S. In fiscal year 2020, UCSF received $680 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, which is the 2nd highest of all US domestic higher education universities. Milestones include: The discovery of oncogenes and the conversion of normal cellular genes can be converted to cancer genes (Nobel Prize in Medicine, J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, 1989) The techniques of recombinant DNA, the seminal step in the creation of the biotechnology industry, together with Stanford The precise recombinant DNA techniques that led to the creation of a hepatitis B vaccine The first successful in-utero fetal surgery (Michael R. Harrison) First to clone an insulin gene into bacteria, leading to the mass production of recombinant human insulin to treat diabetes First to synthesize human growth hormone and clone into bacteria, setting the stage for genetically engineered human growth hormone First to develop prenatal tests for sickle cell anemia and thalassemia Discovery of prions, a unique type of infectious agent responsible for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases (Nobel Prize in Medicine, Stanley B. Prusiner, 1997) Development of catheter ablation therapy for tachycardia Discovery of the molecular nature of telomeres Discovery that missing pulmonary surfactants are responsible for the death of newborns with respiratory distress syndrome; first to develop a synthetic substitute for it, reducing infant death rates significantly The first care units for AIDS patients and pioneer work in treatment of AIDS First to train pharmacists as drug therapy specialists First university west of the Mississippi to offer a doctoral degree in nursing First to develop an academic hospitalist program (and coined the term "hospitalist") (Robert M. Wachter) First high volume HIV counseling and testing program at the UCSF Alliance Health Project First US medical school to offer an elective for medical students to get academic credit for editing health-related articles on Wikipedia. On June 5, 2015, surgeons at UCSF and California Pacific Medical Center successfully completed 18 surgeries in the nation's first nine-way, two-day kidney transplant chain in a single city. Student life There are more than 180 registered campus organizations at UCSF. These groups and clubs cover a broad range of interests, including educational, social, cultural, artistic, recreational, political and spiritual. Every year, these organizations sponsor more than 1,200 activities and events. The student government at UCSF consists of the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA), which serves the collective interests of graduate and professional students. It aims at improving student life on a university and system-wide level with dialogue, action, and activities between students, faculty, and staff. It focuses on discussing University policy, informing constituents, advocating student interests, fostering relationships between academic programs, strengthening connections to better support students, and initiating actions and proposals, Synapse is the student newspaper at UCSF. It was founded in 1957, and since 1997 the newspaper has been both in print and online. In the fall 2015 the newspaper rebranded from Synapse: The UCSF Newspaper to Synapse: UCSF Student Voices. The mission of Synapse is to serve as the forum for the campus community, and |
contrast, Toland Medical College (founded in 1864 and affiliated in 1873) and later, the dental, pharmacy, and nursing schools in SF were affiliated with UC through written agreements, and not statutes invested with constitutional importance by court decisions. In the early 20th century, the Affiliated Colleges (as they came to be called) began to agree to submit to the Regents' governance during the term of President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, as the Board of Regents had come to recognize the problems inherent in the existence of independent entities that shared the UC brand but over which UC had no real control. While Hastings remained independent, the Affiliated Colleges were able to increasingly coordinate their operations with one another under the supervision of the UC President and Regents, and evolved into the health sciences campus known today as the University of California, San Francisco. North-south tensions and decentralization In August 1882, the California State Normal School (whose original normal school in San Jose is now San Jose State University) opened a second school in Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. In 1887, the Los Angeles school was granted its own board of trustees independent of the San Jose school, and in 1919, the state legislature transferred it to UC control and renamed it the Southern Branch of the University of California. In 1927, it became the University of California at Los Angeles; the "at" would be replaced with a comma in 1958. Los Angeles surpassed San Francisco in the 1920 census to become the most populous metropolis in California. Because Los Angeles had become the state government's single largest source of both tax revenue and votes, its residents felt entitled to demand more prestige and autonomy for their campus. Their efforts bore fruit in March 1951, when UCLA became the first UC site outside of Berkeley to achieve de jure coequal status with the Berkeley campus. That month, the Regents approved a reorganization plan under which both the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses would be supervised by chancellors reporting to the UC President. However, the 1951 plan was severely flawed; it was overly vague about how the chancellors were to become the "executive heads" of their campuses. Due to stubborn resistance from President Sproul and several vice presidents and deans—who simply carried on as before—the chancellors ended up as glorified provosts with limited control over academic affairs and long-range planning while the President and the Regents retained de facto control over everything else. Upon becoming president in October 1957, Clark Kerr supervised UC's rapid transformation into a true public university system through a series of proposals adopted unanimously by the Regents from 1957 to 1960. Kerr's reforms included expressly granting all campus chancellors the full range of executive powers, privileges, and responsibilities which Sproul had denied to Kerr himself, as well as the radical decentralization of a tightly knit bureaucracy in which all lines of authority had always run directly to the President at Berkeley or to the Regents themselves. In 1965, UCLA Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy tried to push this to what he saw as its logical conclusion: he advocated for authorizing all chancellors to report directly to the Board of Regents, thereby rendering the UC President redundant. Murphy wanted to transform UC from one federated university into a confederation of independent universities, similar to the situation in Kansas (from where he was recruited). Murphy was unable to develop any support for his proposal, Kerr quickly put down what he thought of as "Murphy's rebellion", and therefore Kerr's vision of UC as a university system prevailed: "one university with pluralistic decision-making". During the 20th century, UC acquired additional satellite locations which, like Los Angeles, were all subordinate to administrators at the Berkeley campus. California farmers lobbied for UC to perform applied research responsive to their immediate needs; in 1905, the Legislature established a "University Farm School" at Davis and in 1907 a "Citrus Experiment Station" at Riverside as adjuncts to the College of Agriculture at Berkeley. In 1912, UC acquired a private oceanography laboratory in San Diego, which had been founded nine years earlier by local business promoters working with a Berkeley professor. In 1944, UC acquired Santa Barbara State College from the California State Colleges, the descendants of the State Normal Schools. In 1958, the Regents began promoting these locations to general campuses, thereby creating UCSB (1958), UC Davis (1959), UC Riverside (1959), UC San Diego (1960), and UCSF (1964). Each campus was also granted the right to have its own chancellor upon promotion. In response to California's continued population growth, UC opened two additional general campuses in 1965, with UC Irvine opening in Irvine and UC Santa Cruz opening in Santa Cruz. The youngest campus, UC Merced opened in fall 2005 to serve the San Joaquin Valley. After losing campuses in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to the University of California system, supporters of the California State College system arranged for the state constitution to be amended in 1946 to prevent similar losses from happening again in the future. The Master Plan for Higher Education The California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960 established that UC must admit undergraduates from the top 12.5% (one-eighth) of graduating high school seniors in California. Prior to the promulgation of the Master Plan, UC was to admit undergraduates from the top 15%. UC does not currently adhere to all tenets of the original Master Plan, such as the directives that no campus was to exceed total enrollment of 27,500 students (in order to ensure quality) and that public higher education should be tuition-free for California residents. Five campuses, Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego each have current total enrollment at over 30,000. After the state electorate severely limited long-term property tax revenue by enacting Proposition 13 in 1978, UC was forced to make up for the resulting collapse in state financial support by imposing a variety of fees which were tuition in all but name. On November 18, 2010, the Regents finally gave up on the longstanding legal fiction that UC does not charge tuition by renaming the Educational Fee to "Tuition." As part of its search for funds during the 2000s and 2010s, UC quietly began to admit higher percentages of highly accomplished (and more lucrative) students from other states and countries, but was forced to reverse course in 2015 in response to the inevitable public outcry and start admitting more California residents. Academics As of 2019, UC controls over 12,658 active patents. UC researchers and faculty were responsible for 1,825 new inventions that same year. On average, UC researchers create five new inventions per day. Seven of UC's ten campuses (UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz) are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an alliance of elite American research universities founded in 1900 at UC's suggestion. Collectively, the system counts among its faculty (as of 2002): 389 members of the Academy of Arts and Sciences 5 Fields Medal recipients 19 Fulbright Scholars 25 MacArthur Fellows 254 members of the National Academy of Sciences 91 members of the National Academy of Engineering 13 National Medal of Science Laureates 61 Nobel laureates. 106 members of the Institute of Medicine Nobel Prize winners As of October 2021, the following data are taken from List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation, which counts university alumni and staff, and are not the official count from the University of California. Academic organization Davis, Los Angeles, Riverside, and Santa Barbara all followed Berkeley's example by aggregating the majority of arts, humanities, and science departments into a relatively large College of Letters and Science. Therefore, at Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara, their respective College of Letters and Science is by far the single largest academic unit on each campus. The College of Letters and Science at Los Angeles is the largest academic unit in the entire UC system. Riverside later separated the natural sciences and kept only social sciences grouped with arts and humanities, an example followed by Merced at its founding. Due to President Kerr's interest in not reproducing the impersonal undergraduate experience often seen in such gigantic academic units, San Diego and Santa Cruz both implemented residential college systems inspired by British models (in which each college has distinctive general education requirements reflecting its chosen theme) and grouped most academic departments into a small number of broadly defined divisions which are all independent of the colleges. Finally, Irvine is organized into 13 schools and San Francisco is organized into four schools, all of which are relatively narrow in scope. Academic calendar Eight campuses operate on the quarter system, while two (Berkeley and Merced) are on the semester system. However, all five law schools operate on the semester system, as does the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. UC Libraries At 40.8 million print volumes, the University of California library system is home to one of the largest collections of printed materials in the world. On July 27, 2021, all ten campuses went live with a unified online library catalog, UC Library Search. Besides on-campus libraries, the UC system also maintains two regional library facilities (one each for Northern and Southern California), which each accept older items from all UC campus libraries in their respective region. As of 2019, Northern Regional Library Facility is home to 7.4 million items, while Southern Regional Library Facility is home to 6.5 million items. Research In 2006 the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) awarded the University of California the SPARC Innovator Award for its "extraordinarily effective institution-wide vision and efforts to move scholarly communication forward", including the 1997 founding (under then UC President Richard C. Atkinson) of the California Digital Library (CDL) and its 2002 launching of CDL's eScholarship, an institutional repository. The award also specifically cited the widely influential 2005 academic journal publishing reform efforts of UC faculty and librarians in "altering the marketplace" by publicly negotiating contracts with publishers, as well as their 2006 proposal to amend UC's copyright policy to allow open access to UC faculty research. On July 24, 2013, the UC Academic Senate adopted an Open Access Policy, mandating that all UC faculty produced research with a publication agreement signed after that date be first deposited in UC's eScholarship open access repository. University of California systemwide research on the SAT exam found that, after controlling for familial income and parental education, so-called achievement tests known as the SAT II had 10 times more predictive ability of college aptitude than the SAT I. Governance All University of California campuses except Hastings College of the Law are governed by the Regents of the University of California as required by the Constitution of the State of California. Eighteen regents are appointed by the governor for 12-year terms. One member is a student appointed for a one-year term. There are also seven ex officio members—the governor, lieutenant governor, speaker of the State Assembly, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, president and vice president of the alumni associations of UC, and the UC president. The Academic Senate, made up of faculty members, is empowered by the regents to set academic policies. In addition, the system-wide faculty chair and vice-chair sit on the Board of Regents as non-voting members. Originally, the president was the chief executive of the first campus, Berkeley. In turn, other UC locations (with the exception of Hastings College of the Law) were treated as off-site departments of the Berkeley campus, and were headed by provosts who were subordinate to the president. In March 1951, the regents reorganized the university's governing structure. Starting with the 1952–53 academic year, day-to-day "chief executive officer" functions for the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses were transferred to chancellors who were vested with a high degree of autonomy, and reported as equals to UC's president. As noted above, the regents promoted five additional UC locations to campuses and allowed them to have chancellors of their own in a series of decisions from 1958 to 1964, and the three campuses added since then have also been run by chancellors. In turn, all chancellors (again, with the exception of Hastings) report as equals to the University of California President. Today, the UC Office of the President (UCOP) and the Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents of the University of California share an office building in downtown Oakland that serves as the UC system's headquarters. Kerr's vision for UC governance was "one university with pluralistic decision-making." In other words, the internal delegation of operational authority to chancellors at the campus level and allowing nine other campuses to become separate centers of academic life independent of Berkeley did not change the fact that all campuses remain part of one legal entity. As a 1968 UC centennial coffee table book explained: "Yet for all its campuses, colleges, schools, institutes, and research stations, it remains one University, under one Board of Regents and one president—the University of California." UC continues to take a "united approach" as one university in matters in which it inures to UC's advantage to do so, such as when negotiating with the legislature and governor in Sacramento. UC continues to manage certain matters at the systemwide level in order to maintain common standards across all campuses, such as student admissions, appointment and promotion of faculty, and approval of academic programs. UC presidents All UC presidents had been white men until 2013, when Homeland Security Secretary and former Governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano became the first woman to hold the office of UC President. On July 7, 2020, Dr. Michael V. Drake was selected as the 21st president of the University of California system, making him the first Black president to hold the office in UC's 152-year history. He took office on August 1, 2020. Finances The State of California currently (2021–2022) spends $3.467 billion on the UC system, out of total UC operating revenues of $41.6 billion. The "UC Budget for Current Operations" lists the medical centers as the largest revenue source, contributing 39% of the budget, the federal government 11%, Core Funds (State General Funds, UC General Funds, student tuition) 21%, private support (gifts, grants, endowments) 7% ,and Sales and Services at 21%. In 1980, the state funded 86.8% of the UC budget. While state funding has somewhat recovered, as of 2019 state support still lags behind even recent historic levels (e.g. 2001) when adjusted for inflation. According to the California Public Policy Institute, California spends 12% of its General Fund on higher education, but that percentage is divided between the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges. Over the past forty years, state funding of higher education has dropped from 18% to 12%, resulting in a drop in UC's per student funding from $23,000 in 2016 to a current $8,000 per year per student. In May 2004, UC President Robert C. Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed struck a private deal, called the "Higher Education Compact", with Governor Schwarzenegger. They agreed to slash spending by about a billion dollars (about a third of the university's core budget for academic operations) in exchange for a funding formula lasting until 2011. The agreement calls for modest annual increases in state funds (but not enough to replace the loss in state funds Dynes and Schwarzenegger agreed to), private fundraising to help pay for basic programs, and large student fee hikes, especially for graduate and professional students. A detailed analysis of the Compact by the Academic Senate "Futures Report" indicated, despite the large fee increases, the university core budget did not recover to 2000 levels. Undergraduate student fees have risen 90% from 2003 to 2007. In 2011, for the first time in UC's history, student fees exceeded contributions from the State of California. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled in 2007 that the University of California owed nearly $40 million in refunds to about 40,000 students who were promised that their tuition fees would remain steady, but were hit with increases when the state ran short of money in 2003. In September 2019, the University of California announced it will divest its $83 billion in endowment and pension funds from the fossil fuel industry, citing ‘financial risk’. Faculty pay Faculty compensation is comparable with institutions of similar academic ranking but slightly higher than in the California State University system. According to the 2021-2022 payscale, the following pay ranges apply per fiscal year: Note that the distinction between "academic year" and "fiscal year" salaries (shown above) is important. Academic year salaries are for those whose work covers a standard 9-month academic calendar (not listed here); fiscal year salaries are extrapolations of the academic year salary to cover the entire fiscal year (11 months, since the last month is considered usable as vacation) for those who provide full-year service. Fiscal year salaries are computed by using the monthly rate of the academic year salary and multiplying by 11. The UC system provides for merit pay higher than the nominal maximum of a salary range. However, once pay achieves a high threshold (varies by category, at least $300,000 in 2016), it requires either presidential or regental approval. Criticism and controversies The members of the UC governing structure have been criticized for confusion about their roles and responsibilities and for enjoying controversial perks. In 2008, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the regional accreditor of the UC schools, criticized the UC system for "significant problems in governance, leadership and decision making" and "confusion about the roles and responsibilities of the university president, the regents and the 10 campus chancellors with no clear lines of authority and boundaries". Besides substantial six-figure incomes, the UC President and all UC chancellors enjoy controversial perks such as free housing in the form of university-maintained mansions. In 1962, Anson Blake's will donated his estate (Blake Garden) and mansion (Blake House) in Kensington to the University of California's Department of Landscape Architecture. In 1968, the Regents decided to make Blake House the official residence of the UC President. As of 2005, it cost around $300,000 per year to maintain Blake Garden and Blake House; the latter, built in 1926, is a mansion with a view of San Francisco Bay. All UC chancellors traditionally live for free in a mansion on or near campus that is usually known as University House, where they host social functions attended by guests and donors. UC San Diego's University House was closed from 2004 to 2014 for $10.5 million in renovations paid for by private donors, which were so expensive because the 12,000-square-foot structure sits on top of a sacred Native American cemetery and next to an unstable coastal bluff. In 2016, university system officials admitted that they monitored all e-mails sent to and from their servers. In many recent years, the University of California has faced growing criticism for high admissions of out-of-state or international students as opposed to in-state, California students. In particular, UC Berkeley and UCLA have been heavily criticized for this phenomenon due to their extraordinarily low acceptance rates compared to other campuses in the system. At a Board of Regents meeting in 2015, California Governor Jerry Brown reportedly said about the problem: “And so you got your foreign students and you got your 4.0 folks, but just the kind of ordinary, normal students, you know, that got good grades but weren’t at the top of the heap there—they’re getting frozen out.” Campuses and rankings At present, the UC system officially describes itself as a "ten campus" system consisting of the campuses listed below. These campuses are under the direct control of the Regents and President. Only ten campuses are listed on the official UC letterhead. Although it shares the name and public status of the UC system, the Hastings College of the Law is not controlled by the Regents or President; it has a separate board of directors and must seek funding directly from the Legislature. However, under the California Education Code, Hastings degrees are awarded in the name of the Regents and bear the signature of the UC president. Furthermore, Education Code section 92201 states that Hastings "is affiliated with the University of California, and is the law department thereof". University rankings Annually, UC campuses are ranked highly by various publications. Six UC campuses rank in the top 50 U.S. National Universities of 2022 by U.S. News & World Report, with UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and UC Davis all ranked in the top 50. Four UC campuses also ranked in the top 50 in the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings in 2021, namely UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Francisco, and UC San Diego. UC San Francisco is ranked as one of the top universities in biomedicine in the world and the UCSF School of Medicine is ranked 3rd in the United States among research-oriented medical schools and for primary care by U.S. News and World Report. Three UC campuses: UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego all ranked in the top 15 universities in the US according to the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) US National University Rankings and also in the top 20 in World University Rankings. The Academic Ranking of World Universities also ranked UC San Francisco, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara in the top 50 US National Universities and in the top 100 World Universities in 2020. UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego all ranked in the top 50 universities in the world according to both the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2021 and the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2020, while UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. Forbes also ranked the six UC campuses mentioned above as being in the top 50 universities in America in 2021. Forbes also named the top three public universities in America as all being UC campuses, namely, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego, and ranked three more campuses, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Irvine as being among the top 20 public universities in America in 2021. The six aforementioned campuses are all considered Public Ivies. The QS World University Rankings for 2021 ranked three UC campuses: UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego as being in the top 100 universities in the world. Academic program rankings Individual academic departments also rank highly among the UC campuses. The 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools report ranked UC Berkeley as being among the top 5 universities in the nation in the departments of Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Sociology, History, and English, and ranked UCLA in the top 20 in the same departments. U.S. News & World Report also ranked the same departments at UC San Diego among the top 20 in the nation, with the exception of the departments of Sociology, History, and English. UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC | hold the office in UC's 152-year history. He took office on August 1, 2020. Finances The State of California currently (2021–2022) spends $3.467 billion on the UC system, out of total UC operating revenues of $41.6 billion. The "UC Budget for Current Operations" lists the medical centers as the largest revenue source, contributing 39% of the budget, the federal government 11%, Core Funds (State General Funds, UC General Funds, student tuition) 21%, private support (gifts, grants, endowments) 7% ,and Sales and Services at 21%. In 1980, the state funded 86.8% of the UC budget. While state funding has somewhat recovered, as of 2019 state support still lags behind even recent historic levels (e.g. 2001) when adjusted for inflation. According to the California Public Policy Institute, California spends 12% of its General Fund on higher education, but that percentage is divided between the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges. Over the past forty years, state funding of higher education has dropped from 18% to 12%, resulting in a drop in UC's per student funding from $23,000 in 2016 to a current $8,000 per year per student. In May 2004, UC President Robert C. Dynes and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed struck a private deal, called the "Higher Education Compact", with Governor Schwarzenegger. They agreed to slash spending by about a billion dollars (about a third of the university's core budget for academic operations) in exchange for a funding formula lasting until 2011. The agreement calls for modest annual increases in state funds (but not enough to replace the loss in state funds Dynes and Schwarzenegger agreed to), private fundraising to help pay for basic programs, and large student fee hikes, especially for graduate and professional students. A detailed analysis of the Compact by the Academic Senate "Futures Report" indicated, despite the large fee increases, the university core budget did not recover to 2000 levels. Undergraduate student fees have risen 90% from 2003 to 2007. In 2011, for the first time in UC's history, student fees exceeded contributions from the State of California. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled in 2007 that the University of California owed nearly $40 million in refunds to about 40,000 students who were promised that their tuition fees would remain steady, but were hit with increases when the state ran short of money in 2003. In September 2019, the University of California announced it will divest its $83 billion in endowment and pension funds from the fossil fuel industry, citing ‘financial risk’. Faculty pay Faculty compensation is comparable with institutions of similar academic ranking but slightly higher than in the California State University system. According to the 2021-2022 payscale, the following pay ranges apply per fiscal year: Note that the distinction between "academic year" and "fiscal year" salaries (shown above) is important. Academic year salaries are for those whose work covers a standard 9-month academic calendar (not listed here); fiscal year salaries are extrapolations of the academic year salary to cover the entire fiscal year (11 months, since the last month is considered usable as vacation) for those who provide full-year service. Fiscal year salaries are computed by using the monthly rate of the academic year salary and multiplying by 11. The UC system provides for merit pay higher than the nominal maximum of a salary range. However, once pay achieves a high threshold (varies by category, at least $300,000 in 2016), it requires either presidential or regental approval. Criticism and controversies The members of the UC governing structure have been criticized for confusion about their roles and responsibilities and for enjoying controversial perks. In 2008, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the regional accreditor of the UC schools, criticized the UC system for "significant problems in governance, leadership and decision making" and "confusion about the roles and responsibilities of the university president, the regents and the 10 campus chancellors with no clear lines of authority and boundaries". Besides substantial six-figure incomes, the UC President and all UC chancellors enjoy controversial perks such as free housing in the form of university-maintained mansions. In 1962, Anson Blake's will donated his estate (Blake Garden) and mansion (Blake House) in Kensington to the University of California's Department of Landscape Architecture. In 1968, the Regents decided to make Blake House the official residence of the UC President. As of 2005, it cost around $300,000 per year to maintain Blake Garden and Blake House; the latter, built in 1926, is a mansion with a view of San Francisco Bay. All UC chancellors traditionally live for free in a mansion on or near campus that is usually known as University House, where they host social functions attended by guests and donors. UC San Diego's University House was closed from 2004 to 2014 for $10.5 million in renovations paid for by private donors, which were so expensive because the 12,000-square-foot structure sits on top of a sacred Native American cemetery and next to an unstable coastal bluff. In 2016, university system officials admitted that they monitored all e-mails sent to and from their servers. In many recent years, the University of California has faced growing criticism for high admissions of out-of-state or international students as opposed to in-state, California students. In particular, UC Berkeley and UCLA have been heavily criticized for this phenomenon due to their extraordinarily low acceptance rates compared to other campuses in the system. At a Board of Regents meeting in 2015, California Governor Jerry Brown reportedly said about the problem: “And so you got your foreign students and you got your 4.0 folks, but just the kind of ordinary, normal students, you know, that got good grades but weren’t at the top of the heap there—they’re getting frozen out.” Campuses and rankings At present, the UC system officially describes itself as a "ten campus" system consisting of the campuses listed below. These campuses are under the direct control of the Regents and President. Only ten campuses are listed on the official UC letterhead. Although it shares the name and public status of the UC system, the Hastings College of the Law is not controlled by the Regents or President; it has a separate board of directors and must seek funding directly from the Legislature. However, under the California Education Code, Hastings degrees are awarded in the name of the Regents and bear the signature of the UC president. Furthermore, Education Code section 92201 states that Hastings "is affiliated with the University of California, and is the law department thereof". University rankings Annually, UC campuses are ranked highly by various publications. Six UC campuses rank in the top 50 U.S. National Universities of 2022 by U.S. News & World Report, with UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and UC Davis all ranked in the top 50. Four UC campuses also ranked in the top 50 in the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings in 2021, namely UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Francisco, and UC San Diego. UC San Francisco is ranked as one of the top universities in biomedicine in the world and the UCSF School of Medicine is ranked 3rd in the United States among research-oriented medical schools and for primary care by U.S. News and World Report. Three UC campuses: UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego all ranked in the top 15 universities in the US according to the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) US National University Rankings and also in the top 20 in World University Rankings. The Academic Ranking of World Universities also ranked UC San Francisco, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara in the top 50 US National Universities and in the top 100 World Universities in 2020. UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego all ranked in the top 50 universities in the world according to both the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2021 and the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) for 2020, while UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis ranked in the top 100 universities in the world. Forbes also ranked the six UC campuses mentioned above as being in the top 50 universities in America in 2021. Forbes also named the top three public universities in America as all being UC campuses, namely, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego, and ranked three more campuses, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Irvine as being among the top 20 public universities in America in 2021. The six aforementioned campuses are all considered Public Ivies. The QS World University Rankings for 2021 ranked three UC campuses: UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego as being in the top 100 universities in the world. Academic program rankings Individual academic departments also rank highly among the UC campuses. The 2021 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools report ranked UC Berkeley as being among the top 5 universities in the nation in the departments of Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Sociology, History, and English, and ranked UCLA in the top 20 in the same departments. U.S. News & World Report also ranked the same departments at UC San Diego among the top 20 in the nation, with the exception of the departments of Sociology, History, and English. UC Davis, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara ranked in the top 50 in the departments of Psychology, Economics, Political Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Sociology, History, and English, with the exception of UC Santa Barbara's Psychology and Political Science departments, according to U.S. News & World Report. UC Santa Cruz and UC Riverside ranked in the top 100 in the nation in the same departments, along with UC Merced's Psychology and Political Science departments. Graduate salaries Graduates of University of California system campuses generally earn competitive salaries following graduation. According to the 2020-2021 PayScale College Salary Report, a bachelor's degree holder from any of the UC campuses with undergraduate programs (excluding Merced, which is unranked) earned a median mid-career income of over $100,000 a year, with mid-career defined as graduates with over 10 years of work experience. Every UC campus, with the exceptions of Santa Cruz, Riverside, and Merced, ranked in the top 100 universities nationally, as well as in the top 20 in the state of California in terms of median mid-career earnings of graduates. Bachelor's degree holders from two UC campuses, Berkeley and San Diego, ranked among the top 50 nationally, and among the top 10 in the state of California in terms of median mid-career earnings. The Payscale College Salary Report reports the median annual income by university and level of experience for graduates who hold a bachelor's degree only, and does not take into account university alumni with advanced degrees or differences in college major in its rankings. Student profile Labor unions There are a total of about 180,000 employees in the UC system. Most UC employees besides faculty and administration are represented by labor unions. Unions in the UC system include: University Professional and Technical Employees – CWA (UPTE): health care, technical and research workers Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers: UC Scientists and Engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory International Brotherhood of Teamsters (formerly the Coalition of University Employees (CUE)): 14,000 clerical and allied services workers Teamsters Local 2010 University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT): faculty and librarians United Auto Workers UAW: Academic student employees and postdoctoral scholars American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME): service workers and patient care technical employees. California Nurses Association (CNA): Nurses International Association of Fire Fighters: Full-time firefighters for UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz Admissions Each UC campus handles admissions separately, but a student wishing to apply for an undergraduate or transfer admission uses one application for all UC campuses. Graduate and professional school admissions are handled directly and separately by each department or program to which one applies. In May 2020, UC approved plans to suspend standardized testing score requirements in admissions until 2024. In May 2021, after a student lawsuit, the University of California announced that it would no longer consider SAT and ACT scores in admissions and scholarship decisions. Freshmen Before 1986, students who wanted to apply to UC for undergraduate study could only apply to one campus. Students who were rejected at that campus but otherwise met the UC minimum eligibility requirements were redirected to another campus with available space. Students who did not want to be redirected were refunded their application fees. UC Riverside chancellor Ivan Hinderaker explained in 1972: "Redirection has been a negative rather than a plus. Some come with a chip on their shoulders so big they never give the campus a chance. They poison the attitudes of the students around them." Therefore, in 1986, the undergraduate application system was changed to the current "multiple filing" system, in which students can apply to as many or as few UC campuses as they want on one application, paying a fee for each campus. This significantly increased the number of applications to the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, since students could choose a campus to attend after they received acceptance letters, without fear of being redirected to a campus they did not want to attend. The University of California accepts fully eligible students from among the top one-eighth (1/8) of California public high school graduates through regular statewide admission, or the top 9% of any given high school class through Eligibility in the Local Context (see below). Part of the eligibility process is completion of the A-G requirements in high school. All eligible California high school students who apply are accepted to the university, though not necessarily to the campus of choice. Eligible students who are not accepted to the campus(es) of their choice are placed in the "referral pool", where campuses with open space may offer admission to those students; in 2003, 10% of students who received an offer through this referral process accepted it. In 2007, about 4,100 UC-eligible students who were not offered admission to their campus of choice were referred to UC Riverside or the system's newest campus, UC Merced. In 2015, all UC-eligible students rejected by their campus of choice were redirected to UC Merced, which is now the only campus that has space for all qualified applicants. The old undergraduate admissions were conducted on a two-phase basis. In the first phase, students were admitted based solely on academic achievement. This accounted for between 50 and 75% of the admissions. In the second phase, the university conducted a "comprehensive review" of the student's achievements, including extracurricular activities, essay, family history, and life challenges, to admit the remainder. Students who did not qualify for regular admission were "admitted by exception"; in 2002, approximately 2% of newly admitted undergraduates were admitted by exception. The process for determining admissions varies. At some campuses, such as Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, a point system is used to weight grade point average, SAT Reasoning or ACT scores, and SAT Subject scores, while at San Diego, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, academic achievement is examined in the context of the school and the surrounding community, known as a holistic review. Race, gender, national origin, and ethnicity were not used as UC admission criteria due to the passing of Proposition 209. This information was collected for statistical purposes. Eligibility in the Local Context Eligibility in |
organized student resistance to the university's restrictions on political activities on campus—most conspicuously, student activities related to the Civil Rights Movement. The arrest in Sproul Plaza of Jack Weinberg, a recent Berkeley alumnus and chair of Campus CORE, in October 1964, prompted a series of student-led acts of formal remonstrance and civil disobedience that ultimately gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, which movement would prevail and serve as a precedent for student opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1982, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was established on campus with support from the National Science Foundation and at the request of three Berkeley mathematicians — Shiing-Shen Chern, Calvin Moore, and Isadore M. Singer. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year. 21st century In the current century, Berkeley has become less politically active and more focused on entrepreneurship and fundraising, especially for STEM disciplines. Modern Berkeley students are less politically radical, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives than in the 1960s and 70s. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 9:1. On the whole, Democrats outnumber Republicans on American university campuses by a ratio of 10:1. In 2007, the Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from BP and Stanley Hall, a research facility and headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, opened. The next few years saw the dedication of the Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, funded by a lead gift from billionaire Li Ka-shing; the opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society; and the unveiling of Blum Hall, housing the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Supported by a grant from alumnus James Simons, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing was established in 2012. In 2014, Berkeley and its sister campus, UCSF, established the Innovative Genomics Institute, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science. Since 2000, Berkeley alumni and faculty have received 44 Nobel Prizes, behind only Harvard and MIT among American universities; five Turing Awards, behind only MIT and Stanford; and five Fields Medals, second only to Princeton. According to PitchBook, Berkeley ranks second, just behind Stanford, in producing VC-backed entrepreneurs. Organization and administration Although the University of California system does not have an official flagship campus, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. In some cases, it shares this unofficial status with the University of California, Los Angeles. Name Officially the University of California, Berkeley, its name is often shortened to Berkeley in general reference or in an academic context (www.berkeley.edu, Berkeley Law, Berkeley Public Health, Berkeley Haas) or to California or Cal, particularly when referring to its athletic teams (California Golden Bears). Governance The University of California is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents, 18 of whom are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ex officio members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate. Prior to 1952, Berkeley was the University of California, so the university president was also Berkeley's chief executive. However, in 1952, the university reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus having its own chief executive, a chancellor, who would, in turn, report to the president of the university system. Twelve vice chancellors report directly to Berkeley's chancellor, and the deans of the 14 colleges and schools report to the executive vice chancellor and provost, Berkeley's chief academic officer. Twenty-five presidents and chancellors have led Berkeley since its founding. Funding Berkeley receives funding from a variety of federal, state, and private sources. With the exception of government contracts, public support is apportioned to Berkeley and the other campuses of the University of California system through the UC Office of the President and accounts for some 12 percent of Berkeley's total revenues. Berkeley has long benefited from private philanthropy, with considerable gifts from the Flood, Hearst, Durant, Strauss, Lick, Harmon, and Bacon families in the 19th century and from the Hearst, Doe, Sather, Rockefeller, Cowell, Haviland, Bowles, Boalt, and Stern families, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. More recently, alumni and their foundations have given to the university for operations and capital expenditures. Berkeley has also benefited from the giving of individuals, corporations, and foundations, notable among which are Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (pledged $600 million, shared with UCSF and Stanford University, to form the Biohub); BP (pledged $400 million to research biofuels); the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (over $68 million since the foundation's creation), billionaire Sir Li Ka-Shing (multiple gifts, most notably a $40 million gift in 2005), Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, Thomas and Stacey Siebel, Sanford and Joan Weill, and professor Gordon Rausser ($50 million gift in 2020). Several significant gifts have been made anonymously, including a 1999 gift of $50 million to support molecular engineering, a 2018 gift of $50 million to support STEM faculty, a $70 million gift in 2019 to support the BioEnginuity Hub, and a gift in 2020 of $252 million to support data science. The 2008–13 Campaign for Berkeley raised $3.13 billion from 281,855 donors, and the "Light the Way" campaign, announced in early 2020, is scheduled to raise $6 billion by the end of 2023. Academics Berkeley is a large, primarily residential Tier One research university with a majority of its enrollment in undergraduate programs but also offering a comprehensive doctoral program. The university has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission since 1949. The university operates on a semester calendar and awarded 8,725 bachelor's, 3,286 master's or professional and 1,272 doctoral degrees in 2018–2019. The university's academic enterprise is organized into 14 colleges and schools, which, in turn, comprise 180 departments and 80 interdisciplinary units offering over 350 degree programs. Colleges serve both undergraduate and graduate students, while schools are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors or minors. College of Chemistry College of Engineering College of Environmental Design College of Letters and Science Graduate School of Education Graduate School of Journalism Haas School of Business Goldman School of Public Policy Rausser College of Natural Resources School of Information School of Law School of Optometry School of Public Health School of Social Welfare UC Berkeley Extension (currently has two locations, in downtown Berkeley and downtown San Francisco. Undergraduate programs The four-year, full-time undergraduate program offers 107 bachelor's degrees across the Haas School of Business (1), College of Chemistry (5), College of Engineering (20), College of Environmental Design (4), College of Letters and Science (67), Rausser College of Natural Resources (10), and individual majors (2). The most popular majors are Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Political Science, Molecular and Cell Biology, Environmental Science, and Economics. Requirements for undergraduate degrees are set by four authorities: the University of California system, the Berkeley campus, the college or school, and the department. These requirements include an entry-level writing requirement before enrollment (typically fulfilled by minimum scores on standardized admissions exams such as the SAT or ACT), completing coursework on "American History and Institutions" before or after enrollment by taking an introductory class, passing an "American Cultures Breadth" class at Berkeley, as well as requirements for reading and composition and specific requirements declared by the department and school. Three-hour final examinations are required in most undergraduate classes and take place over a week following the last day of instruction in mid-December for the Fall semester and in mid-May for the Spring semester. Academic grades are reported on a four-point, five-letter scale (A thru F) with grade points being modified by three-tenths of point for pluses and minuses, save for the A+, which carries just four points. Requirements for academic honors are specified by individual schools and colleges, scholarly prizes are typically awarded by departments, and students are elected to honor societies based on these organizations' criteria. Graduate and professional programs Berkeley has a "comprehensive" graduate program, with high coexistence with the programs offered to undergraduates, and offers interdisciplinary graduate programs with the medical schools at UCSF (various masters and doctoral) and Stanford (MD/MPH). The university offers Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Fine Arts, and PhD degrees in addition to professional degrees such as the Juris Doctor, Master of Business Administration, Master of Public Health, and Master of Design. The university awarded 963 doctoral degrees and 3,531 master's degrees in 2017. Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. Most graduate students are supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, or research assistantships. The 2010 United States National Research Council Rankings identified UC Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking include Agricultural and Resource Economics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, English, Epidemiology, Geography, German, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, and Development, Physics, Plant Biology, and Political Science. Berkeley was also the #1 recipient of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships between 2001 and 2010, with 1,333 awards. Faculty and research Berkeley is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2021, Berkeley's funding for research and development exceeded $1 billion. There are 1,629 full-time and 896 part-time faculty members among more than 130 academic departments and more than 80 interdisciplinary research units. The current faculty includes 260 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, three Fields Medalists, 77 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 78 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 149 members of the National Academy of Sciences, eight Nobel Prize winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, 125 Sloan Fellows, 8 Wolf Prize winners and 1 Pritzker Prize winner. Library system Berkeley's 32 libraries together contain more than 13 million volumes and cover over 12 acres (4.9 ha) of land, forming one of the largest library complexes in the world. Doe Library serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections reside in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The Bancroft Library, which has over 400,000 printed volumes and 70 million manuscripts, pictures, and maps, maintains special collections that document the history of the western part of North America, with an emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America. The Bancroft Library also houses the Mark Twain Papers, the Oral History Center, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri and the University Archives. Rankings Nationally, the 2019–20 U.S. News & World Reports "Best Colleges" ranks Berkeley second among public universities and 22nd among national universities. The 2021 Forbes America's Top Colleges report ranks Berkeley the top university among 600 private and public universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States. Washington Monthly ranked Berkeley 10th among national universities in 2021, with criteria based on research, community service, and social mobility. For 2020, QS World University Rankings places Berkeley fourth among all US universities and first among publics. The 2018–19 Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked the university the top public university in the nation and fourth overall based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, and citations. The Money Magazine Best Colleges ranking for 2015 ranked Berkeley 9th in the United States, based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings. For 2015 Kiplinger ranked Berkeley the 4th best-value public university in the nation for in-state students, and 6th for out-of-state students. In 2014, The Daily Beast Best Colleges report ranked Berkeley 11th in the country. The 2013 Top American Research Universities report by the Center for Measuring University Performance ranked Berkeley 8th over-all, 5th in resources, faculty, and education, 9th in resources and education, and 1st in education. Berkeley produces more Nobel laureates and billionaires than any other public university in the United States. Berkeley was listed as a "Public Ivy" in Richard Moll's 1985 Public Ivies. Globally, for 2020–21 Berkeley is ranked 4th by U.S. News & World Report, 5th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 7th by Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and 30th in the QS World University Rankings. Additionally, the Times Higher Education considers Berkeley, based on reputation, to be one of the world's "six super brands" along with Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Stanford. For 2020–21, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked the university 12th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, and research performance. In 2017, the Nature Index ranked the university the ninth largest contributor to papers published in 82 leading journals. Admissions and enrollment {| class="wikitable" style="width:250px; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em;" class="wikitable sortable" |+ Ethnic Enrollment, Fall ! Ethnicity !! 2020 Undergraduate !! 2016 Undergraduate !! 2020 Graduate !! 2016 Graduate |- ! Black | 3.7% | 3.3% | 4.7% | 3.7% |- ! Asian | 39.3% | 38.6% | 20.6% | 17.0% |- ! White | 21.8% | 26.3% | 34.3% | 37.7% |- ! Hispanic and Latino | 17.9% | 14.2% | 9.2% | 7.6% |- ! Native American | 0.4% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.6% |- ! Unreported/unknown | 4.2% | 4.1% | 4.7% | 8.5% |- ! International | 12.6% | 12.9% | 25.7% | 24.8% |} For Fall 2019, Berkeley's total enrollment was 43,695: 31,780 undergraduate and 11,915 graduate students, with women accounting for 54 percent of undergraduates and 46 percent of graduate and professional students. 6,465 first-time freshmen and 2,554 degree-seeking transfer students matriculated. The acceptance rate for freshmen was 14 percent. Of enrolled freshmen, 55 percent were women. Enrolled freshman had an average unweighted GPA of 3.89 and an average SAT score of 1425. The interquartile range for SAT scores was 1330–1520. Berkeley and other campuses of the University of California do not superscore. Berkeley students are eligible for a variety of public and private financial aid. Generally, financial aid inquiries are processed through the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office, although some schools, such as the Haas School of Business and Berkeley Law, have their own financial aid offices. Berkeley's enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. For 2019, Berkeley ranked fourth in enrollment of recipients of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (132 scholars). Twenty-seven percent of admitted students receive federal Pell grants. Discoveries and innovation A number of significant inventions and discoveries have been made by Berkeley faculty members and researchers: Natural sciences Atomic bomb – Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was wartime director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Manhattan Project. Carbon 14 & photosynthesis – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben first discovered carbon 14 in 1940, and Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used carbon 14 as a molecular tracer to reveal the carbon assimilation path in photosynthesis, known as Calvin cycle. Carcinogens – Identified chemicals that damage DNA. The Ames test was described in a series of papers in 1973 by Bruce Ames and his group at the university. Chemical elements – 16 elements have been discovered at Berkeley (technetium, astatine, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, and seaborgium). Covalent bond – Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms, and invented the Lewis notation to describe the mechanisms. CRISPR gene editing – Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna discovers a precise and inexpensive way for manipulating DNA in human cells. Cyclotron – Ernest O. Lawrence created a particle accelerator in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize in 1939. Dark energy – Saul Perlmutter and many others in the Supernova Cosmology Project discover the universe is expanding because of dark energy 1998. Flu vaccine – Wendell M. Stanley and colleagues discovered the vaccine in the 1940s. Hydrogen bomb – Edward Teller, the father of hydrogen bomb, was a professor at Berkeley and a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory & the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Immunotherapy of cancer – James P. Allison discovers and develops monoclonal antibody therapy that uses the immune system to combat cancer 1992–1995. Molecular clock – Allan Wilson discovery in 1967. Neuroplasticity – Marian Diamond discovers structural, biochemical, and synaptic changes in brain caused by environmental enrichment 1964 Oncogene – Peter Duesberg discovers first cancer causing gene in a virus 1970s. Telomerase – Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak discover enzyme that promotes cell division and growth 1985. Vitamin E – Gladys Anderson Emerson isolates Vitamin E in a pure form in 1952. Computer and applied sciences Berkeley RISC – David Patterson leads ARPA's VLSI project of microprocessor design 1980–1984. Berkeley UNIX/Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) – The Computer Systems Research Group was a research group at Berkeley that was dedicated to enhancing AT&T Unix operating system and funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Bill Joy modified the code and released it in 1977 under the open source BSD license, starting an open-source revolution. Deep sea diving – Joel Henry Hildebrand used helium with oxygen to mitigate decompression sickness. GIMP – In 1995, Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis began developing GIMP as a semester-long project at Berkeley. Polygraph – invented by John Augustus Larson and a police officer from the Berkeley Police Department in 1921. Project Genie – DARPA funded project. It produced an early time-sharing system including the Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the SDS 940. Concepts from Project Genie influenced the development of the TENEX operating system for the PDP-10, and Unix, which inherited the concept of process forking from it. Unix co-creator Ken Thompson worked on Project Genie while at Berkeley. SPICE – Donald O. Pederson develops the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) 1972. Tcl programming language – developed by John Ousterhout in 1988. Three-dimensional Transistor – Chenming Hu won the 2014 National Medal of Technology for developing the "first 3-dimensional transistors, which radically advanced semiconductor technology." Vi text editor – Bill Joy created the first Vi editor in 1976. Wetsuit – Hugh Bradner invents first wetsuit 1952. Companies and entrepreneurship Berkeley alumni and faculty have founded many companies, some of which are shown below. Berkeley has often been cited as one of the universities that have produced most entrepreneurs, and boasts its own startup incubator, Berkeley SkyDeck. Activision Blizzard, 1979 (as Activision), co-founder Alan Miller (BS) and Larry Kaplan (BA) AIG, 1919, founder Cornelius Vander Starr (Attended) Apple, 1976, co-founder Steve Wozniak (BS) Coursera, 2012, co-founder Andrew Ng (PhD) eBay, 1995, founder Pierre Omidyar (Attended) Gap Inc., 1969, co-founder Donald Fisher (BS) HTC Corporation, 1997, co-founder Cher Wang (BA) Intel, 1968, co-founders Gordon Moore (BS) and Andy Grove (PhD) Marvell Technology Group, 1995, co-founders Sehat Sutardja (MS, PhD) and Weili Dai (BA) Morgan Stanley, 1924 (as Dean Witter & Co.), co-founder Dean G. Witter (BA) Mozilla Corporation, 2005, co-founder Mitchell Baker (BA, JD) Myspace, 2003, co-founder Tom Anderson (BA) Renaissance Technologies, 1982, founder James Simons (PhD) Rotten Tomatoes, 1998, founders Senh Duong (BA), Patrick Y. Lee (BA) and Stephen Wang (BA) SanDisk, 1988, co-founder Sanjay Mehrotra (BS, MS) Softbank, 1981, founder Masayoshi Son (BA) Sun Microsystems, 1982, co-founder Bill Joy (MS) Tesla, 2003, co-founder Marc Tarpenning (BS) VMware, 1998, co-founders Diane Greene (MS) and Mendel Rosenblum (PhD) Campus The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately , though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately are occupied by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; other facilities above the main campus include the Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an ecological preserve, the University of California Botanical Garden and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. Portions of the mostly undeveloped, eastern area of the campus are actually within the City of Oakland; these portions extend from the Claremont Resort north through the Panoramic Hill neighborhood to Tilden Park. To the west of the central campus is the downtown business district of Berkeley; to the northwest is the neighborhood of North Berkeley, including the so-called Gourmet Ghetto, a commercial district known for high quality dining due to the presence of such world-renowned restaurants as Chez Panisse. Immediately to the north is a quiet residential neighborhood known as Northside with a large graduate student population; situated north of that are the upscale residential neighborhoods of the Berkeley Hills. Immediately southeast of campus lies fraternity row and beyond that the Clark Kerr Campus and an upscale residential area named Claremont. The area south of the university includes student housing and Telegraph Avenue, one of Berkeley's main shopping districts with stores, street vendors and restaurants catering to college students and tourists. In addition, the university also owns land to the northwest of the main campus, a married student housing complex in the nearby town of Albany ("Albany Village" and the "Gill Tract"), and a field research station several miles to the north in Richmond, California. The campus is home to several museums including the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Lawrence Hall of Science. The Museum of Paleontology, found in the lobby of the Valley Life Sciences Building, showcases a variety of dinosaur fossils including a complete cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The campus also offers resources for innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the Big Ideas Competition (Blum Center for Developing Economies), SkyDeck, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and the Berkeley Haas Innovation Lab. The campus is also home to the University of California Botanical Garden, one of the most diverse plant collections in the United States, famous for its large number of rare and endangered species, with more than 12,000 individual species. Outside of the Bay Area, the university owns various research laboratories and research forests in both northern and southern Sierra Nevada. Architecture What is considered the historic campus today was the result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California", funded by William Randolph Hearst's mother and initially held in the Belgian city of Antwerp; eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco in 1899. The winner was Frenchman Émile Bénard, however he refused to personally supervise the implementation of his plan and the task was subsequently given to architecture professor John Galen Howard. Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s. The structures forming the "classical core" of the campus were built in the Beaux-Arts Classical style, and include Hearst Greek Theatre, Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Memorial Library, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall, Sather Gate, and the Sather Tower (nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile in Venice), the tallest university clock tower in the United States. Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or Collegiate Gothic styles; examples of these are North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall. Many of Howard's designs are recognized California Historical Landmarks and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built in 1873 in a Victorian Second-Empire-style, South Hall, designed by David Farquharson, is the oldest university building in California. It, and the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Piedmont Avenue east of the main campus, are two of the only surviving examples of the nineteenth-century campus. Other notable architects and firms whose work can be found in the campus and surrounding area are Bernard Maybeck (Faculty Club); Julia Morgan (Hearst Women's Gymnasium and Julia Morgan Hall); William Wurster (Stern Hall); Moore Ruble Yudell (Haas School of Business); Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (C.V. Starr East Asian Library), and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive). Natural features Flowing into the main campus are two branches of Strawberry Creek. The south fork enters a culvert upstream of the recreational complex at the mouth of Strawberry Canyon and passes beneath California Memorial Stadium before appearing again in Faculty Glade. It then runs through the center of the campus before disappearing underground at the west end of campus. The north fork appears just east of University House and runs through the glade north of the Valley Life Sciences Building, the original site of the Campus Arboretum. Trees in the area date from the founding of the university. The campus features numerous wooded areas, including: Founders' Rock, Faculty Glade, Grinnell Natural Area, and the Eucalyptus Grove, which is both the tallest stand of such trees in the world and the tallest stand of hardwood trees in North America. The campus sits on the Hayward Fault, which runs directly through California Memorial Stadium. Student life and traditions The official university mascot is Oski the Bear, who debuted in 1941. Previously, live bear cubs were used as mascots at Memorial Stadium until it was decided in 1940 that a costumed mascot would be a better alternative. Named after the Oski-wow-wow yell, he is cared for by the Oski Committee, whose members have exclusive knowledge of the identity of the costume-wearer. The University of California Marching Band, which has served the university since 1891, performs at every home football game and at select road games as well. A smaller subset of the Cal Band, the Straw Hat Band, performs at basketball games, volleyball games, and other campus and community events. The UC Rally Committee, formed in 1901, is the official guardian of California's Spirit and Traditions. Wearing their traditional blue and gold rugbies, Rally Committee members can be seen at all major sporting and spirit events. Committee members are charged with the maintenance of the six Cal flags, the large California banner overhanging the Memorial Stadium Student Section and Haas Pavilion, the California Victory Cannon, Card Stunts and The Big "C" among other duties. The Rally Committee is also responsible for safekeeping of the Stanford Axe when it is in Cal's possession. The Chairman of the Rally Committee holds the title "Custodian of the Axe" while it is in the committee's care. Overlooking the main Berkeley campus from the foothills in the east, The Big "C" is an important symbol of California school spirit. The Big "C" has its roots in an early 20th-century campus event called "Rush", which pitted the freshman and sophomore classes against each other in a race up Charter | Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory began to contract with the U.S. Army to develop the atomic bomb. Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was named scientific head of the Manhattan Project in 1942. Along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley founded and was then a partner in managing two other labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory (1943) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1952). By 1942, the American Council on Education ranked Berkeley second only to Harvard in the number of distinguished departments. In 1952, the University of California reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus given a chancellor, and Clark Kerr became Berkeley's first Chancellor, while Sproul remained in place as the President of the University of California. Berkeley gained a worldwide reputation for political activism in the 1960s. In 1964, the Free Speech Movement organized student resistance to the university's restrictions on political activities on campus—most conspicuously, student activities related to the Civil Rights Movement. The arrest in Sproul Plaza of Jack Weinberg, a recent Berkeley alumnus and chair of Campus CORE, in October 1964, prompted a series of student-led acts of formal remonstrance and civil disobedience that ultimately gave rise to the Free Speech Movement, which movement would prevail and serve as a precedent for student opposition to America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1982, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) was established on campus with support from the National Science Foundation and at the request of three Berkeley mathematicians — Shiing-Shen Chern, Calvin Moore, and Isadore M. Singer. The institute is now widely regarded as a leading center for collaborative mathematical research, drawing thousands of visiting researchers from around the world each year. 21st century In the current century, Berkeley has become less politically active and more focused on entrepreneurship and fundraising, especially for STEM disciplines. Modern Berkeley students are less politically radical, with a greater percentage of moderates and conservatives than in the 1960s and 70s. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 9:1. On the whole, Democrats outnumber Republicans on American university campuses by a ratio of 10:1. In 2007, the Energy Biosciences Institute was established with funding from BP and Stanley Hall, a research facility and headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, opened. The next few years saw the dedication of the Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, funded by a lead gift from billionaire Li Ka-shing; the opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, home of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society; and the unveiling of Blum Hall, housing the Blum Center for Developing Economies. Supported by a grant from alumnus James Simons, the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing was established in 2012. In 2014, Berkeley and its sister campus, UCSF, established the Innovative Genomics Institute, and, in 2020, an anonymous donor pledged $252 million to help fund a new center for computing and data science. Since 2000, Berkeley alumni and faculty have received 44 Nobel Prizes, behind only Harvard and MIT among American universities; five Turing Awards, behind only MIT and Stanford; and five Fields Medals, second only to Princeton. According to PitchBook, Berkeley ranks second, just behind Stanford, in producing VC-backed entrepreneurs. Organization and administration Although the University of California system does not have an official flagship campus, many scholars and experts consider Berkeley to be its unofficial flagship. In some cases, it shares this unofficial status with the University of California, Los Angeles. Name Officially the University of California, Berkeley, its name is often shortened to Berkeley in general reference or in an academic context (www.berkeley.edu, Berkeley Law, Berkeley Public Health, Berkeley Haas) or to California or Cal, particularly when referring to its athletic teams (California Golden Bears). Governance The University of California is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents, 18 of whom are appointed by the Governor of California to 12-year terms. The board also has seven ex officio members, a student regent, and a non-voting student regent-designate. Prior to 1952, Berkeley was the University of California, so the university president was also Berkeley's chief executive. However, in 1952, the university reorganized itself into a system of semi-autonomous campuses, with each campus having its own chief executive, a chancellor, who would, in turn, report to the president of the university system. Twelve vice chancellors report directly to Berkeley's chancellor, and the deans of the 14 colleges and schools report to the executive vice chancellor and provost, Berkeley's chief academic officer. Twenty-five presidents and chancellors have led Berkeley since its founding. Funding Berkeley receives funding from a variety of federal, state, and private sources. With the exception of government contracts, public support is apportioned to Berkeley and the other campuses of the University of California system through the UC Office of the President and accounts for some 12 percent of Berkeley's total revenues. Berkeley has long benefited from private philanthropy, with considerable gifts from the Flood, Hearst, Durant, Strauss, Lick, Harmon, and Bacon families in the 19th century and from the Hearst, Doe, Sather, Rockefeller, Cowell, Haviland, Bowles, Boalt, and Stern families, among others, in the first half of the 20th century. More recently, alumni and their foundations have given to the university for operations and capital expenditures. Berkeley has also benefited from the giving of individuals, corporations, and foundations, notable among which are Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (pledged $600 million, shared with UCSF and Stanford University, to form the Biohub); BP (pledged $400 million to research biofuels); the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (over $68 million since the foundation's creation), billionaire Sir Li Ka-Shing (multiple gifts, most notably a $40 million gift in 2005), Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, Thomas and Stacey Siebel, Sanford and Joan Weill, and professor Gordon Rausser ($50 million gift in 2020). Several significant gifts have been made anonymously, including a 1999 gift of $50 million to support molecular engineering, a 2018 gift of $50 million to support STEM faculty, a $70 million gift in 2019 to support the BioEnginuity Hub, and a gift in 2020 of $252 million to support data science. The 2008–13 Campaign for Berkeley raised $3.13 billion from 281,855 donors, and the "Light the Way" campaign, announced in early 2020, is scheduled to raise $6 billion by the end of 2023. Academics Berkeley is a large, primarily residential Tier One research university with a majority of its enrollment in undergraduate programs but also offering a comprehensive doctoral program. The university has been accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission since 1949. The university operates on a semester calendar and awarded 8,725 bachelor's, 3,286 master's or professional and 1,272 doctoral degrees in 2018–2019. The university's academic enterprise is organized into 14 colleges and schools, which, in turn, comprise 180 departments and 80 interdisciplinary units offering over 350 degree programs. Colleges serve both undergraduate and graduate students, while schools are generally graduate only, though some offer undergraduate majors or minors. College of Chemistry College of Engineering College of Environmental Design College of Letters and Science Graduate School of Education Graduate School of Journalism Haas School of Business Goldman School of Public Policy Rausser College of Natural Resources School of Information School of Law School of Optometry School of Public Health School of Social Welfare UC Berkeley Extension (currently has two locations, in downtown Berkeley and downtown San Francisco. Undergraduate programs The four-year, full-time undergraduate program offers 107 bachelor's degrees across the Haas School of Business (1), College of Chemistry (5), College of Engineering (20), College of Environmental Design (4), College of Letters and Science (67), Rausser College of Natural Resources (10), and individual majors (2). The most popular majors are Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Political Science, Molecular and Cell Biology, Environmental Science, and Economics. Requirements for undergraduate degrees are set by four authorities: the University of California system, the Berkeley campus, the college or school, and the department. These requirements include an entry-level writing requirement before enrollment (typically fulfilled by minimum scores on standardized admissions exams such as the SAT or ACT), completing coursework on "American History and Institutions" before or after enrollment by taking an introductory class, passing an "American Cultures Breadth" class at Berkeley, as well as requirements for reading and composition and specific requirements declared by the department and school. Three-hour final examinations are required in most undergraduate classes and take place over a week following the last day of instruction in mid-December for the Fall semester and in mid-May for the Spring semester. Academic grades are reported on a four-point, five-letter scale (A thru F) with grade points being modified by three-tenths of point for pluses and minuses, save for the A+, which carries just four points. Requirements for academic honors are specified by individual schools and colleges, scholarly prizes are typically awarded by departments, and students are elected to honor societies based on these organizations' criteria. Graduate and professional programs Berkeley has a "comprehensive" graduate program, with high coexistence with the programs offered to undergraduates, and offers interdisciplinary graduate programs with the medical schools at UCSF (various masters and doctoral) and Stanford (MD/MPH). The university offers Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Fine Arts, and PhD degrees in addition to professional degrees such as the Juris Doctor, Master of Business Administration, Master of Public Health, and Master of Design. The university awarded 963 doctoral degrees and 3,531 master's degrees in 2017. Admission to graduate programs is decentralized; applicants apply directly to the department or degree program. Most graduate students are supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, or research assistantships. The 2010 United States National Research Council Rankings identified UC Berkeley as having the highest number of top-ranked doctoral programs in the nation. Berkeley doctoral programs that received a #1 ranking include Agricultural and Resource Economics, Astrophysics, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, English, Epidemiology, Geography, German, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, and Development, Physics, Plant Biology, and Political Science. Berkeley was also the #1 recipient of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships between 2001 and 2010, with 1,333 awards. Faculty and research Berkeley is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities—Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2021, Berkeley's funding for research and development exceeded $1 billion. There are 1,629 full-time and 896 part-time faculty members among more than 130 academic departments and more than 80 interdisciplinary research units. The current faculty includes 260 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows, three Fields Medalists, 77 Fulbright Scholars, 139 Guggenheim Fellows, 78 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 149 members of the National Academy of Sciences, eight Nobel Prize winners, four Pulitzer Prize winners, 125 Sloan Fellows, 8 Wolf Prize winners and 1 Pritzker Prize winner. Library system Berkeley's 32 libraries together contain more than 13 million volumes and cover over 12 acres (4.9 ha) of land, forming one of the largest library complexes in the world. Doe Library serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center, while most of the main collections reside in the subterranean Gardner Main Stacks and Moffitt Undergraduate Library. The Bancroft Library, which has over 400,000 printed volumes and 70 million manuscripts, pictures, and maps, maintains special collections that document the history of the western part of North America, with an emphasis on California, Mexico and Central America. The Bancroft Library also houses the Mark Twain Papers, the Oral History Center, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri and the University Archives. Rankings Nationally, the 2019–20 U.S. News & World Reports "Best Colleges" ranks Berkeley second among public universities and 22nd among national universities. The 2021 Forbes America's Top Colleges report ranks Berkeley the top university among 600 private and public universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States. Washington Monthly ranked Berkeley 10th among national universities in 2021, with criteria based on research, community service, and social mobility. For 2020, QS World University Rankings places Berkeley fourth among all US universities and first among publics. The 2018–19 Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked the university the top public university in the nation and fourth overall based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, and citations. The Money Magazine Best Colleges ranking for 2015 ranked Berkeley 9th in the United States, based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings. For 2015 Kiplinger ranked Berkeley the 4th best-value public university in the nation for in-state students, and 6th for out-of-state students. In 2014, The Daily Beast Best Colleges report ranked Berkeley 11th in the country. The 2013 Top American Research Universities report by the Center for Measuring University Performance ranked Berkeley 8th over-all, 5th in resources, faculty, and education, 9th in resources and education, and 1st in education. Berkeley produces more Nobel laureates and billionaires than any other public university in the United States. Berkeley was listed as a "Public Ivy" in Richard Moll's 1985 Public Ivies. Globally, for 2020–21 Berkeley is ranked 4th by U.S. News & World Report, 5th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 7th by Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and 30th in the QS World University Rankings. Additionally, the Times Higher Education considers Berkeley, based on reputation, to be one of the world's "six super brands" along with Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Stanford. For 2020–21, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranked the university 12th in the world based on quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, and research performance. In 2017, the Nature Index ranked the university the ninth largest contributor to papers published in 82 leading journals. Admissions and enrollment {| class="wikitable" style="width:250px; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em;" class="wikitable sortable" |+ Ethnic Enrollment, Fall ! Ethnicity !! 2020 Undergraduate !! 2016 Undergraduate !! 2020 Graduate !! 2016 Graduate |- ! Black | 3.7% | 3.3% | 4.7% | 3.7% |- ! Asian | 39.3% | 38.6% | 20.6% | 17.0% |- ! White | 21.8% | 26.3% | 34.3% | 37.7% |- ! Hispanic and Latino | 17.9% | 14.2% | 9.2% | 7.6% |- ! Native American | 0.4% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.6% |- ! Unreported/unknown | 4.2% | 4.1% | 4.7% | 8.5% |- ! International | 12.6% | 12.9% | 25.7% | 24.8% |} For Fall 2019, Berkeley's total enrollment was 43,695: 31,780 undergraduate and 11,915 graduate students, with women accounting for 54 percent of undergraduates and 46 percent of graduate and professional students. 6,465 first-time freshmen and 2,554 degree-seeking transfer students matriculated. The acceptance rate for freshmen was 14 percent. Of enrolled freshmen, 55 percent were women. Enrolled freshman had an average unweighted GPA of 3.89 and an average SAT score of 1425. The interquartile range for SAT scores was 1330–1520. Berkeley and other campuses of the University of California do not superscore. Berkeley students are eligible for a variety of public and private financial aid. Generally, financial aid inquiries are processed through the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office, although some schools, such as the Haas School of Business and Berkeley Law, have their own financial aid offices. Berkeley's enrollment of National Merit Scholars was third in the nation until 2002, when participation in the National Merit program was discontinued. For 2019, Berkeley ranked fourth in enrollment of recipients of the National Merit $2,500 Scholarship (132 scholars). Twenty-seven percent of admitted students receive federal Pell grants. Discoveries and innovation A number of significant inventions and discoveries have been made by Berkeley faculty members and researchers: Natural sciences Atomic bomb – Physics professor J. Robert Oppenheimer was wartime director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Manhattan Project. Carbon 14 & photosynthesis – Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben first discovered carbon 14 in 1940, and Nobel laureate Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used carbon 14 as a molecular tracer to reveal the carbon assimilation path in photosynthesis, known as Calvin cycle. Carcinogens – Identified chemicals that damage DNA. The Ames test was described in a series of papers in 1973 by Bruce Ames and his group at the university. Chemical elements – 16 elements have been discovered at Berkeley (technetium, astatine, neptunium, plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, dubnium, and seaborgium). Covalent bond – Gilbert N. Lewis in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms, and invented the Lewis notation to describe the mechanisms. CRISPR gene editing – Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna discovers a precise and inexpensive way for manipulating DNA in human cells. Cyclotron – Ernest O. Lawrence created a particle accelerator in 1934, and was awarded the Nobel Physics Prize in 1939. Dark energy – Saul Perlmutter and many others in the Supernova Cosmology Project discover the universe is expanding because of dark energy 1998. Flu vaccine – Wendell M. Stanley and colleagues discovered the vaccine in the 1940s. Hydrogen bomb – Edward Teller, the father of hydrogen bomb, was a professor at Berkeley and a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory & the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Immunotherapy of cancer – James P. Allison discovers and develops monoclonal antibody therapy that uses the immune system to combat cancer 1992–1995. Molecular clock – Allan Wilson discovery in 1967. Neuroplasticity – Marian Diamond discovers structural, biochemical, and synaptic changes in brain caused by environmental enrichment 1964 Oncogene – Peter Duesberg discovers first cancer causing gene in a virus 1970s. Telomerase – Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak discover enzyme that promotes cell division and growth 1985. Vitamin E – Gladys Anderson Emerson isolates Vitamin E in a pure form in 1952. Computer and applied sciences Berkeley RISC – David Patterson leads ARPA's VLSI project of microprocessor design 1980–1984. Berkeley UNIX/Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) – The Computer Systems Research Group was a research group at Berkeley that was dedicated to enhancing AT&T Unix operating system and funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Bill Joy modified the code and released it in 1977 under the open source BSD license, starting an open-source revolution. Deep sea diving – Joel Henry Hildebrand used helium with oxygen to mitigate decompression sickness. GIMP – In 1995, Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis began developing GIMP as a semester-long project at Berkeley. Polygraph – invented by John Augustus Larson and a police officer from the Berkeley Police Department in 1921. Project Genie – DARPA funded project. It produced an early time-sharing system including the Berkeley Timesharing System, which was then commercialized as the SDS 940. Concepts from Project Genie influenced the development of the TENEX operating system for the PDP-10, and Unix, which inherited the concept of process forking from it. Unix co-creator Ken Thompson worked on Project Genie while at Berkeley. SPICE – Donald O. Pederson develops the Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (SPICE) 1972. Tcl programming language – developed by John Ousterhout in 1988. Three-dimensional Transistor – Chenming Hu won the 2014 National Medal of Technology for developing the "first 3-dimensional transistors, which radically advanced semiconductor technology." Vi text editor – Bill Joy created the first Vi editor in 1976. Wetsuit – Hugh Bradner invents first wetsuit 1952. Companies and entrepreneurship Berkeley alumni and faculty have founded many companies, some of which are shown below. Berkeley has often been cited as one of the universities that have produced most entrepreneurs, and boasts its own startup incubator, Berkeley SkyDeck. Activision Blizzard, 1979 (as Activision), co-founder Alan Miller (BS) and Larry Kaplan (BA) AIG, 1919, founder Cornelius Vander Starr (Attended) Apple, 1976, co-founder Steve Wozniak (BS) Coursera, 2012, co-founder Andrew Ng (PhD) eBay, 1995, founder Pierre Omidyar (Attended) Gap Inc., 1969, co-founder Donald Fisher (BS) HTC Corporation, 1997, co-founder Cher Wang (BA) Intel, 1968, co-founders Gordon Moore (BS) and Andy Grove (PhD) Marvell Technology Group, 1995, co-founders Sehat Sutardja (MS, PhD) and Weili Dai (BA) Morgan Stanley, 1924 (as Dean Witter & Co.), co-founder Dean G. Witter (BA) Mozilla Corporation, 2005, co-founder Mitchell Baker (BA, JD) Myspace, 2003, co-founder Tom Anderson (BA) Renaissance Technologies, 1982, founder James Simons (PhD) Rotten Tomatoes, 1998, founders Senh Duong (BA), Patrick Y. Lee (BA) and Stephen Wang (BA) SanDisk, 1988, co-founder Sanjay Mehrotra (BS, MS) Softbank, 1981, founder Masayoshi Son (BA) Sun Microsystems, 1982, co-founder Bill Joy (MS) Tesla, 2003, co-founder Marc Tarpenning (BS) VMware, 1998, co-founders Diane Greene (MS) and Mendel Rosenblum (PhD) Campus The Berkeley campus encompasses approximately , though the "central campus" occupies only the low-lying western of this area. Of the remaining acres, approximately are occupied by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; other facilities above the main campus include the Lawrence Hall of Science and several research units, notably the Space Sciences Laboratory, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, an ecological preserve, the University of California Botanical Garden and a recreation center in Strawberry Canyon. Portions of the mostly undeveloped, eastern area of the campus are actually within the City of Oakland; these portions extend from the Claremont Resort north through the Panoramic Hill neighborhood to Tilden Park. To the west of the central campus is the downtown business district of Berkeley; to the northwest is the neighborhood of North Berkeley, including the so-called Gourmet Ghetto, a commercial district known for high quality dining due to the presence of such world-renowned restaurants as Chez Panisse. Immediately to the north is a quiet residential neighborhood known as Northside with a large graduate student population; situated north of that are the upscale residential neighborhoods of the Berkeley Hills. Immediately southeast of campus lies fraternity row and beyond that the Clark Kerr Campus and an upscale residential area named Claremont. The area south of the university includes student housing and Telegraph Avenue, one of Berkeley's main shopping districts with stores, street vendors and restaurants catering to college students and tourists. In addition, the university also owns land to the northwest of the main campus, a married student housing complex in the nearby town of Albany ("Albany Village" and the "Gill Tract"), and a field research station several miles to the north in Richmond, California. The campus is home to several museums including the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Lawrence Hall of Science. The Museum of Paleontology, found in the lobby of the Valley Life Sciences Building, showcases a variety of dinosaur fossils including a complete cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The campus also offers resources for innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the Big Ideas Competition (Blum Center for Developing Economies), SkyDeck, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, and the Berkeley Haas Innovation Lab. The campus is also home to the University of California Botanical Garden, one of the most diverse plant collections in the United States, famous for its large number of rare and endangered species, with more than 12,000 individual species. Outside of the Bay Area, the university owns various research laboratories and research forests in both northern and southern Sierra Nevada. Architecture What is considered the historic campus today was the result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan for the University of California", funded by William Randolph Hearst's mother and initially held in the Belgian city of Antwerp; eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco in 1899. The winner was Frenchman Émile Bénard, however he refused to personally supervise the implementation of his plan |
or early sophomore year will complete three years at UCSC and then move on to UC Hastings to begin the three-year law curriculum. Credits from the first year of law school will count toward a student's bachelor's degree. Students who successfully complete the first-year law course work will receive their bachelor's degree and be able to graduate with their UCSC class, then continue at UC Hastings afterwards for two years. Research According to the National Science Foundation, UC Santa Cruz spent $127.5 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 144th in the nation. Although designed as a liberal arts-oriented university, UCSC quickly acquired a graduate-level natural science research component with the appointment of plant physiologist Kenneth V. Thimann as the first provost of Crown College. Thimann developed UCSC's early Division of Natural Sciences and recruited other well-known science faculty and graduate students to the fledgling campus. Immediately upon its founding, UCSC was also granted administrative responsibility for the Lick Observatory, which established the campus as a major center for astronomy research. Founding members of the Social Science and Humanities faculty created the unique History of Consciousness graduate program in UCSC's first year of operation. Famous former UCSC faculty members include Judith Butler and Angela Davis. UCSC's organic farm and garden program is the oldest in the country, and pioneered organic horticulture techniques internationally. As of 2015, UCSC's faculty include 13 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 24 fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 33 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Baskin School of Engineering, founded in 1997, is UCSC's first and only professional school. Baskin Engineering is home to several research centers, including the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering and Cyberphysical Systems Research Center, which are gaining recognition, as has the work that UCSC researchers David Haussler and Jim Kent have done on the Human Genome Project, including the widely used UCSC Genome Browser. UCSC administers the National Science Foundation's Center for Adaptive Optics. Off-campus research facilities maintained by UCSC include the Lick and Keck Observatories and the Long Marine Laboratory. From September 2003 to July 2016, UCSC managed a University Affiliated Research System (UARC) for the NASA Ames Research Center under a task order contract valued at more than $330 million. Rankings UC Santa Cruz was tied for 58th in the list of Best Global Universities and tied for 97th in the list of Best National Universities in the United States by U.S. News & World Reports 2021 rankings. In 2017 Kiplinger ranked UC Santa Cruz 50th out of the top 100 best-value public colleges and universities in the nation, and 3rd in California. Money Magazine ranked UC Santa Cruz 41st in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2016 Best Colleges ranking. In 2016–2017, UC Santa Cruz was rated 146th in the world by Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2016 it was ranked 83rd in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and 296th worldwide in 2016 by the QS World University Rankings. In 2009, RePEc, an online database of research economics articles, ranked the UCSC Economics Department sixth in the world in the field of international finance. In 2007, High Times magazine placed UCSC as first among US universities as a "counterculture college." In 2009, The Princeton Review (with Gamepro magazine) ranked UC Santa Cruz's Game Design major among the top 50 in the country. In 2011, The Princeton Review and Gamepro Media ranked UC Santa Cruz's graduate programs in Game Design as seventh in the nation. In 2012, UCSC was ranked No. 3 in the Most Beautiful Campus list of Princeton Review. Residential colleges The undergraduate program, with only the partial exception of those majors run through the university's Baskin School of Engineering, is still based on the version of the "residential college system" outlined by Clark Kerr and Dean McHenry at the inception of their original plans for the campus (see History, above). Upon admission, all undergraduate students have the opportunity to choose one of ten colleges, with which they usually stay affiliated for their entire undergraduate careers. There are cases where some students switch college affiliations as each college holds a different graduation ceremony. Almost all faculty members are affiliated with a college as well. The individual colleges provide housing and dining services, while the university as a whole offers courses and majors to the general student community. Other universities with similar college systems include Rice University and the University of California, San Diego. Each of the colleges has its own, distinctive architectural style and a resident faculty provost, who is the nominal head of his or her college. An incoming first-year student will take a mandatory "core course" within his or her respective college, with a curriculum and central theme unique to that college. College resident populations vary from about 750 to 1,550 students, with roughly half of undergraduates living on campus within their college community or in smaller, intramural campus communities such as the International Living Center, the Trailer Park, and the Village. Coursework, academic majors and general areas of study are not limited by college membership, although colleges host the offices of many academic departments. Graduate students are not affiliated with a residential college, though a large portion of their offices, too, have historically tended to be based in the colleges. The ten colleges are, in order of establishment: Admissions For the fall 2019 term, UCSC offered admission to 28,808 freshmen out of 55,866 applicants, an acceptance rate of 51.6%. The entering freshman class had an average high school GPA of 3.57, and the middle 50% range of SAT scores were 590-680 for evidence-base reading and writing, 600-710 for math, while the ACT Composite range was 24–30. Grading For most of its history, UCSC employed a unique student evaluation system. With the exception of the choice of letter grades in science courses the only grades assigned were "pass" and "no record", supplemented with narrative evaluations. Beginning in 1997, UCSC allowed students the option of selecting letter grade evaluations, but course grades were still optional until 2000, when faculty voted to require students receive letter grades. Students were still given narrative evaluations to complement the letter grades. , the narrative evaluations were deemed an unnecessary expenditure. Still, some professors write evaluations for all students while some would write evaluations for specific students upon request. Students can still elect to receive a "pass/no pass" grade, but many academic programs limit or even forbid pass/no pass grading. A grade of C and above would receive a grade of "pass". Overall, students may now earn no more than 25% of their UCSC credits on a "pass/no pass" basis. Although the default grading option for almost all courses offered is now "graded", most course grades are still accompanied by written evaluations. Library The McHenry Library houses UCSC's arts and letters collection, with most of the scientific reading at the newer Science and Engineering Library. The McHenry Library was designed by John Carl Warnecke. In addition, the colleges host smaller libraries, which serve as quiet places to study. The McHenry Special Collections Library includes the archives of Robert A. Heinlein, the papers of Anaïs Nin, the papers and drawings of Beat poet Kenneth Patchen, the largest collection of Edward Weston photographs in the country, the mycology book collection of composer John Cage, a large collection of works by Satyajit Ray, the Hayden White collection of 16th-century Italian printing, a photography collection with nearly half a million items, and the Mary Lea Shane Archive. The latter contains an extensive collection of photographs, letters, and other documents related to Lick Observatory dating back to 1870. A new addition to the library opened on March 31, 2008, including a "cyber study" room and a Global Village café. The original library reopened on June 22, 2011 after seismic upgrades and other renovations. In total, the University Libraries contain over 2.4 million volumes. Grateful Dead archive In 2008, UCSC agreed to house the Grateful Dead archives at the McHenry Library. Exhibits of Grateful Dead Archive materials are on display in the Brittingham Family Foundation's Dead Central Gallery on the 2nd Floor of McHenry Library. The Dead Central exhibit space is open during all library business hours. UCSC plans to devote an entire room at the library, to be called "Dead Central," to display the collection and encourage research. UCSC beat out petitions from Stanford and UC Berkeley to house the archives. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said that UCSC is "a seat of neo-Bohemian culture that we're a facet of. There could not have been a cozier place for this collection to land." The archive became open to the public July 29, 2012. Student life Most undergraduates are from California. The following tables show the ethnic and regional breakdown of the student body: UCSC students are known for political activism. In 2005, a Pentagon surveillance program deemed student opposition to military recruiters on campus a "credible threat," the only campus antiwar action to receive the designation. In February 2006, Chancellor Denice Denton got the designation removed. Military recruiters declined to return to UCSC the following year, but returned in 2008 to a more low-keyed student reception and protests using elements of guerrilla theatre, rather than vandalism or physical violence. Thanks to students passing a $3 quarterly tuition increase to support buying renewable energy in 2006, UCSC is the sixth-largest buyer of renewable energy among college campuses nationwide. UC Santa Cruz is also well known for its cannabis culture. On April 20, 2007, approximately 2,000 UCSC students gathered at Porter Meadow to celebrate the annual "420". Students and others openly smoked marijuana while campus police stood by. The once student-only event has grown since the city of Santa Cruz passed Measure K in 2006, an ordinance making marijuana use a low-priority crime for police. The 2007 event attracted a total of 5,000 participants. The university does not condone the gathering, but has taken steps to regulate the event and ensure security for all participants. On April 20, 2010, the school administration shut down the west entrance to campus and limited the number of buses that could drive through campus. Another well known tradition is what is known as "First Rain". Students run around campus naked or nearly naked to celebrate the school year's first night of heavy rain. The run begins at Porter and proceeds to travel through all the other colleges, collecting more students in its train. Student government The Student Union Assembly was founded in 1985 to better coordinate bargaining positions between students and administration on campus-wide issues. All the residential colleges and six ethnic and gender-based organizations send delegates to SUA. There is a total of 138 recognized student groups . Student media All Student media organizations are funded by a student council referendum of $3.20 per student per quarter. City on a Hill Press, a weekly publication that serves as the traditional campus newspaper. Fish Rap Live!, the alternative, comedic paper. TWANAS, the Third World and Native American Student Press Collective publishes issues about every quarter for various communities of color at UCSC. Its peak years were during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Student Cable Television (SCTV) disbanded at the beginning of the 2010 academic school year. On The Spot (OTS), replaced the defunct SCTV organization, continuing the student-run television opportunities. On The Spot airs on channel 28 only on campus. The Moxie Production Group, which produces content on a quarterly basis. The Project, a quarterly paper, for UCSC's radical community. The Disorientation Guide, published on sporadic years, introduces new students to UCSC's radical history and various political issues that face the campus and community. Rapt Magazine, a quarterly literary and arts magazine. Leviathan Jewish Journal, a Jewish student life publication. On The Spot, a student-run broadcast media organization, that produces a variety of shows including Press Center Live (Sketch-Comedy), ART (Music videos), and game shows. Banana Slug News, a television broadcast news program. Chinquapin, an open-ended creative journal sponsored by the creative writing department. Turnstile, a poetry journal. "Gaia Magazine," a magazine about environmental and sustainability subjects that is published once a year. Red Wheelbarrow, a "literary arts" journal. Matchbox Magazine, an | entire room at the library, to be called "Dead Central," to display the collection and encourage research. UCSC beat out petitions from Stanford and UC Berkeley to house the archives. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said that UCSC is "a seat of neo-Bohemian culture that we're a facet of. There could not have been a cozier place for this collection to land." The archive became open to the public July 29, 2012. Student life Most undergraduates are from California. The following tables show the ethnic and regional breakdown of the student body: UCSC students are known for political activism. In 2005, a Pentagon surveillance program deemed student opposition to military recruiters on campus a "credible threat," the only campus antiwar action to receive the designation. In February 2006, Chancellor Denice Denton got the designation removed. Military recruiters declined to return to UCSC the following year, but returned in 2008 to a more low-keyed student reception and protests using elements of guerrilla theatre, rather than vandalism or physical violence. Thanks to students passing a $3 quarterly tuition increase to support buying renewable energy in 2006, UCSC is the sixth-largest buyer of renewable energy among college campuses nationwide. UC Santa Cruz is also well known for its cannabis culture. On April 20, 2007, approximately 2,000 UCSC students gathered at Porter Meadow to celebrate the annual "420". Students and others openly smoked marijuana while campus police stood by. The once student-only event has grown since the city of Santa Cruz passed Measure K in 2006, an ordinance making marijuana use a low-priority crime for police. The 2007 event attracted a total of 5,000 participants. The university does not condone the gathering, but has taken steps to regulate the event and ensure security for all participants. On April 20, 2010, the school administration shut down the west entrance to campus and limited the number of buses that could drive through campus. Another well known tradition is what is known as "First Rain". Students run around campus naked or nearly naked to celebrate the school year's first night of heavy rain. The run begins at Porter and proceeds to travel through all the other colleges, collecting more students in its train. Student government The Student Union Assembly was founded in 1985 to better coordinate bargaining positions between students and administration on campus-wide issues. All the residential colleges and six ethnic and gender-based organizations send delegates to SUA. There is a total of 138 recognized student groups . Student media All Student media organizations are funded by a student council referendum of $3.20 per student per quarter. City on a Hill Press, a weekly publication that serves as the traditional campus newspaper. Fish Rap Live!, the alternative, comedic paper. TWANAS, the Third World and Native American Student Press Collective publishes issues about every quarter for various communities of color at UCSC. Its peak years were during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Student Cable Television (SCTV) disbanded at the beginning of the 2010 academic school year. On The Spot (OTS), replaced the defunct SCTV organization, continuing the student-run television opportunities. On The Spot airs on channel 28 only on campus. The Moxie Production Group, which produces content on a quarterly basis. The Project, a quarterly paper, for UCSC's radical community. The Disorientation Guide, published on sporadic years, introduces new students to UCSC's radical history and various political issues that face the campus and community. Rapt Magazine, a quarterly literary and arts magazine. Leviathan Jewish Journal, a Jewish student life publication. On The Spot, a student-run broadcast media organization, that produces a variety of shows including Press Center Live (Sketch-Comedy), ART (Music videos), and game shows. Banana Slug News, a television broadcast news program. Chinquapin, an open-ended creative journal sponsored by the creative writing department. Turnstile, a poetry journal. "Gaia Magazine," a magazine about environmental and sustainability subjects that is published once a year. Red Wheelbarrow, a "literary arts" journal. Matchbox Magazine, an annual humanities publication, started at UCSC, that operates across many UC campuses. EyeCandy, an annual student-run film journal associated with the Film and Digital Media department. KZSC, the student-run campus radio station. Santa Cruz Indymedia, a local activist resource with a lot of UCSC content. The Film Production Coalition which produces films on a quarterly basis. Housing Most of the UCSC undergraduate housing is affiliated with one of the ten residential colleges. The residence halls, which include both shared and private rooms, typically house fifteen to twenty students per floor and have common bathrooms and lounge areas. Some halls have coed floors where men and women share bathroom facilities, others have separate bathroom facilities for men and women. Single-gender, gender-neutral and substance-free floors are also available. All of the colleges, except for Kresge, have both residence halls and apartments. Kresge is all apartments. Apartments are typically shared by four to eight students, have common living/dining rooms, kitchens and bathrooms, and a combination of shared and private bedrooms. Apartments at colleges other than Kresge are generally reserved for students above the freshman level. In addition to the residential colleges, housing is available at the Village on the lower quarry, populated by continuing and transfer students (in 2016-17, this will be restricted to only continuing students); the Redwood Grove Apartments, which is available to continuing student applicants from all colleges; and the University Town Center, located downtown, that serves both continuing and transfer students. The Transfer Community is located in sections of both the A and B Buildings at Porter College and over 500 residents live within this theme housing. Graduate Student Housing is available near Science Hill, and UCSC also offers Family Student Housing units as well as a Camper Park for student-owned trailers and RVs. Greek life UCSC is home to few fraternities and sororities. The first Greek organization on campus, Theta Chi, was given colony status on January 10, 1987 and chartered on October 14, 1989 (designation: Theta Iota). In the beginning, fraternities like Theta Chi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon were met with strong opposition from the student body. Student groups like P.A.C. (People's Alternative Community), S.A.G.E. (Students Against Greek Environments), and M.A.C. (Men's Alternative Community) protested the existence of Greek life at the UCSC campus. Greek life at UCSC includes fraternities Sigma Lambda Beta, Tau Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Pi, Lambda Phi Epsilon, Sigma Phi Zeta, Alpha Epsilon Pi, Pi Alpha Phi, and Delta Lambda Psi, the nation's first gender neutral queer Greek organization. Sororities that are members of the National Panhellenic Council at the University of California, Santa Cruz include Gamma Phi Beta and Kappa Kappa Gamma. Recently in June 2016 the Theta Xi chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta was chartered to bring a third National sorority to UC Santa Cruz. Sororities on campus include Delta Sigma Theta, Sigma Lambda Gamma, Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi, alpha Kappa Delta Phi, Gamma Phi Beta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Sigma Pi Alpha, Tri Chi, Sigma Omicron Pi, Kappa Zeta, Lambda Theta Alpha and Alpha Psi. The most recent Greek lettered organization added to the campus was Zeta Phi Beta sorority, which chartered its chapter Gamma Phi as of Spring 2016. Aside from social fraternities and sororities on campus, there are also a number of professional organizations as well. There are Kappa Gamma Delta, a prehealth sorority, Sigma Mu Delta, a prehealth fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, a coed service fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta, a pre-law fraternity, and Delta Sigma Pi, a co-ed professional business fraternity. Sustainability Students established the Student Environmental Center (SEC) in 2001, have held annual Earth Summits, and established a sustainability funding body, the Campus Sustainability Council. In 2004, the UC Policy on Sustainable Practices was released, stating that the University of California Office of the President was committed to minimizing its impact on the environment and reducing its dependence on non-renewable energy. In 2006, a Committee on Sustainability and Stewardship (CSS) was established and a campus-wide Sustainability Assessment was completed. The following year, the pilot Sustainability Office was created to help institutionalize sustainability, coordinate communication and collaboration between the many entities already engaged in campus sustainability activities at UCSC, support policy implementation, and serve as a resource for the campus. Organizations The following is a list of UCSC sustainability organizations, departments, gardens, and funding bodies on the UCSC campus: Athletics UCSC competes in Division III of the NCAA, mainly as a member of the Coast to Coast Athletic Conference (C2C). There are fifteen varsity sports – men's and women's basketball, tennis, soccer, volleyball, swimming, cross country and diving, and women's golf. UCSC teams have been Division III nationally ranked in tennis, soccer, men's volleyball, and swimming. The Men's water polo team was ranked 18th in the nation in 2006 and won the D3 national Championship, however in 2009 the team was cut due to budget cuts. UCSC maintains a number of club teams. It has won several club national championships in men's tennis, 3 in men's waterpolo and also a women's Division II championship in club rugby. Due to mounting debt resulting from UCSC's athletic program, UCSC polled its students in 2016 on whether they would consider approving a quarterly fee that would support athletic operations. After polling showed support for a potential fee, a measure to introduce a |
In 1868, the University of California was established as a land-grant university, and immediately founded a College of Agriculture as its first college as required by the Morrill Land-Grant Acts and the university's own Organic Act. UC operated a small farm at the Berkeley campus for several years after Ezra S. Carr became professor of agriculture, but he managed to alienate both the university faculty and the state's farmers with his attempt to directly integrate practical training in farming with courses on the larger historical, social, and political dimensions of farming and got himself fired in 1874. The faculty could not understand why students should earn credit towards degrees for hoeing or plowing, and the farmers could not understand how learning the social history of farming could make their children into better farmers. Eugene W. Hilgard, Carr's successor, recognized that Berkeley's soil and climate were terrible for farming (the campus directly faces the notoriously foggy Golden Gate) and switched from "practical" to what he called "rational" instruction in scientific principles of agriculture at Berkeley. He concentrated on things like soil science and fermentation that could be researched and taught in a university laboratory, supplemented by limited data gathering and experiments (but not hands-on teaching) at agricultural experimental stations in the field. Hilgard was disdainful of the idea of a university farm. He felt that for such a farm to teach effectively, it would necessarily have to be a model farm with examples of the best of everything, without any reference to local profitability, climate, or circumstances, and such a thing was clearly infeasible. Founding of the University Farm Around the turn of the 20th century, Peter J. Shields, secretary of the California Agricultural Society, became aware that colleges of agriculture elsewhere had university farms which performed experiments and provided hands-on education in useful agricultural subjects, and that young people were leaving the state to study at such farms. Shields began to champion the cause of a university farm. He was later honored as the "founder" of UC Davis in 1962, when the Shields Oak Grove on campus was named after him, and again posthumously in 1972 when the campus library was named after him. However, local farmer and politician George Washington Pierce Jr. also fought hard in the California State Assembly for the creation of a university farm, and influenced the drafting of the site criteria in the University Farm Bill to ensure that Yolo County would become the selected site—but unlike Shields, did not live long enough to see the promotion of Davis to a general campus and is now largely forgotten. On March 18, 1905, the University Farm Bill was enacted, which called for the establishment of a farm for the University of California. A committee appointed by the Board of Regents took a year to select a site for the University Farm, a 779-acre farm near a tiny Yolo County town then known as Davisville. The Regents officially took control of the property in September 1906 and constructed four buildings in 1907. Short courses were first offered in October and November 1908, and then the University Farm officially opened in 1909 as the University Farm School, offering a three-year non-degree vocational program. The vocational program was shortened from three to two years in 1923. Initially, no degrees were awarded at Davis. Students in the College of Agriculture at Berkeley often enrolled at Davis for a single semester to obtain practical training on an actual farm alongside the vocational students, but had to return to Berkeley to earn their degrees. Because the non-degree vocational program at Davis was so disconnected from the traditional degree programs on the main Berkeley campus, agricultural interests began to agitate to separate Davis and the entire College of Agriculture from the University of California. This forced the Board of Regents in 1922 to silence such proposals by authorizing a four-year undergraduate degree program at Davis. The first class graduated from Davis in 1926. Renamed in 1922 as the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture, and, in 1938, as the College of Agriculture at Davis, the institution continued growing at a breakneck pace: in 1916 the Farm's 314 students occupied the original campus. By 1951 it had expanded to a size of . In 1958, the vocational program was discontinued. Seventh UC campus In 1959, the campus was designated by the Regents of the University of California as the seventh general campus in the University of California system. Davis's Graduate Division was established in 1961, followed by the creation of the College of Engineering in 1962. The law school opened for classes in fall 1966, and the School of Medicine began instruction in fall 1968. In a period of increasing activism, a Native American studies program was started in 1969, one of the first at a major university; it was later developed into a full department within the university. Notable events 2011 pepper spray incident and aftermath During a protest against tuition hikes on November 18, 2011, a campus police officer, Lieutenant John Pike, used pepper spray on a group of seated demonstrators when they refused to disperse, and another officer also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction. The incident drew international attention and led to further demonstrations, a formal investigation, and Pike's departure in July 2012. Documents released in 2016 through a public records request showed that the university had spent at least $175,000 to attempt to "scrub the Internet of negative postings" about the incident, in efforts that started in 2013. California newspaper The Sacramento Bee obtained a document outlining the public relations strategy, which stated: "Nevins and Associates is prepared to create and execute an online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have received related to the events that transpired in November 2011". The strategy included an "aggressive and comprehensive online campaign to eliminate the negative search results" intended to achieve the "eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor". The university's strategic communications office, which has worked on the management of the reputation of the university and its chancellor, has had its budget substantially increased since the current chancellor took office – rising from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015. In August 2016 Katehi resigned as chancellor, and under the terms of her contract, will continue to be a full-time faculty member at UCD. New chancellor In February 2017, Gary S. May, Ph.D., was named the seventh chancellor of UCD after a nationwide search. He officially began in the role on August 1. May, the former dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech, is the second African American to be named chancellor at any of the UC campuses (after former UC Irvine chancellor, Ohio State president and current UC system president Michael Drake) and one of only three currently serving African American chancellors/presidents of an AAU institution. Campus Size and location Although named after the City of Davis, the campus is technically located adjacent to the City of Davis in an unincorporated part of Yolo and Solano counties. The main campus is located west of Sacramento in the Sacramento Valley, part of California's Central Valley, and is adjacent to Interstate 80. The city of Davis is a college town, with the ratio of students to long-term residents estimated at 1:4. Also contributing to the college-town environment is the close proximity of downtown Davis to the campus' main quad—a matter of a few blocks, and 5- to 10-minute walk or bike ride. Davis' 15-minute distance from Sacramento provides it with both the isolation critical to fostering a college-town environment while also providing a lively and large metropolitan area nearby. Although the campus itself is vast, the entire community of Davis is relatively small and is easily traversable on bike utilizing Davis' extensive bicycle trails. Campus Core/Quad Towards the northeast end of campus is the Quad, a large rectangular field, which was the historic geographic center of campus. Earlier in the campus' history, the few campus buildings surrounded the four sides of the Quad. Today, though the campus has grown significantly and the geographic center of campus has shifted, the Quad remains the center of campus life, anchored to the north by the Memorial Union (student union), to the south by Shields Library and to the west and southeast by Wellman and Olson halls respectively. The Memorial Union Complex houses Freeborn Hall and the Memorial Union, which houses various establishments such as the UC Davis Bookstore. The northeast side of campus holds more of the core buildings that were built earlier in UC Davis's history, such as Wellman Hall, Shields Library, Mrak Hall, and Hutchison Hall. Also notable in this northeastern corner is the labyrinthine Social Sciences and Humanities building designed by Antoine Predock, known to students as the "Death Star" for its angular, metallic design. South Main Campus and South Campus The majority of Equestrian Center, and Animal Sciences buildings are located near the Arboretum Waterway, away from the core campus; the West Entry Parking Complex, the Silo Union, and the newly constructed Science Lecture Hall and the Science Laboratory Building are located nearer to the Tercero residence halls and the core of campus. The Mondavi Center, home of the University Symphony Orchestra and other cultural events, is also located near the Tercero complex. West Campus For most of UC Davis' history, West Campus has served primarily as agricultural research land. Recently, portions were developed through a $300 million public-private partnership to form the largest zero net energy community in the United States, known as UC Davis West Village. West Village will provide housing for 3,000 students, faculty and staff and will help the university recruit and retain top faculty. The project will include 662 apartments, 343 single-family homes, 42,500 square feet of commercial space, a recreation center and study facilities. West Village will also host the first community college on a UC campus. The classes held in this area mainly involve plant sciences, but also include entomology courses as well. Students in the plant sciences maintain gardens as part of the PLS 5 lab while Entomology 156L and 158 students embark on field trips to sample fish for parasites at Putah Creek and conduct projects in forensic entomology at the UC Davis ecosystem, respectively. West Campus is also home to the University Airport, Foundation Plant Services, the California National Primate Research Center, and the Contained Research Facility, a bio-safety level 3 facility. Arboretum To the south side of the campus core is the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum, which includes 3.5 miles of paved paths, 4,000 tree specimens, Putah Creek and Lake Spafford. On March 10, 2017, a multi-year waterway enhancement project began. Artwork There are seven public art statues found around campus, collectively called The Egghead Series, sculpted by the late Robert Arneson, who also taught at Davis from 1962 to 1991. Bookhead is located at the Shields Library plaza, Yin & Yang is located at the Fine Arts Complex, See No Evil/Hear No Evil is at the east lawn of King Hall (the main building for UC Davis' School of Law), Eye on Mrak (FatalLaff) is outside Mrak Hall (housing the registrar office and other administrative offices), and Stargazer is located between North Hall and Young Hall. The Yin & Yang egg heads have been recast and duplicated for installation near the Port of San Francisco Ferry Building in San Francisco. Museums on campus include the C.N. Gorman Museum, specializing in indigenous and Native American art; and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, with a focus on local artists from the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Pop art and Funk art movements. Student housing UC Davis Student Housing operates 23 residence halls totaling 29 buildings which are organized into three areas: Segundo, Tercero, and Cuarto. UC Davis Student Housing is large enough to accommodate over 11,000 students. Typically, campus operated housing is reserved exclusively for first-year students, whereby other students are required to seek housing off-campus at apartments or rented homes. The northwest end of campus holds the majority of the Segundo undergraduate housing complex, and various alternative housing sites, such as Orchard Park, Russell Park, The Colleges at LaRue Apartments, and Primero Grove. The Activities and Recreation Center, or the ARC, is also located near the Segundo complex. Adjacent to the northwest corner of campus is the Cuarto undergraduate housing complex, which has one dining commons. The Tercero undergraduate housing complex is located near the geographic center of the UC Davis campus, to the north of the Arboretum Waterway. This extends longitudinally through almost the entirety of the south end of campus. Solano Park, UC Davis' family housing complex, is located adjacent to the Arboretum Waterway, at the Eastern end of campus. The Davis Arboretum is a public botanic garden with over 4,000 kinds of trees and plants, including many California native plants, which has been developed over along The Waterway. The Cuarto undergraduate (freshmen and transfer students) housing complex is located one block off-campus, across Russell Boulevard. Unlike the other undergraduate housing complexes, Cuarto is located within city limits; its residents may vote in city elections. Organization and administration The entire University of California system is governed by the regents, a 26-member board, as established under Article IX, Section 9 of the California Constitution. The board appoints the university's principal officers including the system-wide president and UC Davis Chancellor. The UC Davis Chancellor has overall responsibility for the leadership, management, and administration of the campus and reports to the President of the University of California system, a position currently held by the former president of Ohio State University (and chancellor of UC Irvine), Michael Drake, whose predecessor was former Secretary of Homeland Security and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. The Offices of the Chancellor and Provost is headed by the executive vice-chancellor and provost (EVCP). In their capacity as executive vice-chancellor, the EVCP shares with the chancellor in the overall leadership and management of campus administration and operations, whereas as provost, the EVCP is UC Davis' chief academic officer. The senior staff provides executive support to the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost. The Council of Deans and Vice-Chancellor consists of the heads of the university's major academic and administrative units. Students are most likely to interact with or be directly affected by the Office of Student Affairs, which is run by the vice chancellor of student affairs, currently Fred Wood, and by a variety of associate and assistant vice-chancellors. This office oversees many campus units including: Admissions, Athletics, Campus Recreation, Campus Unions, Counseling and Psychological Services, Financial Aid, Student Housing and others. Student demographics {| class="wikitable" style="width:250px; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em;" class="wikitable sortable" |+ Ethnic Enrollment, Fall ! Ethnicity !! 2020 Undergraduate !! 2016 Undergraduate !! 2020 Graduate !! 2016 Graduate |- ! Black | 3.7% | 3.4% | 4.3% | 3.0% |- ! Asian | 32.5% | 34% | 18.2% | 16.5% |- ! White | 21.6% | 26.2% | 37.1% | 42.8% |- ! Hispanic and Latino | 23.1% | 19.8% | 11.8% | 9.3% |- ! Native American | 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.0% | 1.1% |- ! Unreported/unknown | 2.2% | 2.5% | 5.6% | 5.2% |- ! International | 16.4% | 13.3% | 21.9% | 22.1% |} Women comprised 60.4% of undergraduates in Fall 2018. In 2010, the United States Census Bureau made UC Davis its own separate census-designated place for statistical purposes. The campus location is out of the bounds of the Davis city limit. In 2014, Chancellor Katehi stated that UC Davis aims to become a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the 2018–2019 school year, with at least 25% of the undergraduate student body consisting of Latinos. Academics The university has 102 undergraduate majors and 101 graduate programs. It has a Department of Viticulture and Enology (concerning the scientific study of grape-growing and winemaking) that has been and continues to be responsible for significant advancements in winemaking utilized by many Californian wineries. The campus claims to be noted for its top-rated Agricultural and Resource Economics programs and the large Department of Animal Science through which students can study at the university's own on-campus dairy, meat-processing plant, equestrian facility, and experimental farm. Students of Environmental Horticulture and other botanical sciences have many acres of campus farmland and the University of California, Davis, Arboretum at their disposal. The Department of Applied Science was founded and formerly chaired by physicist Edward Teller. The arts are also studied extensively on campus with subjects such as studio art, design, music, theater and dance. The Design Department at UC Davis is the only comprehensive academic design unit of the University of California system. There is also the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts which features artists from all over the globe. UC Davis undergraduate majors are divided into four colleges: UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences UC Davis College of Biological Sciences UC Davis College of Engineering UC Davis College of Letters and Science Rankings UC Davis is considered to be a "Public Ivy." In its 2021 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Davis tied for the 11th-best public university in the United States, tied for 39th nationally and tied for 66th globally. Washington Monthly ranked UC Davis 13th in its 2020 National University ranking, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, | agitate to separate Davis and the entire College of Agriculture from the University of California. This forced the Board of Regents in 1922 to silence such proposals by authorizing a four-year undergraduate degree program at Davis. The first class graduated from Davis in 1926. Renamed in 1922 as the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture, and, in 1938, as the College of Agriculture at Davis, the institution continued growing at a breakneck pace: in 1916 the Farm's 314 students occupied the original campus. By 1951 it had expanded to a size of . In 1958, the vocational program was discontinued. Seventh UC campus In 1959, the campus was designated by the Regents of the University of California as the seventh general campus in the University of California system. Davis's Graduate Division was established in 1961, followed by the creation of the College of Engineering in 1962. The law school opened for classes in fall 1966, and the School of Medicine began instruction in fall 1968. In a period of increasing activism, a Native American studies program was started in 1969, one of the first at a major university; it was later developed into a full department within the university. Notable events 2011 pepper spray incident and aftermath During a protest against tuition hikes on November 18, 2011, a campus police officer, Lieutenant John Pike, used pepper spray on a group of seated demonstrators when they refused to disperse, and another officer also pepper sprayed demonstrators at Pike's direction. The incident drew international attention and led to further demonstrations, a formal investigation, and Pike's departure in July 2012. Documents released in 2016 through a public records request showed that the university had spent at least $175,000 to attempt to "scrub the Internet of negative postings" about the incident, in efforts that started in 2013. California newspaper The Sacramento Bee obtained a document outlining the public relations strategy, which stated: "Nevins and Associates is prepared to create and execute an online branding campaign designed to clean up the negative attention the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have received related to the events that transpired in November 2011". The strategy included an "aggressive and comprehensive online campaign to eliminate the negative search results" intended to achieve the "eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results on Google for the university and the Chancellor". The university's strategic communications office, which has worked on the management of the reputation of the university and its chancellor, has had its budget substantially increased since the current chancellor took office – rising from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million in 2015. In August 2016 Katehi resigned as chancellor, and under the terms of her contract, will continue to be a full-time faculty member at UCD. New chancellor In February 2017, Gary S. May, Ph.D., was named the seventh chancellor of UCD after a nationwide search. He officially began in the role on August 1. May, the former dean of the College of Engineering at Georgia Tech, is the second African American to be named chancellor at any of the UC campuses (after former UC Irvine chancellor, Ohio State president and current UC system president Michael Drake) and one of only three currently serving African American chancellors/presidents of an AAU institution. Campus Size and location Although named after the City of Davis, the campus is technically located adjacent to the City of Davis in an unincorporated part of Yolo and Solano counties. The main campus is located west of Sacramento in the Sacramento Valley, part of California's Central Valley, and is adjacent to Interstate 80. The city of Davis is a college town, with the ratio of students to long-term residents estimated at 1:4. Also contributing to the college-town environment is the close proximity of downtown Davis to the campus' main quad—a matter of a few blocks, and 5- to 10-minute walk or bike ride. Davis' 15-minute distance from Sacramento provides it with both the isolation critical to fostering a college-town environment while also providing a lively and large metropolitan area nearby. Although the campus itself is vast, the entire community of Davis is relatively small and is easily traversable on bike utilizing Davis' extensive bicycle trails. Campus Core/Quad Towards the northeast end of campus is the Quad, a large rectangular field, which was the historic geographic center of campus. Earlier in the campus' history, the few campus buildings surrounded the four sides of the Quad. Today, though the campus has grown significantly and the geographic center of campus has shifted, the Quad remains the center of campus life, anchored to the north by the Memorial Union (student union), to the south by Shields Library and to the west and southeast by Wellman and Olson halls respectively. The Memorial Union Complex houses Freeborn Hall and the Memorial Union, which houses various establishments such as the UC Davis Bookstore. The northeast side of campus holds more of the core buildings that were built earlier in UC Davis's history, such as Wellman Hall, Shields Library, Mrak Hall, and Hutchison Hall. Also notable in this northeastern corner is the labyrinthine Social Sciences and Humanities building designed by Antoine Predock, known to students as the "Death Star" for its angular, metallic design. South Main Campus and South Campus The majority of Equestrian Center, and Animal Sciences buildings are located near the Arboretum Waterway, away from the core campus; the West Entry Parking Complex, the Silo Union, and the newly constructed Science Lecture Hall and the Science Laboratory Building are located nearer to the Tercero residence halls and the core of campus. The Mondavi Center, home of the University Symphony Orchestra and other cultural events, is also located near the Tercero complex. West Campus For most of UC Davis' history, West Campus has served primarily as agricultural research land. Recently, portions were developed through a $300 million public-private partnership to form the largest zero net energy community in the United States, known as UC Davis West Village. West Village will provide housing for 3,000 students, faculty and staff and will help the university recruit and retain top faculty. The project will include 662 apartments, 343 single-family homes, 42,500 square feet of commercial space, a recreation center and study facilities. West Village will also host the first community college on a UC campus. The classes held in this area mainly involve plant sciences, but also include entomology courses as well. Students in the plant sciences maintain gardens as part of the PLS 5 lab while Entomology 156L and 158 students embark on field trips to sample fish for parasites at Putah Creek and conduct projects in forensic entomology at the UC Davis ecosystem, respectively. West Campus is also home to the University Airport, Foundation Plant Services, the California National Primate Research Center, and the Contained Research Facility, a bio-safety level 3 facility. Arboretum To the south side of the campus core is the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum, which includes 3.5 miles of paved paths, 4,000 tree specimens, Putah Creek and Lake Spafford. On March 10, 2017, a multi-year waterway enhancement project began. Artwork There are seven public art statues found around campus, collectively called The Egghead Series, sculpted by the late Robert Arneson, who also taught at Davis from 1962 to 1991. Bookhead is located at the Shields Library plaza, Yin & Yang is located at the Fine Arts Complex, See No Evil/Hear No Evil is at the east lawn of King Hall (the main building for UC Davis' School of Law), Eye on Mrak (FatalLaff) is outside Mrak Hall (housing the registrar office and other administrative offices), and Stargazer is located between North Hall and Young Hall. The Yin & Yang egg heads have been recast and duplicated for installation near the Port of San Francisco Ferry Building in San Francisco. Museums on campus include the C.N. Gorman Museum, specializing in indigenous and Native American art; and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, with a focus on local artists from the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Pop art and Funk art movements. Student housing UC Davis Student Housing operates 23 residence halls totaling 29 buildings which are organized into three areas: Segundo, Tercero, and Cuarto. UC Davis Student Housing is large enough to accommodate over 11,000 students. Typically, campus operated housing is reserved exclusively for first-year students, whereby other students are required to seek housing off-campus at apartments or rented homes. The northwest end of campus holds the majority of the Segundo undergraduate housing complex, and various alternative housing sites, such as Orchard Park, Russell Park, The Colleges at LaRue Apartments, and Primero Grove. The Activities and Recreation Center, or the ARC, is also located near the Segundo complex. Adjacent to the northwest corner of campus is the Cuarto undergraduate housing complex, which has one dining commons. The Tercero undergraduate housing complex is located near the geographic center of the UC Davis campus, to the north of the Arboretum Waterway. This extends longitudinally through almost the entirety of the south end of campus. Solano Park, UC Davis' family housing complex, is located adjacent to the Arboretum Waterway, at the Eastern end of campus. The Davis Arboretum is a public botanic garden with over 4,000 kinds of trees and plants, including many California native plants, which has been developed over along The Waterway. The Cuarto undergraduate (freshmen and transfer students) housing complex is located one block off-campus, across Russell Boulevard. Unlike the other undergraduate housing complexes, Cuarto is located within city limits; its residents may vote in city elections. Organization and administration The entire University of California system is governed by the regents, a 26-member board, as established under Article IX, Section 9 of the California Constitution. The board appoints the university's principal officers including the system-wide president and UC Davis Chancellor. The UC Davis Chancellor has overall responsibility for the leadership, management, and administration of the campus and reports to the President of the University of California system, a position currently held by the former president of Ohio State University (and chancellor of UC Irvine), Michael Drake, whose predecessor was former Secretary of Homeland Security and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. The Offices of the Chancellor and Provost is headed by the executive vice-chancellor and provost (EVCP). In their capacity as executive vice-chancellor, the EVCP shares with the chancellor in the overall leadership and management of campus administration and operations, whereas as provost, the EVCP is UC Davis' chief academic officer. The senior staff provides executive support to the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost. The Council of Deans and Vice-Chancellor consists of the heads of the university's major academic and administrative units. Students are most likely to interact with or be directly affected by the Office of Student Affairs, which is run by the vice chancellor of student affairs, currently Fred Wood, and by a variety of associate and assistant vice-chancellors. This office oversees many campus units including: Admissions, Athletics, Campus Recreation, Campus Unions, Counseling and Psychological Services, Financial Aid, Student Housing and others. Student demographics {| class="wikitable" style="width:250px; float:right; clear:right; margin-left:1em;" class="wikitable sortable" |+ Ethnic Enrollment, Fall ! Ethnicity !! 2020 Undergraduate !! 2016 Undergraduate !! 2020 Graduate !! 2016 Graduate |- ! Black | 3.7% | 3.4% | 4.3% | 3.0% |- ! Asian | 32.5% | 34% | 18.2% | 16.5% |- ! White | 21.6% | 26.2% | 37.1% | 42.8% |- ! Hispanic and Latino | 23.1% | 19.8% | 11.8% | 9.3% |- ! Native American | 0.4% | 0.7% | 1.0% | 1.1% |- ! Unreported/unknown | 2.2% | 2.5% | 5.6% | 5.2% |- ! International | 16.4% | 13.3% | 21.9% | 22.1% |} Women comprised 60.4% of undergraduates in Fall 2018. In 2010, the United States Census Bureau made UC Davis its own separate census-designated place for statistical purposes. The campus location is out of the bounds of the Davis city limit. In 2014, Chancellor Katehi stated that UC Davis aims to become a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the 2018–2019 school year, with at least 25% of the undergraduate student body consisting of Latinos. Academics The university has 102 undergraduate majors and 101 graduate programs. It has a Department of Viticulture and Enology (concerning the scientific study of grape-growing and winemaking) that has been and continues to be responsible for significant advancements in winemaking utilized by many Californian wineries. The campus claims to be noted for its top-rated Agricultural and Resource Economics programs and the large Department of Animal Science through which students can study at the university's own on-campus dairy, meat-processing plant, equestrian facility, and experimental farm. Students of Environmental Horticulture and other botanical sciences have many acres of campus farmland and the University of California, Davis, Arboretum at their disposal. The Department of Applied Science was founded and formerly chaired by physicist Edward Teller. The arts are also studied extensively on campus with subjects such as studio art, design, music, theater and dance. The Design Department at UC Davis is the only comprehensive academic design unit of the University of California system. There is also the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts which features artists from all over the globe. UC Davis undergraduate majors are divided into four colleges: UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences UC Davis College of Biological Sciences UC Davis College of Engineering UC Davis College of Letters and Science Rankings UC Davis is considered to be a "Public Ivy." In its 2021 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Davis tied for the 11th-best public university in the United States, tied for 39th nationally and tied for 66th globally. Washington Monthly ranked UC Davis 13th in its 2020 National University ranking, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. Money magazine ranked UC Davis 10th in the country out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 "Best Colleges for Your Money" edition and 4th in its list of the 50 best public schools in the U.S. Forbes in 2019 ranked UC Davis 88th overall out of 650 colleges and universities in the U.S., 49th among research universities, 22nd among public university, and 11th for "Best Value". For 2018 Kiplinger ranked Davis 47th out of the top 100 best-value public colleges and universities in the U.S. The university has several distinguished graduate programs ranked in the top 10 in their fields by the United States National Research Council; most notable are its programs in agricultural economics, entomology, evolutionary biology, plant biology, and ecology. Additionally, the NRC placed more than a third of UC Davis graduate programs in the top 25% of their respective fields. In 2016, U.S. News & World Report rated UC Davis 2nd globally in Agricultural Sciences, 1st in Plant and Animal Science, 4th in Environment/Ecology, and 1st nationally in Veterinary Medicine, 3rd in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 7th (tie) in Biological and Agricultural Engineering, 9th in U.S. Colonial History, 15th in Comparative Politics, 19th in Biological Sciences, 20th in Earth Sciences and 21st in Psychology. The Economics department of UC Davis was also ranked 6th among public universities and 20th nationally according to the RePec (Research Papers in Economics) Rankings in 2011. In 2013, The Economist placed UC Davis Graduate School of Management in the top 8% accredited MBA programs in the United States (ranked 37th nationally and 65th globally). The Academic Ranking of World Universities placed UC Davis 40th nationally and 90th globally for 2019. In its 2019 rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked it tied for 59th in the world. The QS World University Rankings ranked it tied for 104th globally for its 2020 ratings, with Veterinary Science ranked 2nd in the world. In 2016, Sierra Magazine ranked UC Davis 8th in its "Coolest Schools" in America list for campus sustainability and climate change efforts. Admissions Admission to UC Davis is rated as "more selective" by U.S. News & World Report. For Fall 2019, UC Davis received 78,093 freshmen applications; 30,358 were admitted (39.1%) and 5,957 enrolled. The average high school grade point average (GPA) of the enrolled freshmen was 4.13; the average SAT scores were between 610 and 710 for reading and 630-790 for math, and 28-34 for the ACT Composite score. Library UC Davis' libraries include the Peter J. Shields Library, the Physical Sciences & Engineering Library, the Carlson Health Sciences Library, and the Medical Center Library in Sacramento, contain more than 3.5 million volumes and offers a number of special collections and services. The Peter J. Shields Library has three different architectural styles due to various construction and extensions being added; it is the main library where students study on-campus, with a 24-hour reading room, open computer labs, and unique furniture. Army R.O.T.C. The university is host to an Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, the Forged Gold Battalion, with more than 50 cadets. With more than 60 years in existence, it currently commissions roughly 10 graduating seniors as second lieutenants every year. Graduate Studies The University of California Davis Graduate Programs of Study consist of over 90 post-graduate programs, offering masters and doctoral degrees and post-doctoral courses. The programs educate over 4,000 students from around the world. UC Davis has the following graduate and professional schools, the most in the entire UC system: UC Davis Graduate Studies Graduate School of Management School of Education School of Law School of Medicine School of Veterinary Medicine Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing History The University of California, Davis graduate division has a long history. Graduate education has been a major feature of the academic focus for over 80 years. This academic tradition began in the fall of 1925, when 12 students received graduate degrees from the College of Agriculture through a partnership with the graduate division of the University California at Berkeley. Over the years, the programs continued to grow, interact and collaborate. The first graduate degrees were awarded from the UC Davis campus in the fall of 1949. In 1961, autonomous Graduate Divisions and Graduate Councils were established on all University of California campuses to provide focused oversight of their graduate programs. Academics A key feature of graduate education at UC Davis is the graduate group. The core elements of a graduate group include an emphasis on "shared research interests among faculty and students; flexibility to grow and quickly change to reflect emerging areas of interdisciplinary knowledge and technology; and an acceptance that many research questions transcend traditional academic departmental boundaries." UC Davis offers more graduate groups than any other campus in the UC system. Medical school admissions In 2016, U.S. News & World Report named UC Davis School of Medicine as the 6th most competitive medical school in the United States with an acceptance rate of 2.8%. Faculty and research UC Davis is one of 62 members in the Association of American Universities, an organization of leading research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. It consists of sixty universities in the United States (both public and private) and two universities in Canada. Research expenditures UC Davis spent $788.8 million on research and development in fiscal year 2018, ranking it 30th in the nation. Faculty honors Its faculty includes 23 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 14 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 30 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 17 members of the American Law Institute, 5 members of the Royal Society, 3 Pulitzer Prize winners, 1 Guggenheim Fellow, and 3 MacArthur Fellows. Research centers and laboratories The campus supports a number of research centers and laboratories including: The Crocker Nuclear Laboratory on campus has had a nuclear accelerator since 1966. The laboratory is used by scientists and engineers from private industry, universities and government to research topics including nuclear physics, applied solid state physics, radiation effects, air quality, planetary geology and cosmogenics. UC Davis is the only UC campus, besides Berkeley, that has a nuclear laboratory. Agilent Technologies will also work with the university in establishing a Davis Millimeter Wave Research Center to conduct research into millimeter wave and THz systems. Student life The undergraduate student government of UC Davis is the Associated Students of UC Davis (ASUCD), and has an annual operating budget of $11.1 million, making it one of the largest-funded student governments in the United States. ASUCD includes an |
was to extend p-code away from its roots as a compiler intermediate language into a full execution environment. The UCSD Pascal p-Machine was optimized for the new small microcomputers with addressing restricted to 16-bit (only 64 KB of memory). James Gosling cites UCSD Pascal as a key influence (along with the Smalltalk virtual machine) on the design of the Java virtual machine. UCSD p-System achieved machine independence by defining a virtual machine, called the p-Machine (or pseudo-machine, which many users began to call the "Pascal-machine" like the OS—although UCSD documentation always used "pseudo-machine") with its own instruction set called p-code (or pseudo-code). Urs Ammann, a student of Niklaus Wirth, originally presented a p-code in his PhD thesis, from which the UCSD implementation was derived, the Zurich Pascal-P implementation. The UCSD implementation changed the Zurich implementation to be "byte oriented". The UCSD p-code was optimized for execution of the Pascal programming language. Each hardware platform then only needed a p-code interpreter program written for it to port the entire p-System and all the tools to run on it. Later versions also included additional languages that compiled to the p-code base. For example, Apple Computer offered a Fortran Compiler (written by Silicon Valley Software, Sunnyvale California) producing p-code that ran on the Apple version of the p-system. Later, TeleSoft (also located in San Diego) offered an early Ada development environment that used p-code and was therefore able to run on a number of hardware platforms including the Motorola 68000, the System/370, and the Pascal MicroEngine. UCSD p-System shares some concepts with the later Java platform. Both use a virtual machine to hide operating system and hardware differences, and both use programs written to that virtual machine to provide cross-platform support. Likewise both systems allow the virtual machine to be used either as the complete operating system of the target computer or to run in a "box" under another operating system. The UCSD Pascal compiler was distributed as part of a portable operating system, the p-System. History UCSD p-System began around 1974 as the idea of UCSD's Kenneth Bowles, who believed that the number of new computing platforms coming out at the time would make it difficult for new programming languages to gain acceptance. He based UCSD Pascal on the Pascal-P2 release of the portable compiler from Zurich. He was particularly interested in Pascal as a language to teach programming. UCSD introduced two features that were important improvements on the original Pascal: variable length strings, and "units" of independently compiled code (an idea included into the then-evolving Ada programming language). Niklaus Wirth credits the p-System, and UCSD Pascal in particular, with popularizing Pascal. It was not until the release of Turbo Pascal that UCSD's version started to slip from first place among Pascal users. The Pascal dialect of UCSD Pascal came from the subset of Pascal implemented in Pascal-P2, which was not designed to be a full implementation of the language, but rather "the minimum subset that would self-compile", to fit its function as a bootstrap kit for Pascal compilers. UCSD added strings from BASIC, and several other implementation dependent features. Although UCSD Pascal later obtained many of the other features of the full Pascal language, the Pascal-P2 subset persisted in other dialects, notably Borland Pascal, which copied much of the UCSD dialect. Versions There were four versions of UCSD p-code engine, each with several revisions of the p-System and UCSD Pascal. A revision of the p-code engine (i.e., the p-Machine) meant a change to the p-code language, and therefore compiled code is not portable between different p-Machine versions. Each revision was represented with a leading Roman Numeral, while operating system revisions were enumerated as the "dot" number following the p-code Roman Numeral. For example, II.3 represented the third revision of the p-System running on the second revision of the p-Machine. Version I Original version, never officially distributed outside of the University of California, San Diego. However, the Pascal sources for both Versions I.3 and I.5 were freely exchanged between interested users. Specifically, the patch revision I.5a was known to be one of the most stable. Version II | to call the "Pascal-machine" like the OS—although UCSD documentation always used "pseudo-machine") with its own instruction set called p-code (or pseudo-code). Urs Ammann, a student of Niklaus Wirth, originally presented a p-code in his PhD thesis, from which the UCSD implementation was derived, the Zurich Pascal-P implementation. The UCSD implementation changed the Zurich implementation to be "byte oriented". The UCSD p-code was optimized for execution of the Pascal programming language. Each hardware platform then only needed a p-code interpreter program written for it to port the entire p-System and all the tools to run on it. Later versions also included additional languages that compiled to the p-code base. For example, Apple Computer offered a Fortran Compiler (written by Silicon Valley Software, Sunnyvale California) producing p-code that ran on the Apple version of the p-system. Later, TeleSoft (also located in San Diego) offered an early Ada development environment that used p-code and was therefore able to run on a number of hardware platforms including the Motorola 68000, the System/370, and the Pascal MicroEngine. UCSD p-System shares some concepts with the later Java platform. Both use a virtual machine to hide operating system and hardware differences, and both use programs written to that virtual machine to provide cross-platform support. Likewise both systems allow the virtual machine to be used either as the complete operating system of the target computer or to run in a "box" under another operating system. The UCSD Pascal compiler was distributed as part of a portable operating system, the p-System. History UCSD p-System began around 1974 as the idea of UCSD's Kenneth Bowles, who believed that the number of new computing platforms coming out at the time would make it difficult for new programming languages to gain acceptance. He based UCSD Pascal on the Pascal-P2 release of the portable compiler from Zurich. He was particularly interested in Pascal as a language to teach programming. UCSD introduced two features that were important improvements on the original Pascal: variable length strings, and "units" of independently compiled code (an idea included into the then-evolving Ada programming language). Niklaus Wirth credits the p-System, and UCSD Pascal in particular, with popularizing Pascal. It was not until the release of Turbo Pascal that UCSD's version started to slip from first place among Pascal users. The Pascal dialect of UCSD Pascal came from the subset of Pascal implemented in Pascal-P2, which was not designed to be a full implementation of the language, but rather "the minimum subset that would self-compile", to fit its function as a bootstrap kit for Pascal compilers. UCSD added strings from BASIC, and several other implementation dependent features. Although UCSD Pascal later obtained many of the other features |
College, a transfer student apartment complex called The Village at Torrey Pines, and the RIMAC athletic facilities. Arts facilities UC San Diego's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District, located just south of Revelle College, houses the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts. The center's facilities are shared with the La Jolla Playhouse, a professional theatre which UC San Diego is partnered with. Specifically, four large performance venues are shared between the two organizations: the Mandell Weiss Forum, the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, and the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre. These venues, on top of hosting UC San Diego Theatre and Dance departmental undergraduate and graduate productions, often host professional productions of plays and musicals, some of which later transfer to Broadway. Other theatre performance facilities at UC San Diego include the Molli and Arthur Wagner Dance Building, also located within the Theatre District, and the Arthur Wagner Theatre located in Revelle College's Galbraith Hall. Other arts facilities include the 800-seat Mandeville Auditorium and Conrad Prebys Music Center, used by UC San Diego's music department, as well as Mandeville Center, the Visual Arts Facilities (VAF) building, and the Structural and Material Engineerings (SME) building, used by UC San Diego's visual arts department. Public art More than a dozen public art projects, part of the Stuart Collection, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God, a large winged creature by Niki de Saint Phalle located near the Faculty Club. Other collection pieces include Richard Fleischner's La Jolla Project (a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks), Do Ho Suh's Fallen Star (a house sitting atop an engineering building in Warren College), a table by Jenny Holzer, an installation by Bruce Nauman on the Powell Structural Systems Laboratory titled Vices and Virtues, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees by Terry Allen. The collection also includes a work by Alexis Smith consisting of a path made of a large coiling snake whose head guides towards Geisel Library, with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost carved along its length: "And wilt thou not be loath to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess a Paradise within thee, happier far." The path circles around its own garden and a large granite book-shaped block. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2 buildings. Another notable campus sight was the graffiti staircase of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that had been tagged with graffiti by generations of students over decades of use; this was recently replaced with the Graffiti Art Park. Students in the university's visual arts department also create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is sponsoring a $56,000 performance art project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus. Shepard Fairey, most notable for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster, painted a mural at the Ché Café, one of UC San Diego's most famous buildings and collectives, on an outside wall facing Scholars Drive, that features the likenesses of Martin Luther King Jr. and other political figures. Underground street artist, Swampy, created a large piece inside the Ché Café, visible through the courtyard depicting his signature mammoth skeleton. Local San Diego artist Mario Torero, in collaboration with university art students, painted a mural at the Café in commemoration of Angela Davis and Rigoberta Menchú, along with other notable political figures. The Ché Café remains a hub for underground and politically progressive artists. Torero was invited back to the university in 2009 to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by Chicano students. The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall, which includes representations of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta as well as the kiosk structure at Chicano Park. In 2016 a mural entitled "Enduring Spell" was completed by El Mac in the Argo courtyard, Transportation UC San Diego maintains about 17,000 parking spaces and offers a number of alternative transportation options. The university runs a shuttle system, which is provided free for students, faculty, and staff, that services the main campus, UC San Diego Medical Center, university affiliated research centers, nearby apartment complexes and shopping centers in University City, and the Sorrento Valley train station. As part of a greater initiative to reduce the university's impact on the environment, a portion of the shuttle fleet has been refitted to exclusively use biodiesel fuel derived from vegetable oil. UCSD also reserves parking spaces for carpools, maintains a fleet of on-campus Zipcars, and provides free bike rentals. The San Diego Association of Governments and the Metropolitan Transit System are planning to bring San Diego Trolley service to the local area. The project will extend the existing Blue Line north to UC San Diego and the University City area from Downtown San Diego. The extension will give the university campus two trolley stations, East and West. There is also a proposed station at the Veterans Administration hospital just south of UCSD. A major goal of the project is to ease traffic and parking on campus while providing more accessible transportation to nearby areas. Construction began in 2016, with the line in service in November 2021. As part of UCSD's existing public transit partnerships, all students have unlimited access to MTS regional buses and trolleys, as well as most North County Transit District transportation services upon paying a "transportation fee" in registration. Construction Several facilities are currently under construction at the UC San Diego campus. The North Torrey Pines Living and Learning Neighborhood is partially completed, with students living in the completed facilities since Fall 2020. The Future College Living and Learning Neighborhood is scheduled to open in Fall 2023. Other planned facilities in development or under construction include the Nuevo East Student Housing, Nuevo West Graduate Housing, Viterbi Family Eye Research Center, Design and Innovation Building, and Franklin Antonio Hall. There is also significant infrastructure construction, including the UCSD West and UCSD East trolley stations, which will connect the campus to the Downtown San Diego area. Academics and administration UC San Diego is a large, primarily residential, public research university accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges that offers a four-year Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree to undergraduate students. The full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university. The university offers 125 bachelor's degree programs organized into five disciplinary divisions: arts and humanities, biological sciences, engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, and social sciences. Students are also free to design special majors or engage in dual majors. 38% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 25% in biological sciences, 18% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 3% in the arts. UC San Diego's comprehensive graduate program is composed of several divisions and professional schools, including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, School of Medicine, Institute of Engineering in Medicine, School of Global Policy and Strategy, Jacobs School of Engineering, Rady School of Management, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy. The university offers 35 masters programs, 47 doctoral programs, five professional programs, and nine joint doctoral programs with San Diego State University and other UC campuses. UC San Diego has highly ranked graduate programs in biological sciences and medicine, economics, social and behavioral sciences, physics, and computer engineering. The university also offers a continuing and public education program through UC San Diego Extension. Approximately 50,000 enrollees per year are educated in this branch of the university, which offers over 100 professional and specialized certificate programs. Courses are offered at Extension facilities, located both on the main campus and off-campus, and also online. UC San Diego Extension offers programs in Arts & Humanities, Business & Leadership, Data Analysis & Mathematics, Digital Arts, Education, Engineering, Environment & Sustainability, International Programs, Languages, Law, Occupational Safety & Health, Pre-College, Sciences, Technology, and Writing, as well as public programs such as the UC San Diego Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Helen Edison Lecture Series. UC San Diego Extension also plans to open a 66,000-square-foot hub at the corner of Park Boulevard and Market Street in East Village referred to as the Innovative Cultural and Education Hub. The project is slated to be completed in 2020 and plans to "advance the burgeoning tech ecosystem downtown, contribute to the city’s lively arts and culture scene, and connect in multiple ways with diverse neighborhoods such as Barrio Logan, the Diamond District, and Golden Hill." Residential colleges UC San Diego's undergraduate division is organized into seven residential colleges, each headed by its own provost. They all set their own general education requirements, manage separate administrative and advising staff, and grant unique degrees. In chronological order by date of foundation, the seven colleges are: Revelle College, founded in 1964 as First College, emphasizes a "Renaissance education" through the Humanities sequence which integrates history, literature, and philosophy. It has highly structured requirements. John Muir College, founded in 1967 as Second College, emphasizes a "spirit of self-sufficiency and individual choice" and offers loosely structured general-education requirements. Thurgood Marshall College, founded in 1970 as Third College, emphasizes "scholarship, social responsibility and the belief that a liberal arts education must include an understanding of one's role in society". Earl Warren College, founded in 1974 as Fourth College, requires students to pursue a major of their choice while also requiring two "programs of concentration" in disciplines unrelated to each other and their major "toward a life in balance". Eleanor Roosevelt College, founded in 1988 as Fifth College, focuses its core education program on a cross-cultural interdisciplinary course sequence entitled "Making of the Modern World", has a foreign language requirement, and encourages studying abroad. Sixth College, founded in 2001, has a focus on "historical and philosophical connections among culture, art, and technology." Seventh College, founded in 2020, enrolled its first cohort of students in Fall 2020, with the theme "A Changing Planet." Students affiliate with a college based upon its particular philosophy and environment as majors are not exclusive to specific colleges. Revelle and Sixth enroll the largest number of undergraduate students, followed by Warren, Muir, Roosevelt, and Marshall. Each undergraduate college sets different requirements for awarding graduation and provost's honors, separate from departmental and Phi Beta Kappa honors. Governance As one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system, UC San Diego is governed by a 26-member Board of Regents consisting of 18 officials appointed by the Governor of California, seven ex officio members, and a single student regent. The current president of the University of California is Michael Drake, and the administrative head of UC San Diego is Pradeep Khosla. Academic policies are set by the school's Academic Senate, a legislative body composed of all university faculty members. Nine vice chancellors manage academic affairs, research, diversity, marine sciences, student affairs, planning, external relations, business affairs, and health sciences and report directly to the chancellor. Research The Nature Index lists UC San Diego as 6th in the United States for research output by article count in 2019. In 2017, UC San Diego spent $1.13 billion on research, the 7th highest expenditure among academic institutions in the U.S. The university operates several organized research units, including the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS), the Center for Drug Discovery Innovation, and the Institute for Neural Computation. UC San Diego also maintains close ties to the nearby Scripps Research and Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1977, UC San Diego developed and released the UCSD Pascal programming language. The university was designated as one of the original national Alzheimer's disease research centers in 1984 by the National Institute on Aging. In 2018, UC San Diego received $10.5 million from the National Nuclear Security Administration to establish the Center for Matters under Extreme Pressure (CMEC). The university founded the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) in 1985, which provides high-performance computing for research in various scientific disciplines. In 2000, UC San Diego partnered with UC Irvine to create the Qualcomm Institute, which integrates research in photonics, nanotechnology, and wireless telecommunication to develop solutions to problems in energy, health, and the environment. UC San Diego also operates the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), one of the largest centers of research in earth science in the world, which predates the university itself. Together, SDSC and SIO, along with funding partner universities Caltech, SDSU, and UC Santa Barbara, manage the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network. Rankings National rankings UC San Diego is ranked 13th and 16th in the U.S. by Academic Ranking of World Universities and Center for World University Rankings respectively. Washington Monthly ranked the university 12th in its 2021 National University ranking, based on its contribution to the public good as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service. UC San Diego ranked fifth in the nation in terms of research and development expenditures in 2018, with $1.265 billion spent. Kiplinger in 2014 ranked UC San Diego 14th out of the top 100 best-value public colleges and universities in the nation, and 3rd in California. UC San Diego was ranked tied for 35th among national universities in the United States and tied for 8th among public universities by U.S. News & World Report'''s 2021 rankings. Money magazine ranked UC San Diego 46th in the country out of the nearly 1500 schools it evaluated for its 2014 Best Colleges ranking. ScienceWatch ranks UC San Diego 7th of federally funded U.S. universities, based on the citation impact of their published research in major fields of science and the social sciences and 12th globally by volume of citations. Global rankings Recognized as a Public Ivy, UC San Diego is a highly regarded research institution, ranked 11th in the world by the Nature Index, 14th in the world by the Scrimago Institutions Rankings, 14th in the world by the Lens Metric, 14th best university in the world according to TBS Rankings, 16th in U.S. News & World Report 's 2017 global university rankings, 15th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, 16th best university in the world by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies of Leiden University Ranking, 18th in the world by the Center for World University Rankings, 18th in the world by University Ranking by Academic Performance, and 5th best public university in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The University of California San Diego is ranked 15th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and is ranked 17th "Best University in the World" by the Center for World University Rankings for 2016. U.S. News & World Report named UC San Diego the 15th best university in the world for 2017 for research, global and regional reputation, international collaboration, and several highly cited papers. In 2017, UC San Diego was ranked 30th in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. UC San Diego was also ranked 38th overall in the world, and 11th in biological sciences, 16th in life sciences, and medicine, 19th in economics and econometrics, 31st in mathematics, and 44th in computer science and information systems by QS World University Rankings. In 2015, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University named UC San Diego 16th in the world for scientific impact. Graduate school rankings The UC San Diego School of Medicine is ranked tied for 18th for research and 12th for primary care in the 2018 U.S. News & World Report rankings. The Rady School of Management at UC San Diego is ranked 17th in the world for faculty research and 8th for alumni entrepreneurship in the 2014 Financial Times’ Global MBA. In 2014 the Rady School ranked 1st in the nation in intellectual capital by Bloomberg Businessweek, which measured faculty research published in the top 20 business journals from 2009 to 2013. UC San Diego was named 8th in the nation among doctoral institutions for the number of students who study abroad for a full academic year, according to the Institute of International Education Open Doors report. Three doctoral programs at UC San Diego—biological sciences, bioengineering, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography—are 1st in the nation in the National Research Council's Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs report. Departmental rankings Departmental rankings (including specialties) in the national top 10 according to the 2018 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools report include biomedical engineering/bioengineering (2nd); neuroscience/neurobiology (2nd); biochemistry (10th); discrete mathematics and combinatorics (3rd); plasma physics (7th); econometrics (4th); public finance (8th); political science (9th); international politics (4th); comparative politics (4th); behavioral neuroscience (4th); cognitive psychology (8th); and time-based media/new media (3rd). Departmental rankings in the global top 10 according to the 2015 U.S. News & World Report Best Graduate Schools report include: biology and biochemistry (6th); molecular biology and genetics (8th); neuroscience and behavior (6th); pharmacology and toxicology (5th); and psychiatry and psychology (8th). Departmental rankings in the global top 20 according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) for 2015 include chemistry (18th); computer science (14th); and economics/business (19th). Since introduced in 2017, the ARWU Subject Rankings has ranked mechanical engineering at UC San Diego as the top (1st) public university program in the US (2017-2020). Mechanical engineering at UC San Diego has also consistently ranked as a top 5 US overall and a top 10 program worldwide since the introduction of subject rankings by ARWU. Departmental rankings in the global top 20 according to the QS World University Rankings for 2015 | former site of Camp Matthews from the federal government, but Roger Revelle, then director of Scripps Institution and main advocate for establishing the new campus, jeopardized the site selection by exposing the La Jolla community's exclusive real estate business practices, which were antagonistic to minority racial and religious groups. This outraged local conservatives, as well as Regent Edwin W. Pauley. Revelle also got involved in a bitter debate with Jonas Salk over where Salk's proposed institute would be located relative to the new campus.UC President Clark Kerr satisfied San Diego city donors by changing the proposed name from University of California, La Jolla, to University of California, San Diego. The city voted to agree to its part of the deal in 1958, and the UC Board of Regents approved construction of the new campus in 1960. Because Revelle's tactless approaches to the clashes with Pauley and Salk had damaged his reputation with the Board of Regents, Kerr realized he could not nominate Revelle as the campus's first chancellor. Revelle's nomination would have become "an angry and drawn-out affair" and greatly detracted from the campus's future development. Herbert York, first director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was selected instead. York planned the main campus according to the "Oxbridge" model, relying on many of Revelle's ideas. According to Kerr, "San Diego always asked for the best," though this created much friction throughout the UC system, including with Kerr himself, because UC San Diego often seemed to be "asking for too much and too fast." Kerr attributed UC San Diego's "special personality" to Scripps, which for over five decades had been the most isolated UC unit in every sense: geographically, financially, and institutionally. It was a great shock to the Scripps community to learn that Scripps was now expected to become the nucleus of a new UC campus and would now be the object of far more attention from both the university administration in Berkeley and the state government in Sacramento. UC San Diego was the first general campus of the University of California to be designed "from the top down" in terms of research emphasis. Local leaders disagreed on whether the new school should be a technical research institute or a more broadly based school that included undergraduates as well. John Jay Hopkins of General Dynamics Corporation pledged one million dollars for the former while the City Council offered free land for the latter. The original authorization for the San Diego campus given by the UC Regents in 1956 approved a "graduate program in science and technology" that included undergraduate programs, a compromise that won both the support of General Dynamics and the city voters' approval. Nobel laureate Harold Urey, a physicist from the University of Chicago, and Hans Suess, who had published the first paper on the greenhouse effect with Revelle in the previous year, were early recruits to the faculty in 1958. Maria Goeppert-Mayer, later the second female Nobel laureate in physics, was appointed professor of physics in 1960. The graduate division of the school opened in 1960 with 20 faculty in residence, with instruction offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, and earth science. Before the main campus completed construction, classes were held in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. By 1963, new facilities on the mesa had been finished for the School of Science and Engineering, and new buildings were under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty in those disciplines were hired, and the whole site was designated the First College of the new campus (it was later renamed after Roger Revelle). York resigned as chancellor that year and was replaced by John Semple Galbraith. The undergraduate program accepted its first class of 181 freshman at Revelle College in 1964. Second College was founded in 1964, on the land deeded by the federal government, and named after environmentalist John Muir two years later. The School of Medicine also accepted its first students in 1966. Political theorist Herbert Marcuse joined the faculty in 1965. A champion of the New Left, he reportedly was the first protester to occupy the administration building in a demonstration organized by his student, political activist Angela Davis. The American Legion offered to buy out the remainder of Marcuse's contract for $20,000; the Regents censured Chancellor William J. McGill for defending Marcuse on the basis of academic freedom, but further action was averted after local leaders expressed support for Marcuse. Further student unrest was felt at the university, as the United States increased its involvement in the Vietnam War during the mid-1960s, when a student raised a Viet Minh flag over the campus. Protests escalated as the war continued and were only exacerbated after the National Guard fired on student protesters at Kent State University in 1970. Over 200 students occupied Urey Hall, with one student setting himself on fire in protest of the war. Early research activity and faculty quality, notably in the sciences, was integral to shaping the focus and culture of the university. Even before UC San Diego had its own campus, faculty recruits had already made significant research breakthroughs, such as the Keeling Curve, a graph that plots rapidly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and was the first significant evidence for global climate change; the Kohn–Sham equations, used to investigate particular atoms and molecules in quantum chemistry; and the Miller–Urey experiment, which gave birth to the field of prebiotic chemistry. Engineering, particularly computer science, became an important part of the university's academics as it matured. University researchers helped develop UCSD Pascal, an early machine-independent programming language that later heavily influenced Java; the National Science Foundation Network, a precursor to the Internet; and the Network News Transfer Protocol during the late 1970s to 1980s. In economics, the methods for analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility (ARCH), and with common trends (cointegration) were developed. UC San Diego maintained its research intense character after its founding, racking up 25 Nobel Laureates affiliated within 50 years of history; a rate of five per decade. Under Richard C. Atkinson's leadership as chancellor from 1980 to 1995, the university strengthened its ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries. He oversaw a rapid expansion of the School of Engineering, later renamed after Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs, with the construction of the San Diego Supercomputer Center and establishment of the computer science, electrical engineering, and bioengineering departments. Private donations increased from $15 million to nearly $50 million annually, faculty expanded by nearly 50%, and enrollment doubled to about 18,000 students during his administration. By the end of his chancellorship, the quality of UC San Diego graduate programs was ranked 10th in the nation by the National Research Council. The university continued to undergo further expansion during the first decade of the new millennium with the establishment and construction of two new professional schools — the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Rady School of Management—and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a research institute run jointly with UC Irvine. UC San Diego also reached two financial milestones during this time, becoming the first university in the western region to raise over $1 billion in its eight-year fundraising campaign in 2007 and also obtaining an additional $1 billion through research contracts and grants in a single fiscal year for the first time in 2010. Despite this, due to the California budget crisis, the university loaned $40 million against its own assets in 2009 to offset a significant reduction in state educational appropriations. The salary of Pradeep Khosla, who became chancellor in 2012, has been the subject of controversy amidst continued budget cuts and tuition increases. In 2012, campus launched a 10-year, $2 billion fundraising campaign, which the campus completed 3 years early in 2019, making it the youngest university in the United States to have completed a $2 billion fundraiser. On November 27, 2017, the university announced it would leave its longtime athletic home of the California Collegiate Athletic Association, an NCAA Division II league, to begin a transition to Division I in 2020. It joined the Big West Conference, already home to four other UC campuses (Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara). The university transitioned to NCAA Division I competition on July 1, 2020. The transition period will run through the 2023–24 school year. Campus UC San Diego is located in the residential neighborhood of La Jolla of northern San Diego, bordered by the communities of La Jolla Shores, Torrey Pines, and University City. The main campus consists of 761 buildings that occupy , with natural reserves covering about and outlying facilities taking up the remaining area. The San Diego Freeway passes through the campus and separates Jacobs Medical Center and Mesa apartment housing from the greater part of the university. The Preuss School, a college-preparatory charter school established and administered by UC San Diego, also lies on the eastern portion of the campus. Standing at the center of the university is the iconic Geisel Library, named after Dr. Seuss following a $20 million donation from his wife Audrey. Library Walk, a heavily traveled pathway leading from the library to Gilman Drive, lies adjacent or close to Price Center, Center Hall, International Center, and various student services buildings, including the Student Services Center and the Career Services building. The layout of the main campus centers on Geisel Library, which is roughly surrounded by the seven residential colleges of Revelle, Muir, Marshall, Warren, Roosevelt, Sixth, Seventh, and the School of Medicine. The seven colleges maintain separate housing facilities for their students and each college's buildings are differentiated by distinct architectural styles. As residential colleges were added while the university expanded, buildings in newer colleges were designed with styles that were starkly different from that of the original campus. The disparate architectural styles led Travel + Leisure, in its October 2013 issue, to name the university as one of the ugliest campuses in America, likening it to "a cupboard full of kitchen appliances whose function you can't quite fathom." In addition to its academic and housing facilities, the campus features eucalyptus groves, the Birch Aquarium and museum, and several major research centers. The Scripps Institution owns a sea port and several open ocean vessels for marine research. Several large shake facilities, including the world record holding Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table, used for earthquake simulations, are also maintained by the university. The university has actively sought to reduce carbon emissions and energy usage on campus, earning a "gold" sustainability performance rating in the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS) survey. It was also praised in The Princeton Review's Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2013 Edition for its strong commitment to sustainability in its academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation. Academic facilities When the campus opened in 1964, it consisted only of Revelle College and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The school's rapid increase in enrollment and opening to undergraduate students over its first decade spurred major campus expansion. Muir, Marshall, and Warren Colleges were established and built during the late 1960s through 1980s as the student population continued to grow considerably. Initially, the campus followed a rough north–south axis alongside Historic Route 101, though construction in the following decades deviated from this, with the core of the campus shifting towards Geisel Library. The school's two engineering departments were merged into the School of Engineering (renamed the Jacobs School of Engineering in 1987 in honor of Irwin Jacobs, founder of Qualcomm, and his wife Joan Jacobs) in 1982. New buildings have been continually added as the division expands. Major additions include: the San Diego Supercomputer Center, completed in 1986; Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall, completed in 2003; and the Structural and Materials Engineering building, completed in 2012. Significant construction work on the previously undeveloped northern part of campus also took place during this time. Two graduate professional schools, the School of Global Policy and Strategy and Rady School of Management, were constructed in the area adjacent to and near the Supercomputer Center, as well as Roosevelt College, a transfer student apartment complex called The Village at Torrey Pines, and the RIMAC athletic facilities. Arts facilities UC San Diego's Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theatre District, located just south of Revelle College, houses the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts. The center's facilities are shared with the La Jolla Playhouse, a professional theatre which UC San Diego is partnered with. Specifically, four large performance venues are shared between the two organizations: the Mandell Weiss Forum, the Mandell Weiss Theatre, the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, and the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre. These venues, on top of hosting UC San Diego Theatre and Dance departmental undergraduate and graduate productions, often host professional productions of plays and musicals, some of which later transfer to Broadway. Other theatre performance facilities at UC San Diego include the Molli and Arthur Wagner Dance Building, also located within the Theatre District, and the Arthur Wagner Theatre located in Revelle College's Galbraith Hall. Other arts facilities include the 800-seat Mandeville Auditorium and Conrad Prebys Music Center, used by UC San Diego's music department, as well as Mandeville Center, the Visual Arts Facilities (VAF) building, and the Structural and Material Engineerings (SME) building, used by UC San Diego's visual arts department. Public art More than a dozen public art projects, part of the Stuart Collection, decorate the campus. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Sun God, a large winged creature by Niki de Saint Phalle located near the Faculty Club. Other collection pieces include Richard Fleischner's La Jolla Project (a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks), Do Ho Suh's Fallen Star (a house sitting atop an engineering building in Warren College), a table by Jenny Holzer, an installation by Bruce Nauman on the Powell Structural Systems Laboratory titled Vices and Virtues, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees by Terry Allen. The collection also includes a work by Alexis Smith consisting of a path made of a large coiling snake whose head guides towards Geisel Library, with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost carved along its length: "And wilt thou not be loath to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess a Paradise within thee, happier far." The path circles around its own garden and a large granite book-shaped block. One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2 buildings. Another notable campus sight was the graffiti staircase of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that had been tagged with graffiti by generations of students over decades of use; this was recently replaced with the Graffiti Art Park. Students in the university's visual arts department also create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework. The university is sponsoring a $56,000 performance art project to develop a sense of community at the sprawling campus. Shepard Fairey, most notable for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster, painted a mural at the Ché Café, one of UC San Diego's most famous buildings and collectives, on an outside wall facing Scholars Drive, that features the likenesses of Martin Luther King Jr. and other political figures. Underground street artist, Swampy, created a large piece inside the Ché Café, visible through the courtyard depicting his signature mammoth skeleton. Local San Diego artist Mario Torero, in collaboration with university art students, painted a mural at the Café in commemoration of Angela Davis and Rigoberta Menchú, along with other notable political figures. The Ché Café remains a hub for underground and politically progressive artists. Torero was invited back to the university in 2009 to create a mural called "Chicano Legacy" based on content suggested by Chicano students. The mural is a $10,000 digital image on a canvas mounted on the exterior of Peterson Hall, which includes representations of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta as well as the kiosk structure at Chicano Park. In 2016 a mural entitled "Enduring Spell" was completed by El Mac in the Argo courtyard, Transportation UC San Diego maintains about 17,000 parking spaces and offers a number of alternative transportation options. The university runs a shuttle system, which is provided free for students, faculty, and staff, that services the main campus, UC San Diego Medical Center, university affiliated research centers, nearby apartment complexes and shopping centers in University City, and the Sorrento Valley train station. As part of a greater initiative to reduce the university's impact on the environment, a portion of the shuttle fleet has been refitted to exclusively use biodiesel fuel derived from vegetable oil. UCSD also reserves parking spaces for carpools, maintains a fleet of on-campus Zipcars, and provides free bike rentals. The San Diego Association of Governments and the Metropolitan Transit System are planning to bring San Diego Trolley service to the local area. The project will extend the existing Blue Line north to UC San Diego and the University City area from Downtown San Diego. The extension will give the university campus two trolley stations, East and West. There is also a proposed station at the Veterans Administration hospital just south of UCSD. A major goal of the project is to ease traffic and parking on campus while providing more accessible transportation to nearby areas. Construction began in 2016, with the line in service in November 2021. As part of UCSD's existing public transit partnerships, all students have unlimited access to MTS regional buses and trolleys, as well as most North County Transit District transportation services upon paying a "transportation fee" in registration. Construction Several facilities are currently under construction at the UC San Diego campus. The North Torrey Pines Living and Learning Neighborhood is partially completed, with students living in the completed facilities since Fall 2020. The Future College Living and Learning Neighborhood is scheduled to open in Fall 2023. Other planned facilities in development or under construction include the Nuevo East Student Housing, Nuevo West Graduate Housing, Viterbi Family Eye Research Center, Design and Innovation Building, and Franklin Antonio Hall. There is also significant infrastructure construction, including the UCSD West and UCSD East trolley stations, which will connect the campus to the Downtown San Diego area. Academics and administration UC San Diego is a large, primarily residential, public research university accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges that offers a four-year Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degree to undergraduate students. The full-time undergraduate program comprises the majority of enrollments at the university. The university offers 125 bachelor's degree programs organized into five disciplinary divisions: arts and humanities, biological sciences, engineering, mathematics and physical sciences, and social sciences. Students are also free to design special majors or engage in dual majors. 38% of undergraduates major in the social sciences, followed by 25% in biological sciences, 18% in engineering, 8% in sciences and math, 4% in humanities, and 3% in the arts. UC San Diego's comprehensive graduate program is composed of several divisions and professional schools, including the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, School of Medicine, Institute of Engineering in Medicine, School of Global Policy and Strategy, Jacobs School of Engineering, Rady School of Management, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy. The university offers 35 masters programs, 47 doctoral programs, five professional programs, and nine joint doctoral programs with San Diego State University and other UC campuses. UC San Diego has highly ranked graduate |
Chau Chak Wing Museum. The Macleay Collection is named after Alexander Macleay, whose collection of insects begun in the late 18th century was the basis upon which the Macleay Museum was founded in 1887. It is the oldest collection of natural history in Australia and has developed into a major collection of natural history specimens, ethnographic artefacts, scientific instruments and historic photographs. The Macleay Museum closed to the public in 2016 ahead of the opening of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. The University Art Collection was founded in the 1860s and contains more than 7,000 pieces, constantly growing through donation, bequests and acquisition. The University Art Gallery opened in 1959. The gallery hosted numerous exhibitions until 1972, when it was taken over for office space. The gallery closed to the public in 2016 ahead of the opening of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Other collections and galleries The Rare Books Library is a part of the Fisher Library and holds 185,000 books and manuscripts which are rare, valuable or fragile, including 80 medieval manuscripts, works by Galileo, Halley and Copernicus as well as an extensive collection of Australiana. The copy of the Gospel of Barnabas and a first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton are held here. Regular exhibitions of rare books are held in the exhibition room. Verge Gallery is run by the University of Sydney Union and showcases contemporary art by emerging artists. Halls of residence and residential colleges The university has a number of halls of residence (based on research-lead living-learning principles) and residential colleges, each with its own distinctive style and facilities. All offer a wide range of cultural, social, sporting and leadership activities along with targeted academic support in a supportive communal environment. The Halls of Residence are owned and operated by the University Accommodation Service. Starting in 2013, the university committed to creating the Halls of Residence (an additional 4,000-6,000 residential places) at an affordable price to enhance the educational experience of living on campus and to offer more students a rich academic environment in which to live. The Queen Mary Building Abercrombie Student Accommodation Regiment Hall The University Student Accommodation Service were awarded the Asia-Pacific Student Housing Operation of the Year & Excellence in Facility Development and Management in 2016. The Student Accommodation Service and the Mana Yura Student Support Service were the first in Australia to implement an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander On-Campus Residence Halls Scholarship Guarantee. Additionally, the university owns and operates International House. Affiliated with the university are six religiously denominated colleges. Unlike some residential colleges in British or American universities, the colleges are not affiliated with any specific discipline of study. International House St John's College St Andrew's College St Paul's College Sancta Sophia College Wesley College The Women's College Mandelbaum House There is a university-affiliated housing cooperative, Stucco. A quarter of the university's female students residing in university colleges have been found to face sexual harassment. Between 2011 and 2016, there were 52 officially reported cases of sexual abuse and harassment on campus released by the university, resulting in 1 expulsion, 1 suspension and 4 reprimands. This is less than the 2017 Australian Human Rights Commission report on sexual assault and harassment which found reported figures substantially higher than this. 71% of students surveyed in 2017 reported not knowing how to make a report relating to sexual assault or harassment. Imogen Grant from the SRC said students who had experienced sexual assault had come forward believing that "navigating the university bureaucracy exacerbates trauma and often seems futile". Previously a 2015 survey of 2000 students found that 57 per cent of respondents did not know where to seek help or how to report sexual misconduct at USYD, and only 1.4% of all serious sexual incidents are reported. After the release of the 2017 report the vice-chancellor said the university was committed to implementing "all of the recommendations contained in the report". Graphic videos emerged in 2018 of male students bragging of their sexual feats over the female students, particularly first-years. Gallery Organisation The university comprises eight faculties and schools: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Sydney Business School Faculty of Engineering Faculty of Medicine and Health Faculty of Science Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning Sydney Conservatorium of Music Sydney Law School The five largest faculties and schools by 2020 student enrollments were (in descending order): Arts and Social Sciences; Medicine and Health; Business; Science; Engineering. Together they constituted nearly 88% of the university's students and each had a student enrolment over 8,000 (at least 13% of total students). Academic profile Rankings The 2022 QS World University Rankings ranked the University of Sydney at 38th in the world, 2nd nationally and top-ranked university in New South Wales. In addition, it is ranked 27th in the world by academic reputation. By subject, QS ranked the university in the top 50 across all five broad subject areas. 15th in Arts and Humanities 39th in Engineering and Technology 15th in Life Sciences and Medicine 43rd in Natural Sciences 14th in Social Sciences and Management Additionally, the University of Sydney is ranked 2nd in Sports-related Subjects, 10th in Anatomy & Physiology, 11th in Veterinary Science, 12th in Education, 14th in Law and Legal Studies, 15th in Nursing, 16th in Architecture, 18th in Accounting and Finance, 18th in English Language and Literature, 18th in Medicine and 18th in Pharmacy and Pharmacology. The 2020 QS Graduate Employability Rankings ranked the University of Sydney graduates 4th most employable in the world and 1st in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. The 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked the University of Sydney 51st in the world and 2nd in Australia. By subject area, the university is ranked: 58th in Arts and Humanities 37th in Clinical, Pre-clinical and Health 76th in Engineering and Technology 47th in Life Sciences 97th in Physical Sciences 68th in Social Sciences 83rd in Business and Economics 101-125th in Computer Science 33rd in Law 24th in Education 65th in Psychology Additionally, the 2020 Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings ranked the University of Sydney 51-60th most reputable in the world and 35th in the world in the Global University Employability Ranking 2020. According to the 2020 Impact Rankings by Times Higher Education, the university is ranked 2nd in the world. The 2021 US News & World Report's Best Global Universities Rankings placed the University of Sydney 27th in the world and 2nd in Australia. In the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities published by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, the University of Sydney is ranked 69th and in the top 0.7% of the top 1000 universities in the world. The University of Sydney is ranked 1st in Australia and 29th overall in the 2017 CWTS Leiden Rankings for research impact. In 2019, the University of Sydney is ranked 33rd among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings. In 2019, Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities by National Taiwan University, the University of Sydney is ranked 29th in the world, 2nd in Australia. The University of Sydney is ranked 1st in Australia and 24th in the world according to the 2020-2021 University Ranking by Academic Performance. The University of Sydney Business School has cemented its place among the world's leading providers of business education with accreditations from AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS - leading authorities on postgraduate management studies, thereby achieving the top 1 percent "triple crown" status. The London-based Financial Times has ranked the University of Sydney Business School's flagship Master of Management as Australia's number one program of its kind for the eighth consecutive year since 2013. The Master of Management (MMgt) program was also ranked in the world's top 5 for "career progress" made by its graduates in 2019. In terms of alumni wealth, the number of wealthy Sydney alumni was ranked 5th outside the United States, behind Oxford, Mumbai, Cambridge and the London School of Economics according to the American Broadcasting Company. Business magazine Spear's placed the University of Sydney 44th in the world and 2nd in Australia in its table of "World's top 100 universities for producing millionaires". Endowments and research grants The university has received a number of significant bequests and legacies over its history. The following are current professorships (chairs), funds and fellowships which are funded by bequests and legacies and named after benefactors: Douglas Burrows Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health John Challis Bequest for chairs in Law, International Law, Jurisprudence, Anatomy, Biology, Civil Engineering, English Literature, History and philosophy (see Challis Professorship) Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund in Anthropology and Archaeology Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology Mitchell Notaras Fellowship in Colorectal Surgery Robert W Storr Chair for Hepatic Medicine Coat of arms The Grant of Arms was made by the College of Arms in 1857. The grant reads: Argent on a Cross Azure an open book proper, clasps Gold, between four Stars of eight points Or, on a chief Gules a Lion passant Guardant also Or, together with this motto "Sidere mens eadem mutato" to be borne and used forever hereafter by the said University of Sydney on their Common Seal, Shields or otherwise according to the Law of Arms. The use of eight-pointed stars was unusual for arms at the time, although they had been used unofficially as emblems for New South Wales since the 1820s and on the arms of the Church of England Diocese of Australia in 1836. According to the university, the Latin motto Sidere mens eadem mutato can be translated to "the stars change, the mind remains the same." Francis Merewether, Vice-Chancellor and later Chancellor, in 1857 proposed "Coelum non animum mutant" from Horace (Ep.1.11.27) but after objections changed it to a metrical version including "Sidus" (Star), a neat reference to the Southern Cross and perhaps the Sydney family link with Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophel (Star-Lover) & Stella (Star)". Author and university alumnus Clive James quipped in his 1981 autobiography that the motto loosely implies "Sydney University is really Oxford or Cambridge laterally displaced approximately 12,000 miles." Student organisations Student Representatives: Politically and academically, undergraduate students are represented by the University of Sydney Students' Representative Council (SRC) and postgraduate students by the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA). University of Sydney Union: The University of Sydney Union (USU) is the oldest and largest university union in Australia. USU provides a range of activities, programs, services and facilities geared at giving students the university experience. This involves delivering clubs and societies program, a varied entertainment program, student opportunities, a range of catering and retail services plus buildings and recreational spaces for students, staff and visitors. The SRC and Union are both governed by student representatives, who are elected by students each year. Elections for the USU board of directors occur in first semester; elections for the SRC President, and for members of the Students' Representative Council itself, occur in second semester, along with a separate election for the editorial board of the student newspaper Honi Soit, which is published by the SRC. Charles Perkins Oration and Prize Since 2000, the Dr Charles Perkins Oration has been held by the university, in honour of its first Aboriginal graduate, Charlie Perkins. The orations have been delivered by prominent First Nations people, including Linda Burney, Pat Anderson, Daniel Browning, Mick Gooda and Ken Wyatt. The Oration includes the Charles Perkins Memorial Prize, which recognises the achievements of the top three Indigenous students at the university, based on the highest academic results in their field. In 2021, the awards event could not be held in the great hall, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, but Perkins' daughter, filmmaker Rachel Perkins, announced the recipients, and introduced Tony McAvoy, Australia's first Indigenous Queen's Counsel, to deliver the oration. Notable alumni University of Sydney alumni have made significant contributions to both Australia and the world for the past years. Notable alumni of Sydney include seven Prime Ministers, the most of any university, three Chief Justices of the High Court, four Federal Opposition Leaders, two Governors-General, nine Federal Attorneys-General, 13 Premiers of New South Wales including incumbent Premier Dominic Perrottet and 24 Justices of the High Court—more than any other law school in Australia. The faculty has also produced 24 Rhodes Scholars and several Gates Scholars. Internationally, alumni of Sydney Law School include the third President of the United Nations General Assembly and a President of the International Court of Justice (in each case, the only Australians to date to hold such positions). The University of Sydney is associated with five Nobel laureates: in chemistry John Cornforth (alumnus; the only Nobel Laureate born in New South Wales) and Robert Robinson (staff); in economics, John Harsanyi (alumnus); and in physiology or medicine, John Eccles and Bernard Katz (both staff). The School of Physics has played an important role in the development of radio astronomy in particular: Ruby Payne-Scott conducted the first interferometric observations in radio astronomy with the sea-cliff interferometer at Dover Heights; alumnus Ron Bracewell proposed the nulling interferometer to image extrasolar planets, made contributions to the theory of the Fourier Transform and X-ray tomography, and proposed the idea of the Bracewell probe in SETI; and alumnus Bernard Mills led the construction of the Mills Cross Telescope and Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope in the ACT. School of Physics alumnus and Crafoord Laureate Edwin Salpeter discovered the form of the initial mass function of stars, the importance of beryllium-8 in stellar nuclear fusion, and independently with Yakov Zel'dovich proposed the black hole accretion disk model of active galactic nuclei. The Apollo 14 Mission Scientist Philip K. Chapman and the first Australian-born astronaut to fly in space Paul Scully-Power are both alumni of the university. Chaos theory pioneer and Crafoord Laureate Robert May is an alumnus of and former Professor at the School of Physics, best known for his exploration of the logistic map bifurcations. In the performing arts, notable alumni include soprano Joan Sutherland; Shakespearean actor John Bell actor, producer and director Dolph Lundgren; Bahraini–Sri Lankan actress Jacqueline | England Act 1993 and the Southern Cross University Act 1993. In January 2005, the University of Sydney transferred the OAC to Charles Sturt University. 2000–present In February 2007, the university agreed to acquire a portion of the land granted to St John's College (a residential college of the university) to develop the Sydney Institute of Health and Medical Research, now the Charles Perkins Centre, named in honour of the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate from the university, Charles Perkins. In 2010, the university received a Pablo Picasso painting from the private collection of an anonymous donor. The painting, Jeune Fille Endormie, which had not been publicly seen since 1939, depicts the artist's lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter and was donated on the strict understanding that it would be sold and the proceeds directed to medical research. In June 2011, the painting was auctioned at Christie's in London and sold for £13.5 million ($20.6 million AUD). The proceeds of the sale funded the establishment of many endowed professorial chairs at the Charles Perkins Centre, where a room dedicated to the painting, now exists. At the start of 2010, the university controversially adopted a new logo. It retains the same university arms, however it takes on a more modern look. There have been stylistic changes, the main one being the coat of arm's mantling, the shape of the escutcheon (shield), the removal of the motto scroll, and also others more subtle within the arms itself, such as the mane and fur of the lion, the number of lines in the open book and the colouration. The original Coat of Arms from 1857 continues to be used for ceremonial and other formal purposes, such as on testamurs. Concerns about public funding for higher education were reflected again in 2014 following the federal government's proposal to deregulate student fees. The university held a wide-ranging consultation process, which included a "town hall meeting" at the university's Great Hall on 25 August 2014, where an audience of students, staff and alumni expressed deep concern about the government's plans and called on university leadership to lobby against the proposals. Throughout 2014, Michael Spence took a leading position among Australian vice-chancellors in repeatedly calling for any change to funding to not undermine equitable access to university while arguing for fee deregulation to raise course costs for the majority of higher education students. In order to further enhance its competitiveness locally and internationally, the university introduced plans to consolidate existing degrees to reduce the overall number of programs in 2016. Controversies In 2001, the University of Sydney chancellor, Dame Leonie Kramer, was forced to resign by the university's governing body. In 2003, Nick Greiner, a former Premier of New South Wales, resigned from his position as chair of the university's Graduate School of Management because of academic protests against his simultaneous chairmanship of British American Tobacco (Australia). Subsequently, his wife, Kathryn Greiner, resigned in protest from the two positions she held at the university as chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation and a member of the executive council of the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific. In 2005, the Public Service Association of New South Wales and the Community and Public Sector Union were in dispute with the university over a proposal to privatise security at the main campus (and the Cumberland campus). Action initiated by Spence to improve the financial sustainability of the university has alienated some students and staff. In 2012, Spence led efforts to cut the university's expenditure to address the financial impact of a slowdown in international student enrolments across Australia. This included redundancies of a number of university staff and faculty, though some at the university argued that the institution should cut back on building programs instead. Critics argue the push for savings has been driven by managerial incompetence and indifference, fuelling industrial action during a round of enterprise bargaining in 2013 that also reflected widespread concerns about public funding for higher education. An internal staff survey in 2012/13, which found widespread dissatisfaction with how the university is being managed. Asked to rate their level of agreement with a series of statements about the university, 19 per cent of those surveyed believed "change and innovation" were handled well by the university. In the survey, 75 per cent of university staff indicated senior executives were not listening to them, while only 22 per cent said change was handled well and 33 per cent said senior executives were good role models. In the first week of semester, some staff passed a motion of no confidence in Spence because of concerns he was pushing staff to improve the budget while he received a performance bonus of $155,000 that took his total pay to $1 million, in the top 0.1 per cent of income earners in Australia. Fairfax reports Spence and other Uni bosses have salary packages worth ten times more than staff salaries and double that of the Prime Minister. During Spence's term, the university community was divided over allowing students from an elite private school, Scots College, to enter university via a "pathway of privilege" by means of enrolling in a Diploma of Tertiary Preparation rather than meeting HSC entry requirements. The university charged students $12,000 to take the course and have since successfully admitted a number of students to degree courses. An exposé by Fairfax which turned out to be based on a misunderstanding as to VET and UAC matriculation standards, the scheme has been criticised by Phillip Heath, the national chairman of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia. An investigation by Fairfax in 2015 revealed widespread cheating at universities across NSW, including the University of Sydney. The university established a taskforce on academic misconduct in April 2015 to maintain its leadership position in preventing incidences of cheating and academic misconduct. A 2016 investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation exposed corporate deals between the Veterinary Faculty and large pet food companies had resulted in the withholding of harmful cat food product tested to protect corporate sponsors. The Institute of Public Affairs’ third (2018) annual audit of free speech on Australian campuses has named the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and James Cook University as the most hostile to free speech based on measures that “aggregate (the) number of problematic policies and actions”. An appendix, provided by the Institute of Public Affairs, listed 51 alleged incidents at 20 universities in which freedom of expression was said to have come under attack. The University of Sydney accounted for the largest share (19 out of 51 or 37%) of those alleged incidents. A national code to protect freedom of speech at universities has been endorsed by the federal government. It is intended to counter the risk of overreach by university administrators and aims to restrain rules that stifle opinions that some might consider unwelcome, offensive or even insulting. In the 2019 Student Experience Survey, the University of Sydney recorded the second lowest student satisfaction rating out of all Australian universities, and the second lowest student satisfaction rating out of all New South Wales universities, with an overall satisfaction rating of 74.2; this was lower than the national average rating of 78.4. Campus Main campus The main campus has been ranked in the top 10 of the world's most beautiful universities by the British Daily Telegraph and the American Huffington Post, among others such as Oxford, and Cambridge and is spread across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington. Originally housed in what is now Sydney Grammar School, in 1855 the government granted land in Grose Farm to the university, three kilometres from the city, which is now the main Camperdown campus. In 1854, the architect Edmund Blacket accepted a senate invitation for the first buildings to be designed. In 1858 the Great Hall was finished, and in 1859 the Main Building was built. He composed the original Neo-Gothic sandstone Quadrangle and Great Tower buildings, which were completed in 1862. The rapid expansion of the university in the mid-20th century resulted in the acquisition of land in Darlington across City Road. The Camperdown/Darlington campus houses the university's administrative headquarters, and the Faculties of Arts, Science, Education and Social Work, Pharmacy, Veterinary Science, Economics and Business, Architecture, and Engineering. It is also the home base of the large Sydney Medical School, which has numerous affiliated teaching hospitals across the state. The main campus is also the focus of the university's student life, with the student-run University of Sydney Union (once referred to as "the Union", but now known as "the USU") in possession of three buildings – Wentworth, Manning and Holme Buildings. These buildings house a large proportion of the university's catering outlets, and provide space for recreational rooms, bars and function centres. One of the largest activities organised by the Union is Welcome Week (formerly Orientation Week or 'O-week'), a three-day festival at the start of the academic year. Welcome Week centres on stalls set up by clubs and societies on the Front Lawns. The main campus is home to a variety of statues, artworks, and monuments. These include the Gilgamesh Statue and the Confucius Statue. In November 2001, filming of the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets commenced on the main campus. These included the scene of Dobby the House Elf receiving the sock from Lucius Malfoy. Some other architects associated with the university were Walter Liberty Vernon, Walter Burley Griffin, Leslie Wilkinson, and the New South Wales Government Architect. The building was designed in accordance with the university's masterplanning by the architect and founding dean of the university's architecture faculty Leslie Wilkinson, who himself was inspired by a previously unused masterplan developed for the campus by Walter Burley Griffin in 1915. The 2002 conservation plan of the university stated that the Main Building and Quadrangle, Anderson Stuart Building, Gate Lodges, St Paul's College, St John's College and St Andrew's College "comprise what is arguably the most important group of Gothic and Tudor Revival style architecture in Australia, and the landscape and grounds features associated with these buildings, including Victoria Park, contribute to and support the existence and appreciation of their architectural qualities and aesthetic significance." In 2015, The NSW Department of Planning and Environment endorsed The University of Sydney's $1.4 billion Campus Improvement Plan which involved a number of new important structures and renovations. As of 2016, the university is undertaking a large capital works program with the aim of revitalising the campus and providing more office, teaching and student space. The program will see the amalgamation of the smaller science and technical libraries into a larger library, and the construction of a central administration and student services building along City Road. A new building for the School of Information Technologies opened in late 2006 and has been located on a site adjacent to the Seymour Centre. The busy Eastern Avenue thoroughfare has been transformed into a pedestrian plaza and a new footbridge has been built over City Road. The new home for the Sydney Law School, located alongside Fisher Library on the site of the old Edgeworth David and Stephen Roberts buildings, has been completed. The university opened a new building called "Abercrombie Building" for business school students in early 2016. The NSW state government has reduced transport links to the old campus and the closest Redfern railway station leaving main access to buses on the neighbouring Parramatta Road and City Road, prioritising the growth at other Sydney universities. From 2007, the university has used space in the former Eveleigh railway yards, just to the south of Darlington, for examination purposes. In 2018, New South Wales Minister for Heritage, Gabrielle Upton agreed to put the University of Sydney and some adjacent sites on the state heritage register, creating a conservation area that would include the Camperdown campus, and the nearby Victoria Park. The beginning of 2021 saw the closure of the Cumberland campus, with a number of health disciplines moving to the Camperdown campus in the state-of-the-art, purpose built Susan Wakil Health Building. Satellite campuses Sydney Dental Hospital located in Surry Hills and the Westmead Centre for Oral Health is attached to Westmead Hospital. The Sydney Conservatorium of Music: Formerly the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM) is located in the Sydney CBD on the edge of Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden, a short distance from the Sydney Opera House. It became a faculty of the university in the 1990s and incorporates the main campus Department of Music, which was the subject of the documentary Facing the Music. Camden campus: Located in one of the most rapidly growing peri-urban areas in the country, Sydney's southwest. The Camden campus houses lecture theatres, research institutes, veterinary clinics and research farms for bioscience, environmental science, agriculture and veterinary science. Sydney CBD campus: The University of Sydney Business School CBD campus is located on Castlereagh Street in the heart of Sydney's CBD close to Town Hall station. The university also uses a number of other facilities for its teaching activities. Sydney Medical School has eight clinical schools at its affiliated hospitals, responsible for clinical education at the hospitals. Sydney Pharmacy School is one of the smaller at the University, and is positioned with its own building, the sandstone Pharmacy and Bank Building, with associated laboratories and academic staff wings below and around One Tree Island is an island situated within the World Heritage Site Great Barrier Reef Marine Park about 20 km east-southeast of Heron Island and about 90 km east-northeast of Gladstone on the Queensland coast, and hosts a tropical marine research station of the School of Geosciences. The IA Watson Grains Research Centre located at Narrabri in north-central New South Wales is a research station of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment. The Molonglo Observatory is located in the Australian Capital Territory. Maningrida is a base camp for scientific expeditions in the Northern Territory. Arthursleigh is an agricultural estate located near Goulburn. An art studio is located in Paris, France, while the Australian Archaeology Centre is located in Athens, Greece. Taylors College at Waterloo in Sydney is operated by the university for its Foundation Program, catering to international students wishing to enter the university. Library The University of Sydney Library consists of 11 individual libraries located across the university's various campuses. The Fisher and Health sciences libraries offer disability support services. According to the library's publications, it is the largest academic library in the southern hemisphere; university statistics show that in 2007 the collection consisted of just under 5 million physical volumes and a further 300,000 e-books, for a total of approximately 5.3 million items. It is also the only university in Australia to be a state legal deposit library according to the Copyright Act 1968 which stipulates that a copy of every printed material published |
host is the server, the port number is likely to be a well-known port number. Destination port number This field identifies the receiver's port and is required. Similar to source port number, if the client is the destination host then the port number will likely be an ephemeral port number and if the destination host is the server then the port number will likely be a well-known port number. Length This field specifies the length in bytes of the UDP header and UDP data. The minimum length is 8 bytes, the length of the header. The field size sets a theoretical limit of 65,535 bytes (8-byte header + 65,527 bytes of data) for a UDP datagram. However the actual limit for the data length, which is imposed by the underlying IPv4 protocol, is 65,507 bytes (65,535 bytes − 8-byte UDP header − 20-byte IP header). Using IPv6 jumbograms it is possible to have UDP datagrams of size greater than 65,535 bytes. specifies that the length field is set to zero if the length of the UDP header plus UDP data is greater than 65,535. Checksum The checksum field may be used for error-checking of the header and data. This field is optional in IPv4, and mandatory in IPv6. The field carries all-zeros if unused. Checksum computation The method used to compute the checksum is defined in , and efficient calculation is discussed in : In other words, all 16-bit words are summed using one's complement arithmetic. Add the 16-bit values up. On each addition, if a carry-out (17th bit) is produced, swing that 17th carry bit around and add it to the least significant bit of the running total. Finally, the sum is then one's complemented to yield the value of the UDP checksum field. If the checksum calculation results in the value zero (all 16 bits 0) it should be sent as the one's complement (all 1s) as a zero-value checksum indicates no checksum has been calculated. In this case, any specific processing is not required at the receiver, because all 0s and all 1s are equal to zero in 1's complement arithmetic. The differences between IPv4 and IPv6 are in the pseudo header used to compute the checksum, and that the checksum is not optional in IPv6. IPv4 pseudo header When UDP runs over IPv4, the checksum is computed using a "pseudo header" that contains some of the same information from the real IPv4 header. The pseudo header is not the real IPv4 header used to send an IP packet, it is used only for the checksum calculation. The source and destination addresses are those in the IPv4 header. The protocol is that for UDP (see List of IP protocol numbers): 17 (0x11). The UDP length field is the length of the UDP header and data. The field data stands for the transmitted data. UDP checksum computation is optional for IPv4. If a checksum is not used it should be set to the value zero. IPv6 pseudo header When UDP runs over IPv6, the checksum is mandatory. The method used to compute it is changed as documented in : When computing the checksum, again a pseudo header is used that mimics the real IPv6 header: The source address is the one in the IPv6 header. The destination address is the final destination; if the IPv6 packet does not contain a Routing header, that will be the destination address in the IPv6 header; otherwise, | The protocol is that for UDP (see List of IP protocol numbers): 17 (0x11). The UDP length field is the length of the UDP header and data. The field data stands for the transmitted data. UDP checksum computation is optional for IPv4. If a checksum is not used it should be set to the value zero. IPv6 pseudo header When UDP runs over IPv6, the checksum is mandatory. The method used to compute it is changed as documented in : When computing the checksum, again a pseudo header is used that mimics the real IPv6 header: The source address is the one in the IPv6 header. The destination address is the final destination; if the IPv6 packet does not contain a Routing header, that will be the destination address in the IPv6 header; otherwise, at the originating node, it will be the address in the last element of the Routing header, and, at the receiving node, it will be the destination address in the IPv6 header. The value of the Next Header field is the protocol value for UDP: 17. The UDP length field is the length of the UDP header and data. Reliability and congestion control Lacking reliability, UDP applications may encounter some packet loss, reordering, errors or duplication. If using UDP, the end-user applications must provide any necessary handshaking such as real-time confirmation that the message has been received. Applications, such as TFTP, may add rudimentary reliability mechanisms into the application layer as needed. If an application requires a high degree of reliability, a protocol such as the Transmission Control Protocol may be used instead. Most often, UDP applications do not employ reliability mechanisms and may even be hindered by them. Streaming media, real-time multiplayer games and voice over IP (VoIP) are examples of applications that often use UDP. In these particular applications, loss of packets is not usually a fatal problem. In VoIP, for example, latency and jitter are the primary concerns. The use of TCP would cause jitter if any packets were lost as TCP does not provide subsequent data to the application while it is requesting re-sending of the missing data. Applications Numerous key Internet applications use UDP, including: the Domain Name System (DNS), where queries must be fast and only consist of a single request followed by a single reply packet, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the Routing Information Protocol (RIP) and the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Voice and video traffic is generally transmitted using UDP. Real-time video and audio streaming protocols are designed to handle occasional lost packets, so only slight degradation in quality occurs, rather than large delays if lost packets were retransmitted. Because both TCP and UDP run over the same network, in the mid-2000s a few businesses found that a increasing UDP traffic from these real-time applications slightly hindered the performance of applications using TCP such as point of sale, accounting, and database systems (when TCP detects packet loss, it will throttle back its data rate usage). Some VPN systems such as OpenVPN may use UDP and perform error checking at the application level while implementing reliable connections. QUIC is a transport protocol built on top of UDP. QUIC provides a reliable and secure connection. HTTP/3 uses QUIC as opposed to earlier versions of HTTPS which use a combination of TCP and TLS to ensure reliability and security respectively. This means that HTTP/3 uses a single handshake to set up a connection, rather than having two separate handshakes for TCP and TLS, meaning the overall time to establish a connection is reduced. Comparison of UDP and TCP Transmission Control Protocol is a connection-oriented protocol and requires handshaking to set up end-to-end communications. Once a connection is set up, user data may be sent bi-directionally over the connection. Reliable – TCP manages message acknowledgment, retransmission and timeouts. Multiple attempts to deliver the message are made. If data gets lost along the way, data will be re-sent. In TCP, there's either no missing data, or, in case of multiple timeouts, the connection is dropped. Ordered – If two messages are sent over a connection in sequence, the first message will reach the receiving application first. When data segments arrive in the wrong order, TCP buffers the out-of-order data until all data can be properly re-ordered and delivered to the application. Heavyweight – TCP requires three packets to set up a socket connection before any user data can be sent. TCP handles reliability and congestion control. Streaming – Data is read as a byte stream, no distinguishing indications are transmitted to signal message (segment) boundaries. User Datagram Protocol is a simpler message-based connectionless protocol. Connectionless protocols do not set up a dedicated end-to-end connection. Communication is achieved by transmitting information in one direction from source to destination without verifying the readiness or state of the receiver. Unreliable – When a UDP message is sent, it cannot be known if it will reach its destination; it could get lost along the way. There is no concept of acknowledgment, retransmission, or timeout. Not ordered – If two messages are sent to the same recipient, the order in which they arrive cannot be guaranteed. Lightweight – There is no ordering of messages, no tracking connections, etc. It is a very simple transport layer designed on top of IP. Datagrams – Packets are sent individually and are checked for integrity on arrival. Packets have definite boundaries which are honored upon receipt; a read operation at the receiver socket will yield an entire message as it was originally sent. No congestion control – UDP itself does not avoid congestion. Congestion control measures must be implemented at the application level or in the network. Broadcasts – being connectionless, UDP can broadcast - sent packets can be addressed to be receivable by all devices on |
to: Science and technology Upper sideband, of an AM signal Unified S-band communication for the Apollo program Unseptbium, symbol Usb, a theorized chemical element Organisations Save Bessarabia Union (Uniunea Salvați Basarabia), Moldovan political party Simón Bolívar | USB stands for Universal Serial Bus, a computer bus standard. USB may also refer to: Science and technology Upper sideband, of an AM signal Unified S-band communication for the Apollo program Unseptbium, symbol Usb, a theorized chemical element Organisations Save Bessarabia Union (Uniunea Salvați Basarabia), Moldovan political party Simón Bolívar University (Venezuela), (Universidad Simón |
was considered a success. US forces later occupied Adak Island, providing a naval base farther from Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. 1943 operations In January 1943, Indianapolis supported a landing and occupation on Amchitka, part of an Allied island hopping strategy in the Aleutian Islands. On the evening of 19 February, Indianapolis led two destroyers on a patrol southwest of Attu Island, searching for Japanese ships trying to reinforce Kiska and Attu. She intercepted the Japanese cargo ship, laden with troops, munitions, and supplies. The cargo ship tried to reply to the radio challenge but was shelled by Indianapolis. Akagane Maru exploded and sank with all hands. Through mid-1943, Indianapolis remained near the Aleutian Islands, escorting American convoys and providing shore bombardments supporting amphibious assaults. In May, the Allies captured Attu, then turned on Kiska, thought to be the final Japanese holdout in the Aleutians. Allied landings there began on 15 August, but the Japanese had already abandoned the Aleutian Islands, unbeknownst to the Allies. After refitting at Mare Island, Indianapolis moved to Hawaii as flagship of Vice Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, commanding the 5th Fleet. She sortied from Pearl Harbor on 10 November, with the main body of the Southern Attack Force for Operation Galvanic, the invasion of the Gilbert Islands. On 19 November, Indianapolis bombarded Tarawa Atoll, and next day pounded Makin (see Battle of Makin). The ship then returned to Tarawa as fire-support for the landings. Her guns shot down an enemy plane and shelled enemy strongpoints as landing parties fought Japanese defenders in the Battle of Tarawa. She continued this role until the island was secure three days later. The conquest of the Marshall Islands followed victory in the Gilberts. Indianapolis was again 5th Fleet flagship. 1944 The cruiser met other ships of her task force at Tarawa, and on D-Day minus 1, 31 January 1944, she was one of the cruisers that bombarded the islands of Kwajalein Atoll. The shelling continued on D-Day, with Indianapolis suppressing two enemy shore batteries. Next day, she destroyed a blockhouse and other shore installations and supported advancing troops with a creeping barrage. The ship entered Kwajalein Lagoon, on 4 February, and remained until resistance disappeared (see Battle of Kwajalein). In March and April, Indianapolis, still flagship of the 5th Fleet, attacked the Western Carolines. Carrier planes at the Palau Islands on 30–31 March, sank three destroyers, 17 freighters, five oilers and damaged 17 other ships. Airfields were bombed and surrounding water mined. Yap and Ulithi were struck on 31 March, and Woleai on 1 April. Japanese planes attacked but were driven off without damaging the American ships. Indianapolis shot down her second plane, a torpedo bomber, and the Japanese lost 160 planes, including 46 on the ground. These attacks prevented Japanese forces stationed in the Carolines from interfering with the US landings on New Guinea. In June, the 5th Fleet was busy with the assault on the Mariana Islands. Raids on Saipan began with carrier-based planes on 11 June, followed by surface bombardment, in which Indianapolis had a major role, from 13 June (see Battle of Saipan). On D-Day, 15 June, Admiral Spruance heard that battleships, carriers, cruisers, and destroyers were headed south to relieve threatened garrisons in the Marianas. Since amphibious operations at Saipan had to be protected, Spruance could not withdraw too far. Consequently, a fast carrier force was sent to meet this threat while another force attacked Japanese air bases on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima, in the Bonin and Volcano Islands, bases for potential enemy air attacks. A combined US fleet fought the Japanese on 19 June in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Japanese carrier planes, which planned to use the airfields of Guam and Tinian to refuel and rearm, were met by carrier planes and the guns of the Allied escorting ships. That day, the US Navy destroyed a reported 426 Japanese planes while losing 29. Indianapolis shot down one torpedo plane. This day of aerial combat became known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot". With Japanese air opposition wiped out, the US carrier planes sank , two destroyers, and one tanker and damaged others. Two other carriers, and , were sunk by submarines. Indianapolis returned to Saipan on 23 June to resume fire support and six days later moved to Tinian to attack shore installations (see Battle of Tinian). Meanwhile, Guam had been taken, and Indianapolis became the first ship to enter Apra Harbor since early in the war. The ship operated in the Marianas for the next few weeks, then moved to the Western Carolines, where further landings were planned. From 12 to 29 September, she bombarded Peleliu, in the Palau Group, before and after the landings (see Battle of Peleliu). She then sailed to Manus Island, in the Admiralty Islands, where she operated for 10 days before returning to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California for refitting. 1945 Overhauled, Indianapolis joined Vice Admiral Marc A. Mitscher's fast carrier task force on 14 February 1945. Two days later, the task force launched an attack on Tokyo to cover the landings on Iwo Jima, scheduled for 19 February. This was the first carrier attack on mainland Japan since the Doolittle Raid. The mission was to destroy Japanese air facilities and other installations in the Home Islands. The fleet achieved complete tactical surprise by approaching the Japanese coast under cover of bad weather. The attacks were pressed home for two days. The US Navy lost 49 carrier planes while claiming 499 enemy planes, a 10-to-1 kill/loss ratio. The task force also sank a carrier, nine coastal ships, a destroyer, two destroyer escorts, and a cargo ship. They destroyed hangars, shops, aircraft installations, factories, and other industrial targets. Immediately after the strikes, the task force raced to the Bonin Islands to support the landings on Iwo Jima. The ship remained there until 1 March, protecting the invasion ships and bombarding targets in support of the landings. Indianapolis returned to VADM Mitscher's task force in time to strike Tokyo, again on 25 February, and Hachijō, off the southern coast of Honshū, the following day. Although weather was extremely bad, the American force destroyed 158 planes and sank five small ships while pounding ground installations and destroying trains. The next target for the US forces was Okinawa, in the Ryukyu Islands, which were in range of aircraft from the Japanese mainland. The fast carrier force was tasked with attacking airfields in southern Japan until they were incapable of launching effective airborne opposition to the impending invasion. The fast carrier force departed for Japan from Ulithi on 14 March. On 18 March, she launched an attack from a position southeast of the island of Kyūshū. The attack targeted airfields on Kyūshū, as well as ships of the Japanese fleet in the harbors of Kobe and Kure, on southern Honshū. The Japanese located the American task force on 21 March, sending 48 planes to attack the ships. Twenty-four fighters from the task force intercepted and shot down all the Japanese aircraft. Indianapolis was assigned to Task Force 54 (TF 54) for the invasion of Okinawa. When TF 54 began pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa on 24 March, Indianapolis spent 7 days pouring 8-inch shells into the beach defenses. During this time, enemy aircraft repeatedly attacked the American ships. Indianapolis shot down six planes and damaged two others. On 31 March, the day before the Tenth Army (combined U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps) started its assault landings, the Indianapolis lookouts spotted a Japanese Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" fighter as it emerged from the morning twilight and dived vertically towards the bridge. The ship's 20 mm guns opened fire, but within 15 seconds the plane was over the ship. Tracers converged on it, causing it to swerve, but the pilot managed to release his bomb from a height of , then crashing his plane into the sea near the port stern. The bomb plummeted through the deck, into the crew's mess hall, down through the berthing compartment, and through the fuel tanks before crashing through the keel and exploding in the water underneath. The concussion blew two gaping holes in the keel which flooded nearby compartments, killing nine crewmen. The ship's bulkheads prevented any progressive flooding. Indianapolis, settling slightly by the stern and listing to port, steamed to a salvage ship for emergency repairs. Here, inspection revealed that her propeller shafts were damaged, her fuel tanks ruptured, and her water-distilling equipment ruined. But Indianapolis commenced the long trip across the Pacific, under her own power, to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for repairs. Secret mission After major repairs and an overhaul, Indianapolis received orders to undertake a top-secret mission of the utmost significance to national security: to proceed to Tinian island carrying the enriched uranium (about half of the world's supply of uranium-235 at the time) and other parts required for the assembly of the atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy", which would be dropped on Hiroshima a few weeks later. Indianapolis departed San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard on 16 July 1945, within hours of the Trinity test. She set a speed record of hours from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, an average speed of . Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 19 July, she raced on unaccompanied, delivering the atomic bomb components to Tinian on 26 July. Indianapolis was then sent to Guam, where a number of the crew who had completed their tours of duty were relieved by other sailors. Leaving Guam on 28 July, she began sailing toward Leyte, where her crew was to receive training before continuing on to Okinawa to join Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's Task Force 95. Sinking At 00:15 on 30 July 1945, Indianapolis was struck on her starboard side by two Type 95 torpedoes, one in the bow and one amidships, from the Japanese submarine , captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, who initially thought he had spotted the . The explosions caused massive damage. Indianapolis took on a heavy list (the ship had had a great deal of armament and gun-firing directors added as the war went on, and was therefore top-heavy) and settled by the bow. Twelve minutes later, she rolled completely over, then her stern rose into the air and she sank. Some 300 of the 1,195 crewmen aboard went down with the ship. With few lifeboats and many without life jackets, the remainder of the crew was set adrift. Rescue Navy command did not know of the ship's sinking until survivors were spotted in the open ocean three and a half days later. At 10:25 on 2 August, a PV-1 Ventura flown by Lieutenant Wilbur "Chuck" Gwinn and his copilot, Lieutenant Warren Colwell, and a PBY 2 piloted by Bill Kitchen spotted the men adrift while on a routine patrol flight. Gwinn immediately dropped a life raft and radio transmitter. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once. First to arrive was an amphibious PBY-5A Catalina patrol plane flown by Lieutenant Commander (USN) Robert Adrian Marks. Marks and his flight crew spotted the survivors and dropped life rafts; one raft was destroyed by the drop while others were too far away from the exhausted crew. Against standing orders not to land in open ocean, Marks took a vote of his crew and decided to land the aircraft in swells. He was able to maneuver his craft to pick up 56 survivors. Space in the plane was limited, so Marks had men lashed to the wing with parachute cord. His actions rendered the aircraft unflyable. After nightfall, the destroyer escort , the first of seven rescue ships, used its searchlight as a beacon and instilled hope in those still in the water. Cecil J. Doyle and six other ships picked up the remaining survivors. After the rescue, Marks' plane was sunk by Cecil J. Doyle as it could not be recovered. Many of the survivors were injured, and all suffered from lack of food and water (leading to dehydration and hypernatremia; some found rations, such as Spam and crackers, among the debris of the Indianapolis), exposure to the elements (dehydration from the hot sun during the day and hypothermia at night, as well as severe desquamation due to continued exposure to saltwater and bunker oil), and shark attacks, while some killed themselves or other survivors were found in various states of delirium or hallucinations. Only 316 of the nearly 900 men set adrift after the sinking survived. Two of the rescued survivors, Robert Lee Shipman and Frederick Harrison, died in August 1945. Hundreds of sharks were drawn to the wreck by the noise of the explosions and the scent of blood in the water. After picking off the dead and wounded, they began attacking survivors. The number of deaths attributed to sharks ranges from a few dozen to 150. "Ocean of Fear", a 2007 episode of the Discovery Channel TV documentary series Shark Week, states that the sinking of Indianapolis resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history, and attributes the attacks to the oceanic whitetip shark species. Tiger sharks may also have killed some sailors. The same show attributed most of the deaths on Indianapolis to exposure, salt poisoning, and thirst/dehydration, with the dead being dragged off by sharks. Navy failure to learn of the sinking The Headquarters of Commander Marianas on Guam and of the Commander Philippine Sea Frontier on Leyte kept Operations plotting boards on which were plotted the positions of all vessels with which the headquarters were concerned. However, it was assumed that ships as large as Indianapolis would reach their destinations on time, unless reported otherwise. Therefore, their positions were based on predictions and not on reports. On 31 July, when she should have arrived at Leyte, Indianapolis was | bombardment of Okinawa on 24 March, Indianapolis spent 7 days pouring 8-inch shells into the beach defenses. During this time, enemy aircraft repeatedly attacked the American ships. Indianapolis shot down six planes and damaged two others. On 31 March, the day before the Tenth Army (combined U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps) started its assault landings, the Indianapolis lookouts spotted a Japanese Nakajima Ki-43 "Oscar" fighter as it emerged from the morning twilight and dived vertically towards the bridge. The ship's 20 mm guns opened fire, but within 15 seconds the plane was over the ship. Tracers converged on it, causing it to swerve, but the pilot managed to release his bomb from a height of , then crashing his plane into the sea near the port stern. The bomb plummeted through the deck, into the crew's mess hall, down through the berthing compartment, and through the fuel tanks before crashing through the keel and exploding in the water underneath. The concussion blew two gaping holes in the keel which flooded nearby compartments, killing nine crewmen. The ship's bulkheads prevented any progressive flooding. Indianapolis, settling slightly by the stern and listing to port, steamed to a salvage ship for emergency repairs. Here, inspection revealed that her propeller shafts were damaged, her fuel tanks ruptured, and her water-distilling equipment ruined. But Indianapolis commenced the long trip across the Pacific, under her own power, to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for repairs. Secret mission After major repairs and an overhaul, Indianapolis received orders to undertake a top-secret mission of the utmost significance to national security: to proceed to Tinian island carrying the enriched uranium (about half of the world's supply of uranium-235 at the time) and other parts required for the assembly of the atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy", which would be dropped on Hiroshima a few weeks later. Indianapolis departed San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard on 16 July 1945, within hours of the Trinity test. She set a speed record of hours from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, an average speed of . Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 19 July, she raced on unaccompanied, delivering the atomic bomb components to Tinian on 26 July. Indianapolis was then sent to Guam, where a number of the crew who had completed their tours of duty were relieved by other sailors. Leaving Guam on 28 July, she began sailing toward Leyte, where her crew was to receive training before continuing on to Okinawa to join Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's Task Force 95. Sinking At 00:15 on 30 July 1945, Indianapolis was struck on her starboard side by two Type 95 torpedoes, one in the bow and one amidships, from the Japanese submarine , captained by Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, who initially thought he had spotted the . The explosions caused massive damage. Indianapolis took on a heavy list (the ship had had a great deal of armament and gun-firing directors added as the war went on, and was therefore top-heavy) and settled by the bow. Twelve minutes later, she rolled completely over, then her stern rose into the air and she sank. Some 300 of the 1,195 crewmen aboard went down with the ship. With few lifeboats and many without life jackets, the remainder of the crew was set adrift. Rescue Navy command did not know of the ship's sinking until survivors were spotted in the open ocean three and a half days later. At 10:25 on 2 August, a PV-1 Ventura flown by Lieutenant Wilbur "Chuck" Gwinn and his copilot, Lieutenant Warren Colwell, and a PBY 2 piloted by Bill Kitchen spotted the men adrift while on a routine patrol flight. Gwinn immediately dropped a life raft and radio transmitter. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once. First to arrive was an amphibious PBY-5A Catalina patrol plane flown by Lieutenant Commander (USN) Robert Adrian Marks. Marks and his flight crew spotted the survivors and dropped life rafts; one raft was destroyed by the drop while others were too far away from the exhausted crew. Against standing orders not to land in open ocean, Marks took a vote of his crew and decided to land the aircraft in swells. He was able to maneuver his craft to pick up 56 survivors. Space in the plane was limited, so Marks had men lashed to the wing with parachute cord. His actions rendered the aircraft unflyable. After nightfall, the destroyer escort , the first of seven rescue ships, used its searchlight as a beacon and instilled hope in those still in the water. Cecil J. Doyle and six other ships picked up the remaining survivors. After the rescue, Marks' plane was sunk by Cecil J. Doyle as it could not be recovered. Many of the survivors were injured, and all suffered from lack of food and water (leading to dehydration and hypernatremia; some found rations, such as Spam and crackers, among the debris of the Indianapolis), exposure to the elements (dehydration from the hot sun during the day and hypothermia at night, as well as severe desquamation due to continued exposure to saltwater and bunker oil), and shark attacks, while some killed themselves or other survivors were found in various states of delirium or hallucinations. Only 316 of the nearly 900 men set adrift after the sinking survived. Two of the rescued survivors, Robert Lee Shipman and Frederick Harrison, died in August 1945. Hundreds of sharks were drawn to the wreck by the noise of the explosions and the scent of blood in the water. After picking off the dead and wounded, they began attacking survivors. The number of deaths attributed to sharks ranges from a few dozen to 150. "Ocean of Fear", a 2007 episode of the Discovery Channel TV documentary series Shark Week, states that the sinking of Indianapolis resulted in the most shark attacks on humans in history, and attributes the attacks to the oceanic whitetip shark species. Tiger sharks may also have killed some sailors. The same show attributed most of the deaths on Indianapolis to exposure, salt poisoning, and thirst/dehydration, with the dead being dragged off by sharks. Navy failure to learn of the sinking The Headquarters of Commander Marianas on Guam and of the Commander Philippine Sea Frontier on Leyte kept Operations plotting boards on which were plotted the positions of all vessels with which the headquarters were concerned. However, it was assumed that ships as large as Indianapolis would reach their destinations on time, unless reported otherwise. Therefore, their positions were based on predictions and not on reports. On 31 July, when she should have arrived at Leyte, Indianapolis was removed from the board in the headquarters of Commander Marianas. She was also recorded as having arrived at Leyte by the headquarters of Commander Philippine Sea Frontier. Lieutenant Stuart B. Gibson, the operations officer under the Port Director, Tacloban, was the officer responsible for tracking the movements of Indianapolis. The vessel's failure to arrive on schedule was known at once to Gibson, who failed to investigate the matter and made no immediate report of the fact to his superiors. Gibson received a letter of reprimand in connection with the incident. The acting commander and operations officer of the Philippine Sea Frontier also received reprimands, while Gibson's immediate superior received a letter of admonition. In the first official statement, the Navy said that distress calls "were keyed by radio operators and possibly were actually transmitted" but that "no evidence has been developed that any distress message from the ship was received by any ship, aircraft or shore station". Declassified records later showed that three stations received the signals but none acted upon the call. One commander was drunk, another had ordered his men not to disturb him, and a third thought it was a Japanese trap. Immediately prior to the attack, the seas had been moderate, the visibility fluctuating but poor in general, and Indianapolis had been steaming at . When the ship failed to reach Leyte on 31 July, as scheduled, no report was made that she was overdue. The Navy then created the Movement Report System to prevent such disasters in the future. Court-martial of Captain McVay Captain Charles B. McVay III, who had commanded Indianapolis since November 1944 through several battles, survived the sinking, though he was one of the last to abandon ship, and was among those rescued days later. In November 1945, he was court-martialed on two charges: failing to order his men to abandon ship and hazarding the ship. Cleared of the charge of failing to order abandon ship, McVay was convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag". Several aspects of the court-martial were controversial. There was evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm's way. McVay's orders were to "zigzag at his discretion, weather permitting"; however, McVay was not informed that a Japanese submarine was operating in the vicinity of his route from Guam to Leyte. Further, Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto, commanding officer of I-58, testified that zigzagging would have made no difference. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz remitted McVay's sentence and restored him to active duty. McVay retired in 1949 as a rear admiral. While many of Indianapolis survivors said McVay was not to blame for the sinking, the families of some of the men who died thought otherwise: "Merry Christmas! Our family's holiday would be a lot merrier if you hadn't killed my son", read one piece of mail. The guilt that was placed on his shoulders mounted until he died by suicide in 1968, using his Navy-issued revolver. McVay was discovered on his front lawn by his gardener with a toy sailor in one hand, and a revolver in the other. He was 70 years old. McVay's record cleared In 1996, sixth-grade student Hunter Scott began his research on the sinking of Indianapolis for a class history project. Scott's effort led to an increase in national publicity, which got the attention of retired Congressional lobbyist Michael Monroney, who had been scheduled to be assigned to Indianapolis before she shipped out on her final voyage. Around the same time, Captain William J. Toti, USN, final commanding officer of the fast attack nuclear submarine received an appeal from several Indianapolis survivors to assist with the exoneration effort. Toti then demonstrated through analysis that the tactic of zigzagging would not have spared the Indianapolis from at least one torpedo hit by the I-58. Monroney, whose son-in-law was on the staff of Senator Bob Smith (R, NH), brought the matter to the attention of his son-in-law, who was able to get the issue in front of Smith. Smith convinced Senator John Warner (R, VA) to hold hearings on the Senate Armed Services Committee on 14 September 1999, in which several Indianapolis survivors testified. Also called to testify in the hearings were Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Donald Pilling, Director of Naval History Center Dr. William Dudley, and the Judge Advocate General of the Navy Rear Admiral John Hutson. The hearings were reported to sway Senator Warner into allowing a "Sense of Congress" resolution clearing Captain McVay's name to be passed to full Congress for a vote. In October 2000, the United States Congress passed a resolution that Captain McVay's record should state that "he is exonerated for the loss of Indianapolis". President Bill Clinton also signed the resolution. The resolution noted that, although several hundred ships of the US Navy were lost in combat during World War II, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed for the sinking of his ship. In July 2001, United States Secretary of the Navy Gordon England directed Captain Toti to enter the Congressional language into McVay's official Navy service record, clearing him of all wrongdoing. Commanders Commanders of USS Indianapolis: Awards Combat Action Ribbon American Defense Service Medal with fleet clasp Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with ten battle stars American Campaign Medal World War II Victory Medal Discovery of the wreck The wreck of Indianapolis is in the Philippine Sea. In July–August 2001, an expedition sought to find the wreckage through the use of side-scan sonar and underwater cameras mounted on a remotely operated vehicle. Four Indianapolis survivors accompanied the expedition, which was not successful. In June 2005, a second expedition was mounted to find the wreck. National Geographic covered the story and released it in July. Submersibles were launched to find any sign of wreckage, although they only located pieces of metal that were not proven conclusively to be from the ship. In July 2016, new information came out regarding the possible location of Indianapolis when naval records were discovered indicating that the Tank Landing Ship recorded passing by Indianapolis 11 hours before the torpedoes struck. This information allowed researchers to determine that Indianapolis had been moving faster and was therefore further west than previously assumed, as well as slightly off the route taken. Using this information, National Geographic planned to mount an expedition to search for the wreck in the summer of 2017. Reports estimated that Indianapolis was actually west of the reported sinking position, in water over deep, and likely on the side of an underwater mountain. A year after the discovery of the records, the wreck was located by Paul Allen’s "USS Indianapolis Project" aboard the research vessel on 19 August 2017, at a depth of . The wreck was revealed to the public on 13 September 2017, in a live TV show on PBS titled "USS Indianapolis, |
life after death, but the usage is highly variable. Reanimation or the creation of zombies through non-supernatural means has become a trope since at least the 19th century. Frankenstein (1818) used electricity, the influential I Am Legend (1954) blamed a virus, The Return of the Living Dead (1985) depicted a toxic gas, and Resident Evil (2002) featured a bioweapon. The undead have become popular adversaries in fantasy and horror settings, featuring prominently in many role-playing games, role-playing video games, MMORPGs and strategy games. Literature In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Van Helsing describes the Un-Dead as the following: Other notable 19th-century stories about the avenging undead included Ambrose Bierce's The Death of Halpin Frayser, and various Gothic Romanticism tales by Edgar Allan Poe. Though their works could not be properly considered zombie fiction, the supernatural tales of Bierce and Poe would prove influential on later writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, by Lovecraft's own admission. In Russia, the undead was the theme of Alexander Belyaev's | are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if they were alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by supernatural means, technology, or disease. In some cases (for example in Dungeons & Dragons) the term also includes incorporeal forms of the dead, such as ghosts. The undead are featured in the belief systems of most cultures, and appear in many works of fantasy and horror fiction. The term is also occasionally used for real-life attempts to resurrect the dead with science and technology, from early experiments like Robert E. Cornish's to future sciences such as chemical brain preservation and cryonics. History Bram Stoker considered using the title, The Un-Dead, for his novel Dracula (1897), and use of the term in the novel is mostly responsible for the modern sense of the word. The word does appear in English before Stoker but with the more literal sense of "alive" or "not dead", for which citations can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. In one passage of Dracula, Nosferatu is given as an "Eastern European" synonym for "un-dead". Stoker's use of the term "undead" refers only to vampires; the extension to other types of supernatural beings arose later. Most commonly, it is now taken to refer to supernatural beings who had at one point been alive and continue to display some aspects of life after death, but the usage is highly variable. Reanimation or the creation of zombies through non-supernatural means has become a |
making of bows, and the word ýr, "yew", is often used metonymically to refer to bows. It seems likely that the name Ýdalir is connected with the idea of Ullr as a bow-god. Another strophe in Grímnismál also mentions Ullr. The strophe is obscure but may refer to some sort of religious ceremony. It seems to indicate that Ullr was an important god. The last reference to Ullr in the Poetic Edda is found in Atlakviða: Both Atlakviða and Grímnismál are often considered to be among the oldest extant Eddic poems. It may not be a coincidence that they are the only ones to refer to Ullr. Again Ullr appears to be associated with some sort of ceremony, this time the practice of swearing an oath on a ring; the ring was later associated with Thor in a reference to the Norse settlers in Dublin. Prose Edda In chapter 31 of Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, Ullr is referred to as a son of Sif (with a father unrecorded in surviving sources) and thus a stepson of Sif's husband, Thor: In Skáldskaparmál, the second part of the Prose Edda, Snorri mentions Ullr again in a list of kennings, informing his readers that Ullr can be called ski-god, bow-god, hunting-god and shield-god. In turn a shield can be called Ullr's ship. Despite these tantalising tidbits, he relates no myths about Ullr. It seems likely that he did not know any, the god having faded from memory. Skaldic poetry Snorri's note that a shield can be called Ullr's ship is borne out by surviving skaldic poetry with kennings such as askr Ullar, far Ullar and kjóll Ullar all meaning Ullr's ship and referring to shields. While the origin of this kenning is unknown it could be connected with the identity of Ullr as a ski-god. Early skis, or perhaps sleds, might have been reminiscent of shields. A late Icelandic composition, Laufás-Edda, offers the prosaic explanation that Ullr's ship was called Skjöldr, "Shield". The name of Ullr is also common in warrior kennings, where it is used as other god names are. Ullr brands – Ullr of sword – warrior rand-Ullr – shield-Ullr – warrior Ullr almsíma – Ullr of bowstring – warrior Three skaldic poems, Haustlöng, Eilífr Goðrúnarson's Þórsdrápa, and a fragment by Eysteinn Valdason, refer to Thor as Ullr's stepfather, confirming Snorri's information. Toponymy Ullr's name appears in several important Norwegian and Swedish place names (but not in Denmark or in Iceland). This indicates that Ullr had at some point a religious importance in Scandinavia that is greater than what is immediately apparent from the scant surviving textual references. It is also probably significant that the placenames referring to this god are often found close to placenames referring to another deity: Njörðr in Sweden and Freyr in Norway. Some of the Norwegian placenames have a variant form, Ullinn. It has been suggested that this is the remnant of a pair of divine twins and further that there may have been a female Ullin, on the model of divine pairs such as Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn. Probably Ullr's name also can be read in the former Finnish municipality of Ullava in Central Osthrobothnia Region. Norway Ullarhváll ("Ullr's hill") - name of an old farm in Oslo and of Ullevaal Stadion Ullestad ("Ulle's place") - name of an old farm in Voss. Ullarnes ("Ullr's headland") - name of an old farm in Rennesøy. Ullerøy ("Ullr's island") - name of four old farms in Skjeberg, Spind, Sør-Odal and Vestre Moland. Ullern (Ullarvin) ("Ullr's meadow") - name of old farms in Hole, Oslo, Ullensaker, Sør-Odal and Øvre Eiker. Ullinsakr ("Ullin's field") - name of two old farms in Hemsedal and Torpa (old church site). Ullinshof ("Ullin's temple") - name of three old farms in Nes, Hedmark (old church site), Nes, Akershus and Ullensaker (old church site). Ullensvang ("Ullr's field") - name of an old farm in Ullensvang (old church site). Ullinsvin ("Ullin's meadow") - name of an old farm in Vågå (old church site). Ullsfjorden ("Ullr's Fjord") - fjord in Troms county. Commonly believed to be named after Ullr, although there is some uncertainty. Ulvik ("Ullr's bay") - village and fjord in Hordaland county. Magnus Olsen suggested in addition that the names of some Norwegian places including Ringsaker derive from a nickname *Ringir for Ullr based on his association with ring-oaths, but there is no evidence of this. Sweden Ulleråker ("Ullr's field") Uppland Ultuna ("Ullr's town") | ("little shrine of Ullr"). Its most notable feature is an arrangement of rocks, dated to the Vendel Period, in two "wings" with four large post holes. A total of 65 amulet rings have been recovered in the vicinity. Ullvi ("Ullr's sanctuary") Västmanland Ullene ("Ullr's meadow") Västergötland Ullervad ("Ullr's place to wading") Västergötland Ullånger ("Ullr's bay") Ångermanland Ullen Värmland, Hagfors springsource lake Ullbro ("Ulls bridge") Uppland, Enköping Ullunda ("Ulls grove") Uppland, Enköping Ullstämma ("Ulls meeting") Uppland, Enköping Värmullen Värmland, Hagfors Ullsberg ("Ull's mountain") Värmland, Hagfors Iceland Icelandic scholar Ólafur Lárusson suggested that some of the Icelandic placenames in Ullar-, usually interpreted as "wool", might also be named for Ullr, especially those such as Ullarfoss and Ullarklettur that are close to similar placenames in Goða- ("gods"). Scholarly theories The place-name evidence and the *wulþuz cognates have led many scholars to conclude that Ullr was one of the older Norse gods, whose importance had waned by the time of settlement of northern parts of Norway, well before the medieval Old Norse texts were written down. This is reflected in the lack of literary evidence for the name Ullinn. Some scholars have suggested that he was an aspect of the ancient Germanic sky-god, perhaps corresponding in northern Scandinavia to Týr in Denmark. Based on the association of Ullr and Ullinn placenames with Vanir deities, Ernst Alfred Philippson suggested that contrary to his placement in the Prose Edda among the Æsir, he was himself one of the Vanir, and the similarity between the Prose Edda description of his characteristics and those of Skaði have suggested to some that there was a link between him and Skaði's husband, Njörðr. Viktor Rydberg speculates in his Teutonic Mythology that Ullr was the son of Sif by Egill-Örvandill, half-brother of Svipdagr-Óðr, nephew of Völundr and a cousin of Skaði, and that Ullr followed in the footsteps of Egill, the greatest archer in the mythology, and helped Svipdagr-Eiríkr rescue Freyja from the giants. Rydberg also postulates that Ullr ruled over the Vanir when they held Ásgarðr during the war between the Vanir and the Æsir, but Rudolf Simek has stated that "this has no basis in the sources whatsoever". Modern reception Within the winter skiing community of Europe, Ullr is considered the Guardian Patron Saint of Skiers (German Schutzpatron der Skifahrer). An Ullr medallion or ski medal depicting the god on skis holding a bow and arrow, is widely worn as a talisman by both recreational and professional skiers as well as ski patrols in Europe and elsewhere. The town of Breckenridge, Colorado has since 1963 held a week-long "Ullr Fest" each January, featuring events designed to win his favor in an effort to bring snow to the historic ski town. Ullr is a playable character in the video game Smite. In the television series The Almighty Johnsons, Ullr is depicted as having been reincarnated into Mike Johnson, played by Tim Balme. See also Skaði Coat of arms of Ullensaker Notes References Primary sources Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, Books I-IX, translated to English by Oliver Elton 1905. Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, from the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Danish and Latin. Snorri Sturluson; translated by Jean I. Young (1964). The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press. . Thorpe, Benjamin. (Trans.). (1866). Edda Sæmundar Hinns Froða: The Edda Of Sæmund The Learned. (2 vols.) London: Trübner & Co. 1866. Secondary sources Further reading Eysteinn Björnsson (ed.) (2005). Snorra-Edda: Formáli & Gylfaginning: Textar fjögurra meginhandrita. Eysteinn Björnsson (2001). Lexicon of Kennings: Domain of Battle. Eysteinn Björnsson. Eysteinn Valdason: From a Thor poem. Finnur Jónsson (1931). Lexicon Poeticum, "Ullr". Copenhagen: S. L. Møllers Bogtrykkeri. Entry available online Jón Helgason (Ed.). (1955). Eddadigte (3 vols.). Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Nesten, H. L. (ed.) (1949). Ullensaker - en bygdebok, v. II. Jessheim trykkeri. Rydberg, Viktor. Undersökningar i Germanisk Mythologi, 2 volumes (1886–1889) Volume 1 (1886), translated as Teutonic Mythology (1889), Rasmus B. Anderson. |
waters in an expeditious and continuous manner, which is not "prejudicial to the peace, good order or the security" of the coastal state. Fishing, polluting, weapons practice, and spying are not "innocent", and submarines and other underwater vehicles are required to navigate on the surface and to show their flag. Nations can also temporarily suspend innocent passage in specific areas of their territorial seas, if doing so is essential for the protection of their security. Archipelagic waters The convention set the definition of "Archipelagic States" in Part IV, which also defines how the state can draw its territorial borders. A baseline is drawn between the outermost points of the outermost islands, subject to these points being sufficiently close to one another. All waters inside this baseline are designated "Archipelagic Waters". The state has sovereignty over these waters mostly to the extent it has over internal waters, but subject to existing rights including traditional fishing rights of immediately adjacent states. Foreign vessels have right of innocent passage through archipelagic waters, but archipelagic states may limit innocent passage to designated sea lanes. Contiguous zoneBeyond the limit, there is a further from the territorial sea baseline limit, the contiguous zone. Here a state can continue to enforce laws in four specific areas (customs, taxation, immigration, and pollution) if the infringement started or is about to occur within the state's territory or territorial waters. This makes the contiguous zone a hot pursuit area. Exclusive economic zones (EEZs) These extend from the baseline. Within this area, the coastal nation has sole exploitation rights over all natural resources. In casual use, the term may include the territorial sea and even the continental shelf. The EEZs were introduced to halt the increasingly heated clashes over fishing rights, although oil was also becoming important. The success of an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 1947 was soon repeated elsewhere in the world, and by 1970 it was technically feasible to operate in waters deep. Foreign nations have the freedom of navigation and overflight, subject to the regulation of the coastal states. Foreign states may also lay submarine pipes and cables. Continental shelf The continental shelf is defined as the natural prolongation of the land territory to the continental margin's outer edge, or from the coastal state's baseline, whichever is greater. A state's continental shelf may exceed until the natural prolongation ends. However, it may never exceed from the baseline; nor may it exceed beyond the isobath (the line connecting the depth of 2 500 m). Coastal states have the right to harvest mineral and non-living material in the subsoil of its continental shelf, to the exclusion of others. Coastal states also have exclusive control over living resources "attached" to the continental shelf, but not to creatures living in the water column beyond the exclusive economic zone. The area outside these areas is referred to as the "high seas" or simply "the Area". Aside from its provisions defining ocean boundaries, the convention establishes general obligations for safeguarding the marine environment and protecting freedom of scientific research on the high seas, and also creates an innovative legal regime for controlling mineral resource exploitation in deep seabed areas beyond national jurisdiction, through an International Seabed Authority and the common heritage of mankind principle. Landlocked states are given a right of access to and from the sea, without taxation of traffic through transit states. Part XI and the 1994 Agreement Part XI of the Convention provides for a regime relating to minerals on the seabed outside any state's territorial waters or EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zones). It establishes an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalty. The United States objected to the provisions of Part XI of the Convention on several grounds, arguing that the treaty was unfavorable to American economic and security interests. Due to Part XI, the United States refused to ratify the UNCLOS, although it expressed agreement with the remaining provisions of the Convention. From 1982 to 1990, the United States accepted all but Part XI as customary international law, while attempting to establish an alternative regime for exploitation of the minerals of the deep seabed. An agreement was made with other seabed mining nations and licenses were granted to four international consortia. Concurrently, the Preparatory Commission was established to prepare for the eventual coming into force of the Convention-recognized claims by applicants, sponsored by signatories of the Convention. Overlaps between the two groups were resolved, but a decline in the demand for minerals from the seabed made the seabed regime significantly less relevant. In addition, the decline of Communism in the late 1980s removed much of the support for some of the more contentious Part XI provisions. In 1990, consultations began between signatories and non-signatories (including the United States) over the possibility of modifying the Convention to allow the industrialized countries to join the Convention. The resulting 1994 Agreement on Implementation was adopted as a binding international Convention. It mandated that key articles, including those on limitation of seabed production and mandatory technology transfer, would not be applied, that the United States, if it became a member, would be guaranteed a seat on the Council of the International Seabed Authority, and finally, that voting would be done in groups, with each group able to block decisions on substantive matters. The 1994 Agreement also established a Finance Committee that would originate the financial decisions of the Authority, to | waters. This makes the contiguous zone a hot pursuit area. Exclusive economic zones (EEZs) These extend from the baseline. Within this area, the coastal nation has sole exploitation rights over all natural resources. In casual use, the term may include the territorial sea and even the continental shelf. The EEZs were introduced to halt the increasingly heated clashes over fishing rights, although oil was also becoming important. The success of an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 1947 was soon repeated elsewhere in the world, and by 1970 it was technically feasible to operate in waters deep. Foreign nations have the freedom of navigation and overflight, subject to the regulation of the coastal states. Foreign states may also lay submarine pipes and cables. Continental shelf The continental shelf is defined as the natural prolongation of the land territory to the continental margin's outer edge, or from the coastal state's baseline, whichever is greater. A state's continental shelf may exceed until the natural prolongation ends. However, it may never exceed from the baseline; nor may it exceed beyond the isobath (the line connecting the depth of 2 500 m). Coastal states have the right to harvest mineral and non-living material in the subsoil of its continental shelf, to the exclusion of others. Coastal states also have exclusive control over living resources "attached" to the continental shelf, but not to creatures living in the water column beyond the exclusive economic zone. The area outside these areas is referred to as the "high seas" or simply "the Area". Aside from its provisions defining ocean boundaries, the convention establishes general obligations for safeguarding the marine environment and protecting freedom of scientific research on the high seas, and also creates an innovative legal regime for controlling mineral resource exploitation in deep seabed areas beyond national jurisdiction, through an International Seabed Authority and the common heritage of mankind principle. Landlocked states are given a right of access to and from the sea, without taxation of traffic through transit states. Part XI and the 1994 Agreement Part XI of the Convention provides for a regime relating to minerals on the seabed outside any state's territorial waters or EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zones). It establishes an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to authorize seabed exploration and mining and collect and distribute the seabed mining royalty. The United States objected to the provisions of Part XI of the Convention on several grounds, arguing that the treaty was unfavorable to American economic and security interests. Due to Part XI, the United States refused to ratify the UNCLOS, although it expressed agreement with the remaining provisions of the Convention. From 1982 to 1990, the United States accepted all but Part XI as customary international law, while attempting to establish an alternative regime for exploitation of the minerals of the deep seabed. An agreement was made with other seabed mining nations and licenses were granted to four international consortia. Concurrently, the Preparatory Commission was established to prepare for the eventual coming into force of the Convention-recognized claims by applicants, sponsored by signatories of the Convention. Overlaps between the two groups were resolved, but a decline in the demand for minerals from the seabed made the seabed regime significantly less relevant. In addition, the decline of Communism in the late 1980s removed much of the support for some of the more contentious Part XI provisions. In 1990, consultations began between signatories and non-signatories (including the United States) over the possibility of modifying the Convention to allow the industrialized countries to join the Convention. The resulting 1994 Agreement on Implementation was adopted as a binding international Convention. It mandated that key articles, including those on limitation of seabed production and mandatory technology transfer, would not be applied, that the United States, if it became a member, would be guaranteed a seat on the Council of the International Seabed Authority, and finally, that voting would be done in groups, with each group able to block decisions on substantive matters. The 1994 Agreement also established a Finance Committee that would originate the financial decisions of the Authority, to which the largest donors would automatically be members and in which decisions would be made by consensus. On 1 February 2011, the Seabed Disputes Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued an advisory opinion concerning the legal responsibilities and obligations of States Parties to the Convention with respect to the sponsorship of activities in the Area in accordance with Part XI of the Convention and the 1994 Agreement. The advisory opinion was issued in response to a formal request made by the International Seabed Authority following two prior applications the Authority's Legal and Technical Commission had received from the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga regarding proposed activities (a plan of work to explore for polymetallic nodules) to be undertaken in the Area by two State-sponsored contractors – Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (sponsored by the Republic of Nauru) and Tonga Offshore Mining Ltd. (sponsored by the Kingdom of Tonga). The advisory opinion set forth the international legal responsibilities and obligations of Sponsoring States and the Authority to ensure that sponsored activities do not harm the marine environment, consistent with the applicable provisions of UNCLOS Part XI, Authority regulations, ITLOS case law, other international environmental treaties, and Principle 15 of the UN Rio Declaration. Part XII – Protecting the Marine Environment Part XII of UNCLOS contains special provisions for the protection of the marine environment, obligating all States to collaborate in this matter, as well as placing special obligations on flag States to ensure that ships under their flags adhere to international environmental regulations, often adopted by the IMO. The MARPOL Convention is an example of such regulation. Part XII also bestows coastal and port states with broadened jurisdictional rights for enforcing international environmental regulation within their territory and on the high seas. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 additionally has a target regarding conservative and sustainable use of oceans and their resources in line with UNCLOS legal framework. Biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction In 2017, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) |
is located on the banks of the Ucayali. Description The Ucayali, together with the Apurímac River, the Ene River and the Tambo River, is today considered the main headwater of the Amazon River, totaling a length of from the source of the Apurímac at Nevado Mismi to the confluence of the Ucayali and Marañón Rivers: Apurímac River (total length): Ene River (total length): Tambo River (total length): Ucayali River (confluence with Tambo River to confluence with the Marañón): Exploration The Ucayali was first called San Miguel, then Ucayali, Ucayare, Poro, Apu-Poro, Cocama and Rio de Cuzco. Peru has organised many costly and ably-conducted expeditions to explore it. One of them (1867) claimed to have reached within of Lima, and the little steamer "Napo" found its way up the violent currents for above the junction with the Pachitea River, and as far as the Tambo River, from the confluence of the Ucayali with the Amazon. | of Peru and becomes the Amazon at the confluence of the Marañón close to Nauta city. The city of Pucallpa is located on the banks of the Ucayali. Description The Ucayali, together with the Apurímac River, the Ene River and the Tambo River, is today considered the main headwater of the Amazon River, totaling a length of from the source of the Apurímac at Nevado Mismi to the confluence of the Ucayali and Marañón Rivers: Apurímac River (total length): Ene River (total length): Tambo River (total length): Ucayali River (confluence with Tambo River to confluence with the Marañón): Exploration The Ucayali was first called San Miguel, then Ucayali, Ucayare, Poro, Apu-Poro, Cocama and Rio de Cuzco. Peru has organised many costly and |
The New York City Subway has the greatest number of stations with 472. The country with the most metro systems is China, with 43 in operation. The Shanghai Metro is the world's longest metro network at 803 km (499 mi) and also has the highest annual ridership at 2.83 billion trips. Considerations The International Association of Public Transport (L'Union Internationale des Transports Publics, or UITP) defines metro systems as urban passenger transport systems, "operated on their own right of way and segregated from general road and pedestrian traffic". The terms heavy rail (mainly in North America) and heavy urban rail are essentially synonymous with the term "metro". Heavy rail systems are also specifically defined as an "electric railway". The dividing line between metro and other modes of public transport, such as light rail and commuter rail, is not always clear, and while UITP only makes distinctions between "metros" and "light rail", the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) distinguish all three modes. A common way to distinguish metro from light rail is by their separation from other traffic. While light rail systems may share roads or have level crossings, a metro system runs, almost always, on a grade-separated exclusive right-of-way, with no access for pedestrians and other traffic. And in contrast to commuter rail or light rail, metro systems are primarily used for transport within a city, and have higher service frequencies and substantially higher passenger volume capacities. Furthermore, most metro systems do not share tracks with freight trains or inter-city rail services. It is however not relevant whether the system runs on steel wheels or rubber tyres, or if the power supply is from a third rail or overhead line. The name of the system is not a criterion for inclusion or exclusion. Some cities use metro as a | match the service standards of metro systems, but reach far out of the city and are sometimes known as S-Bahn, suburban, regional or commuter rail. These are not included in this list. Neither are funicular systems, or people movers, such as amusement park, ski resort and airport transport systems. This list counts metros separately when multiple metros in one city or metropolitan area have separate owners or operating companies. This list expressly does not aim at representing the size and scope of the total rapid transit network of a certain city or metropolitan area. The data of this list should not be used to infer the size of a city's, region's, or country's urban rail transit systems, or to establish a ranking. Legend City Primary city served by the metro system. Country Sovereign state in which the metro system is located. Name The most common English name of the metro system (including a link to the article for that system). Year opened The year the metro system was opened for commercial service at metro standards. In other words, parts of the system may be older, but as parts of a former light rail or commuter rail network, so the year that the system obtained metro standards (most notably electrification) is the one listed. Year of last expansion The last time the system length or number of stations in the metro system was expanded. Stations The number of stations in the metro network, with stations connected by transfer counted as one. System lengthThe system length of a metro network is the sum of the lengths of all routes in the rail network in kilometers or miles. Each route is counted only once, regardless of how many lines pass over it, and regardless of whether it is single-track or multi-track, single carriageway or dual carriageway. Ridership The number of unique journeys on the metro system every year. There is a major discrepancy between the ridership figures: some metro systems count transferring between lines as multiple journeys, but others do not. List Table notes Indicates ridership figures based on the fiscal year rather than the calendar |
of China, met for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, D.C. to negotiate the UN's structure, and the composition of the UN Security Council quickly became the dominant issue. France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the UK and US were selected as permanent members of the Security Council; the US attempted to add Brazil as a sixth member but was opposed by the heads of the Soviet and British delegations. The most contentious issue at Dumbarton and in successive talks proved to be the veto rights of permanent members. The Soviet delegation argued that each nation should have an absolute veto that could block matters from even being discussed, while the British argued that nations should not be able to veto resolutions on disputes to which they were a party. At the Yalta Conference of February 1945, the American, British and Russian delegations agreed that each of the "Big Five" could veto any action by the council, but not procedural resolutions, meaning that the permanent members could not prevent debate on a resolution. On 25 April 1945, the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco, attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter. At the conference, H. V. Evatt of the Australian delegation pushed to further restrict the veto power of Security Council permanent members. Due to the fear that rejecting the strong veto would cause the conference's failure, his proposal was defeated twenty votes to ten. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories. On 17 January 1946, the Security Council met for the first time at Church House, Westminster, in London, United Kingdom. Cold War The Security Council was largely paralyzed in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and USSR and their allies and the Council generally was only able to intervene in unrelated conflicts. (A notable exception was the 1950 Security Council resolution authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea, passed in the absence of the USSR.) In 1956, the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis; however, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following that country's revolution. Cold War divisions also paralysed the Security Council's Military Staff Committee, which had been formed by Articles 45–47 of the UN Charter to oversee UN forces and create UN military bases. The committee continued to exist on paper but largely abandoned its work in the mid-1950s. In 1960, the UN deployed the United Nations Operation in the Congo (UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to restore order to the breakaway State of Katanga, restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 1964. However, the Security Council found itself bypassed in favour of direct negotiations between the superpowers in some of the decade's larger conflicts, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War. Focusing instead on smaller conflicts without an immediate Cold War connection, the Security Council deployed the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority in West New Guinea in 1962 and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus in 1964, the latter of which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions. On 25 October 1971, over US opposition, but with the support of many Third World nations, along with the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, the mainland, communist People's Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China; the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization. With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East, Vietnam and Kashmir, the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its budget for peacekeeping. Post-Cold War After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in ten years than it had in its previous four decades. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold. The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War, launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia, and oversaw democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. In 1991, the Security Council demonstrated its renewed vigor by condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on the same day of the attack and later authorizing a US-led coalition that successfully repulsed the Iraqis. Undersecretary-General Brian Urquhart later described the hopes raised by these successes as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed. Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s, the UN faced a number of simultaneous, serious crises within nations such as Haiti, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia. The UN mission to Bosnia faced "worldwide ridicule" for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing. In 1994, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in the face of Security Council indecision. In the late 1990s, UN-authorized international interventions took a wider variety of forms. The UN mission in the 1991–2002 Sierra Leone Civil War was supplemented by British Royal Marines and the UN-authorized 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was overseen by NATO. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the organization's effectiveness. In the same decade, the Security Council intervened with peacekeepers in crises including the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2013, an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered "systemic failure". In November/December 2014, Egypt presented a motion proposing an expansion of the NPT (non-Proliferation Treaty), to include Israel and Iran; this proposal was due to increasing hostilities and destruction in the Middle-East connected to the Syrian Conflict as well as others. All members of the Security Council are signatory to the NPT, and all permanent members are nuclear weapons states. Role The UN's role in international collective security is defined by the UN Charter, which authorizes the Security Council to investigate any situation threatening international peace; recommend procedures for peaceful resolution of a dispute; call upon other member nations to completely or partially interrupt economic relations as well as sea, air, postal and radio communications, or to sever diplomatic relations; and enforce its decisions militarily, or by any means necessary. The Security Council also recommends the new Secretary-General to the General Assembly and recommends new states for admission as member states of the United Nations. The Security Council has traditionally interpreted its mandate as covering only military security, though US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke controversially persuaded the body to pass a resolution on HIV/AIDS in Africa in 2000. Under Chapter VI of the Charter, "Pacific Settlement of Disputes", the Security Council "may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute". The Council may "recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment" if it determines that the situation might endanger international peace and security. These recommendations are generally considered to not be binding, as they lack an enforcement mechanism. A minority of scholars, such as Stephen Zunes, have argued that resolutions made under Chapter VI are "still directives by the Security Council and differ only in that they do not have the same stringent enforcement options, such as the use of military force". Under Chapter VII, the council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression." In such situations, the council is not limited to recommendations but may take action, including the use of armed force "to maintain or restore international peace and security." This was the legal basis for UN armed action in Korea in 1950 during the Korean War and the use of coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991 and Libya in 2011. Decisions taken under Chapter VII, such as economic sanctions, are binding on UN members; the Security Council is the only UN body with authority to issue binding resolutions. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that the Security Council has authority to refer cases to the Court in which the Court could not otherwise exercise jurisdiction. The Council exercised this power for the first time in March 2005, when it referred to the Court "the situation prevailing in Darfur since 1 July 2002"; since Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute, the Court could not otherwise have exercised jurisdiction. The Security Council made its second such referral in February 2011 when it asked the ICC to investigate the Libyan government's violent response to the Libyan Civil War. Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted on 28 April 2006, "reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity". The Security Council reaffirmed this responsibility to protect in Resolution 1706 on 31 August of that year. These resolutions commit the Security Council to protect civilians in an armed conflict, including taking action against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Members Permanent members The Security Council's five permanent members, below, have the power to veto any substantive resolution; this allows a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, but not to prevent or end debate. At the UN's founding in 1945, the five permanent members of the Security Council were the Republic of China, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. There have been two major seat changes since then. China's seat was originally held by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government, the Republic of China. However, the Nationalists were forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949, during the Chinese Civil War. The Chinese Communist Party assumed control of mainland China, thenceforth known as the People's Republic of China. In 1971, General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the People's Republic as the rightful representative of China in the UN and gave it the seat on the Security Council that had been held by the Republic of China, which was expelled from the UN altogether with no opportunity for membership as a separate nation. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation was recognized as the legal successor state of the Soviet Union and maintained the latter's position on the Security Council. Additionally, France eventually reformed its government into the French Fifth Republic in 1958, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle. France maintained its seat as there was no change in its international status or recognition, although many of its overseas possessions eventually became independent. The five permanent members of the Security Council were the victorious powers in World War II and have maintained the world's most powerful military forces ever since. They annually topped the list of countries with the highest military expenditures. In 2013, they spent over US$1 trillion combined on defence, accounting for over 55% of global military expenditures (the US alone accounting for over 35%). They are also among the world's largest arms exporters and are the only nations officially recognized as "nuclear-weapon states" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), though there are other states known or believed to be in possession of nuclear weapons. The block of Western democratic and generally aligned permanent members (France, the UK and the US) is styled as the "P3". Veto power Under Article 27 of the UN Charter, Security Council decisions on all substantive matters require the affirmative votes of three-fifths (i.e. nine) of the members. A negative vote or "veto" by a permanent member prevents adoption of a proposal, even if it has received the required votes. Abstention is not regarded as a veto in most cases, though all five permanent members must actively concur to amend the UN Charter or to recommend the admission of a new UN member state. Procedural matters are not subject to a veto, so the veto cannot be used to avoid discussion of an issue. The same holds for certain decisions that directly regard permanent members. A majority of vetoes are used not in critical international security situations, but for purposes such as blocking a candidate for Secretary-General or the admission of a member state. In the negotiations building up to the creation of the UN, the veto power was resented by many small countries, and in fact was forced on them by the veto nations—United States, United Kingdom, China, France and Soviet Union—through a threat that without the veto there will be no UN. Here is a description by Francis O. Wilcox, an adviser to US delegation to the 1945 conference: , 269 vetoes had been cast since the Security Council's inception. In this period, China used the veto 9 times, France 18, the Soviet Union or Russia 128, the United Kingdom 32, and the United States 89. Roughly two-thirds of Soviet and Russian combined vetoes were in the first ten years of the Security Council's existence. Between 1996 and 2012, the United States vetoed 13 resolutions, Russia 7, and China 5, while France and the United Kingdom did not use the veto. An early veto by Soviet Commissar Andrei Vishinsky blocked a resolution on the withdrawal of French forces from the then-colonies of Syria and Lebanon in February 1946; this veto established the precedent that permanent members could use the veto on matters outside of immediate concerns of war and peace. The Soviet Union went on to veto matters including the admission of Austria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Laos, Libya, Portugal, South Vietnam and Transjordan as UN member states, delaying their joining by several years. The United Kingdom and France used the veto to avoid Security Council condemnation of their actions in the 1956 Suez Crisis. The first veto by the United States came in 1970, blocking General Assembly action in Southern Rhodesia. From 1985 to 1990, the US vetoed 27 resolutions, primarily to block resolutions perceived | Asia-Pacific, and Western European and Others groups by two apiece; and the Eastern European Group by one. Traditionally, one of the seats assigned to either the Asia-Pacific Group or the African Group is filled by a nation from the Arab world, alternating between the groups. Currently, elections for terms beginning in even-numbered years select two African members, and one each within Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean; the traditional "Arab seat" is elected for this term. Terms beginning in odd-numbered years consist of two Western European and Other members, and one each from Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. During the 2016 United Nations Security Council election, neither Italy nor the Netherlands met the required two-thirds majority for election. They subsequently agreed to split the term of the Western European and Others Group. It was the first time in over five decades that two members agreed to do so. Usually, intractable deadlocks are resolved by the candidate countries withdrawing in favour of a third member state. The current elected members, with the regions they were elected to represent, are as follows: President The role of president of the Security Council involves setting the agenda, presiding at its meetings and overseeing any crisis. The president is authorized to issue both Presidential Statements (subject to consensus among Council members) and notes, which are used to make declarations of intent that the full Security Council can then pursue. The presidency of the council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the member states' names. The list of nations that will hold the Presidency in 2022 is as follows: Meeting locations Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council is not bound to sessions. Each Security Council member must have a representative available at UN Headquarters at all times in case an emergency meeting becomes necessary. The Security Council generally meets in a designated chamber in the United Nations Conference Building in New York City. The chamber was designed by the Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg and was a gift from Norway. The United Nations Security Council mural by Norwegian artist Per Krohg (1952) depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes, symbolic of the world's rebirth after World War II. The Security Council has also held meetings in cities including Nairobi, Kenya; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Panama City, Panama; and Geneva, Switzerland. In March 2010, the Security Council moved into a temporary facility in the General Assembly Building as its chamber underwent renovations as part of the UN Capital Master Plan. The renovations were funded by Norway, the chamber's original donor, for a total cost of 5 million. The chamber reopened on 16 April 2013. The representatives of the member states are seated on a horseshoe shaped table, with the president in the very middle flanked by the Secretary on the right and the Undersecretary on the left. The other representatives are placed in clockwise order alphabeticly from the president leaving two seats at the ends of the table for guest speakers. The seating order of the members is then rotated each month as the presidency changes. Because of the public nature of meetings in the Security Council Chamber delegations use the chamber to voice their positions in different ways, such as for example with walkouts. Consultation room Due to the public scrutiny of the Security Council Chamber, much of the work of the Security Council is conducted behind closed doors in "informal consultations". In 1978, West Germany funded the construction of a conference room next to the Security Council Chamber. The room was used for "informal consultations", which soon became the primary meeting format for the Security Council. In 1994, the French ambassador complained to the Secretary-General that "informal consultations have become the Council's characteristic working method, while public meetings, originally the norm, are increasingly rare and increasingly devoid of content: everyone knows that when the Council goes into public meeting everything has been decided in advance". When Russia funded the renovation of the consultation room in 2013, the Russian ambassador called it "quite simply, the most fascinating place in the entire diplomatic universe". Only members of the Security Council are permitted in the conference room for consultations. The press is not admitted, and other members of the United Nations cannot be invited into the consultations. No formal record is kept of the informal consultations. As a result, the delegations can negotiate with each other in secret, striking deals and compromises without having their every word transcribed into the permanent record. The privacy of the conference room also makes it possible for the delegates to deal with each other in a friendly manner. In one early consultation, a new delegate from a Communist nation began a propaganda attack on the United States, only to be told by the Soviet delegate, "We don't talk that way in here." A permanent member can cast a "pocket veto" during the informal consultation by declaring its opposition to a measure. Since a veto would prevent the resolution from being passed, the sponsor will usually refrain from putting the resolution to a vote. Resolutions are vetoed only if the sponsor feels so strongly about a measure that it wishes to force the permanent member to cast a formal veto. By the time a resolution reaches the Security Council Chamber, it has already been discussed, debated and amended in the consultations. The open meeting of the Security Council is merely a public ratification of a decision that has already been reached in private. For example, Resolution 1373 was adopted without public debate in a meeting that lasted just five minutes. The Security Council holds far more consultations than public meetings. In 2012, the Security Council held 160 consultations, 16 private meetings and 9 public meetings. In times of crisis, the Security Council still meets primarily in consultations, but it also holds more public meetings. After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, the Security Council returned to the patterns of the Cold War, as Russia and the Western countries engaged in verbal duels in front of the television cameras. In 2016, the Security Council held 150 consultations, 19 private meetings and 68 public meetings. Subsidiary organs/bodies Article 29 of the Charter provides that the Security Council can establish subsidiary bodies in order to perform its functions. This authority is also reflected in Rule 28 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure. The subsidiary bodies established by the Security Council are extremely heterogenous. On the one hand, they include bodies such as the Security Council Committee on Admission of New Members. On the other hand, both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were also created as subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. The by now numerous Sanctions Committees established in order to oversee implementation of the various sanctions regimes are also subsidiary bodies of the council. United Nations peacekeepers After approval by the Security Council, the UN may send peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states. These soldiers are sometimes nicknamed "Blue Helmets" for their distinctive gear. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. In September 2013, the UN had 116,837 peacekeeping soldiers and other personnel deployed on 15 missions. The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which included 20,688 uniformed personnel. The smallest, United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), included 42 uniformed personnel responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir. Peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, the longest-running active peacekeeping mission. UN peacekeepers have also drawn criticism in several postings. Peacekeepers have been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, or sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and what is now South Sudan, Burundi and Ivory Coast. Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010–2013 Haiti cholera outbreak, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The budget for peacekeeping is assessed separately from the main UN organisational budget; in the 2013–2014 fiscal year, peacekeeping expenditures totalled $7.54 billion. UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale, but including a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries. In 2020, the top 10 providers of assessed financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations were the US (27.89%), China (15.21%), Japan (8.56%), Germany (6.09%), the United Kingdom (5.79%), France (5.61%), Italy (3.30%), Russian Federation (3.04%), Canada (2.73%) and South Korea (2.26%). Criticism and evaluations In examining the first sixty years of the Security Council's existence, British historian Paul Kennedy concludes that "glaring failures had not only accompanied the UN's many achievements, they overshadowed them", identifying the lack of will to prevent ethnic massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda as particular failures. Kennedy attributes the failures to the UN's lack of reliable military resources, writing that "above all, one can conclude that the practice of announcing (through a Security Council resolution) a new peacekeeping mission without ensuring that sufficient armed forces will be available has usually proven to be a recipe for humiliation and disaster". A 2005 RAND Corporation study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared UN nation-building efforts to those of the United States, and found that 88% of UN cases lead to lasting peace. Also in 2005, the Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuses since the end of the Cold War, and presented evidence, albeit circumstantial, that international activism—mostly spearheaded by the UN—has been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict since the end of the Cold War. Scholar Sudhir Chella Rajan argued in 2006 that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, who are all nuclear powers, have created an exclusive nuclear club that predominantly addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members—for example, protecting the oil-rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting resource-poor Rwandans in 1994. Since three of the five permanent members are European, and four are predominantly white developed nations, the Security Council has been described as a pillar of global apartheid by Titus Alexander, former Chair of Westminster United Nations Association. The Security Council's effectiveness and relevance is questioned by some because, in most high-profile cases, there are essentially no consequences for violating a Security Council resolution. During the Darfur crisis, Janjaweed militias, allowed by elements of the Sudanese government, committed violence against an indigenous population, killing thousands of civilians. In the Srebrenica massacre, Serbian troops committed genocide against Bosniaks, although Srebrenica had been declared a UN safe area, protected by 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers. In his 2009 speech, Muammar Gaddafi criticized the Security Council's veto powers and the wars permanent members of the Security Council engaged in. The UN Charter gives all three powers of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches to the Security Council. In his inaugural speech at the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in August 2012, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized the United Nations Security Council as having an "illogical, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism" and called for a complete reform of the body. The Security Council has been criticized for failure in resolving many conflicts, including Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Syria, Kosovo, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, reflecting the wider short-comings of the UN. For example; at the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key heavily criticized the UN's inaction on Syria, more than two years after the Syrian civil war began. There is evidence of bribery on the UNSC. Countries that are elected to the Security Council see a large increase in foreign aid from the US, averaging 59%. They also see an 8% increase in aid from the United Nations, mainly from UNICEF. The increase most strongly correlates to years in which the Security Council addresses issues relevant to the US. There is also evidence of increased foreign aid to elected countries from Japan and Germany. Membership on the UNSC results in reduced economic growth for a given country as compared to non-member countries: 3.5% over four years compared to 8.7% for non-members, although the effect is mainly driven by African authoritarian countries. Elected members also experience a reduction in democracy and freedom of the press. Membership reform Proposals to reform the Security Council began with the conference that wrote the UN Charter and have continued to the present day. As British historian Paul Kennedy writes, "Everyone agrees that the present structure is flawed. But consensus on how to fix it remains out of reach." There has been discussion of increasing the number of permanent members. The countries which have made the strongest demands for permanent seats are Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. Japan and Germany, the main defeated powers in WWII, had been the UN's second- and third-largest funders, respectively, before China took over as the second largest funder in recent years, while Brazil and India are two of the largest contributors of troops to UN-mandated peace-keeping missions. Italy, another main defeated power in WWII and now the UN's sixth-largest funder, leads a movement known as the Uniting for Consensus in opposition to the possible expansion of permanent seats. Core members of the group include Canada, South Korea, Spain, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey, Argentina and Colombia. Their proposal is to create a new category of seats, still non-permanent, but elected for an extended duration (semi-permanent seats). As far as traditional categories of seats are concerned, the UfC proposal does not imply any change, but only the introduction of small and medium size states among groups eligible for regular seats. This proposal includes even the question of veto, giving a range of options that goes from abolition to limitation of the application of the veto only to Chapter VII matters. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked a team of advisers to come up with recommendations for reforming the United Nations by the end of 2004. One proposed measure is to increase the number of permanent members by five, which, in most proposals, would include Brazil, Germany, India and Japan (known as the G4 nations), one seat from Africa (most likely between Egypt, Nigeria or South Africa), and/or one seat from the Arab League. On 21 September 2004, the G4 nations issued a joint statement mutually backing each other's claim to permanent status, together with two African countries. Currently the proposal has to be accepted by two-thirds of the General Assembly (128 votes). The permanent members, each holding the right of veto, announced their positions on Security Council reform reluctantly. The United States has unequivocally supported the permanent membership of Japan and lent its support to India and a small number of additional non-permanent members. The United Kingdom and France essentially supported the G4 position, with the expansion of permanent and non-permanent members and the accession of Germany, Brazil, India and Japan to permanent member status, as well as an increase in the presence by African countries on the council. China has supported the stronger representation of developing countries and firmly opposed Japan's membership. In 2017, it was reported that the G4 nations were willing temporarily to forgo veto power if granted permanent UNSC seats. In September 2017, US Representatives Ami Bera and Frank Pallone introduced a resolution (H.Res.535) in the US House of Representatives (115th United States Congress), seeking support for India for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. See also Reform of the United Nations Small Five Group, a group formed to improve the working methods of the Security Council United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, provides secretarial support to the Security Council United |
regions, with most bodies in the United Nations system having a specific number of seats allocated for each regional group. Additionally, the leadership of most bodies also rotates between the regional groups, such as the presidency of the General Assembly and the chairmanship of the six main committees. The regional groups work according to the consensus principle. Candidates who are endorsed by them are, as a rule, elected by the General Assembly in any subsequent elections. Sessions Regular sessions The General Assembly meets annually in a regular session that opens on the third Tuesday of September, and runs until the following September. Sessions are held at United Nations Headquarters in New York unless changed by the General Assembly by a majority vote. The regular session is split into two distinct periods, the main and resumed parts of the session. During the main part of the session, which runs from the opening of the session until Christmas break in December, most of the work of the Assembly is done. This period is the Assembly's most intense period of work and includes the general debate and the bulk of the work of the six Main Committees. The resumed part of the session, however, which runs from January until the beginning of the new session, includes more thematic debates, consultation processes and working group meetings. General debate The general debate of each new session of the General Assembly is held the week following the official opening of the session, typically the following Tuesday, and is held without interruption for nine working days. The general debate is a high-level event, typically attended by Member States' Heads of State or Government, government ministers and United Nations delegates. At the general debate, Member States are given the opportunity to raise attention to topics or issues that they feel are important. In addition to the general debate, there are also many other high-level thematic meetings, summits and informal events held during general debate week. The General debate is held in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Special sessions Special sessions, or UNGASS, may be convened in three different ways, at the request of the Security Council, at the request of a majority of United Nations members States or by a single member, as long as a majority concurs. Special sessions typically cover one single topic and end with the adoption of one or two outcome documents, such as a political declaration, action plan or strategy to combat said topic. They are also typically high-level events with participation from heads of state and government, as well as by government ministers. There have been 30 special sessions in the history of the United Nations. Emergency special sessions If the Security Council is unable, usually due to disagreement among the permanent members, to come to a decision on a threat to international peace and security, then emergency special sessions can be convened in order to make appropriate recommendations to Members States for collective measures. This power was given to the Assembly in Resolution 377(V) of 3 November 1950. Emergency special sessions can be called by the Security Council, if supported by at least seven members, or by a majority of Member States of the United Nations. If enough votes are had, the Assembly must meet within 24 hours, with Members being notified at least twelve hours before the opening of the session. There have been 11 emergency special sessions in the history of the United Nations. Subsidiary organs The General Assembly subsidiary organs are divided into five categories: committees (30 total, six main), commissions (six), boards (seven), councils (four) and panels (one), working groups, and "other". Committees Main committees The main committees are ordinally numbered, 1–6: The First Committee: Disarmament and International Security (DISEC) is concerned with disarmament and related international security questions The Second Committee: Economic and Financial (ECOFIN) is concerned with economic questions The Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian (SOCHUM) deals with social and humanitarian issues The Fourth Committee: Special Political and Decolonisation (SPECPOL) deals with a variety of political subjects not dealt with by the First Committee, as well as with decolonization The Fifth Committee: Administrative and Budgetary and general deals with the administration and budget of the United Nations The Sixth Committee: Legal deals with legal matters The roles of many of the main committees have changed over time. Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee (POLISEC) and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat. The Fourth Committee formerly handled Trusteeship and Decolonization matters. With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the trust territories attained independence and the decolonization movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s. Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly. Each elects a chairman, three vice chairmen, and a rapporteur at the outset of each regular General Assembly session. Other committees These are not numbered. According to the General Assembly website, the most important are: Credentials CommitteeThis committee is charged with ensuring that the diplomatic credentials of all UN representatives are in order. The Credentials Committee consists of nine Member States elected early in each regular General Assembly session. General CommitteeThis is a supervisory committee entrusted with ensuring that the whole meeting of the Assembly goes smoothly. The General Committee consists of the president and vice presidents of the current General Assembly session and the chairman of each of the six Main Committees. Other committees of the General Assembly are enumerated. Commissions There are six commissions: United Nations Disarmament Commission, established by GA Resolution 502 (VI) and S-10/2 International Civil Service Commission, established by GA Resolution 3357 (XXIX) | Assembly for adoption by consensus or by vote. Items on the agenda are numbered. Regular plenary sessions of the General Assembly in recent years have initially been scheduled to be held over the course of just three months; however, additional workloads have extended these sessions until just short of the next session. The routinely scheduled portions of the sessions normally commence on "the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day", per the UN Rules of Procedure. The last two of these Regular sessions were routinely scheduled to recess exactly three months afterwards in early December, but were resumed in January and extended until just before the beginning of the following sessions. Resolutions The General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the international community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, because the General Assembly lacks enforcement powers with respect to most issues. The General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget. The General Assembly can also refer an issue to the Security Council to put in place a binding resolution. Resolution numbering scheme From the First to the Thirtieth General Assembly sessions, all General Assembly resolutions were numbered consecutively, with the resolution number followed by the session number in Roman numbers (for example, Resolution 1514 (XV), which was the 1514th numbered resolution adopted by the Assembly, and was adopted at the Fifteenth Regular Session (1960)). Beginning in the Thirty-First Session, resolutions are numbered by individual session (for example Resolution 41/10 represents the 10th resolution adopted at the Forty-First Session). Budget The General Assembly also approves the budget of the United Nations and decides how much money each member state must pay to run the organization. The Charter of the United Nations gives responsibility for approving the budget to the General Assembly (Chapter IV, Article 17) and for preparing the budget to the Secretary-General, as "chief administrative officer" (Chapter XV, Article 97). The Charter also addresses the non-payment of assessed contributions (Chapter IV, Article 19). The planning, programming, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation cycle of the United Nations has evolved over the years; major resolutions on the process include General Assembly resolutions: 41/213 of 19 December 1986, 42/211 of 21 December 1987, and 45/248 of 21 December 1990. The budget covers the costs of United Nations programmes in areas such as political affairs, international justice and law, international cooperation for development, public information, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. The main source of funds for the regular budget is the contributions of member states. The scale of assessments is based on the capacity of countries to pay. This is determined by considering their relative shares of total gross national product, adjusted to take into account a number of factors, including their per capita incomes. In addition to the regular budget, member states are assessed for the costs of the international tribunals and, in accordance with a modified version of the basic scale, for the costs of peacekeeping operations. Elections The General Assembly is entrusted in the United Nations Charter with electing members to various organs within the United Nations system. The procedure for these elections can be found in Section 15 of the Rules of Procedure for the General Assembly. The most important elections for the General Assembly include those for the upcoming President of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice. Most elections are held annually, with the exception of the election of judges to the ICJ, which happens triennially. The Assembly annually elects five non-permanent members of the Security Council for two-year terms, 18 members of the Economic and Social Council for three-year terms and 14–18 members of the Human Rights Council for three-year terms. It also elects the leadership of the next General Assembly session, i.e. the next President of the General Assembly, the 21 Vice-Presidents and the bureaux of the six main committees. Elections to the International Court of Justice take place every three years in order to ensure continuity within the court. In these elections, five judges are elected for nine-year terms. These elections are held jointly with the Security Council, with candidates needing to receive an absolute majority of the votes in both bodies. The Assembly also, in conjunction with the Security Council, selects the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. The main part of these elections are held in the Security Council, with the General Assembly simply appointing the candidate that receives the Council's nomination. Regional groups The United Nations Regional Groups were created in order to facilitate the equitable geographical distribution of seats among the Member States in different United Nations bodies. Resolution 33/138 of the General Assembly states that "the composition of the various organs of the United Nations should be so constituted as to ensure their representative character." Thus, member States of the United Nations are informally divided into five regions, with most bodies in the United Nations system having a specific number of seats allocated for each regional group. Additionally, the leadership of most bodies also rotates between the regional groups, such as the presidency of the General Assembly and the chairmanship of the six main committees. The regional groups work according to the consensus principle. Candidates who are endorsed by them are, as a rule, elected by the General Assembly in any subsequent elections. Sessions Regular sessions The General Assembly meets annually in a regular session that opens on the third Tuesday of September, and runs until the following September. Sessions are held at United Nations Headquarters in New York unless changed by the General Assembly by a majority vote. The regular session is split into two distinct periods, the main and resumed parts of the session. During the main part of the session, which runs from the opening of the session until Christmas break in December, most of the work of the Assembly is done. This period is the Assembly's most intense period of work and includes the general debate and the bulk of the work of the six Main Committees. The resumed part of the session, however, which runs from January until the beginning of the new session, includes more thematic debates, consultation processes and working group meetings. General debate The general debate of each new session of the General Assembly is held the week following the official opening of the session, typically the following Tuesday, and is held without interruption for nine working days. The general debate is a high-level event, typically attended by Member States' Heads of State or Government, government ministers and United Nations delegates. At the general debate, Member States are given the opportunity to raise attention to topics or issues that they feel are important. In addition to the general debate, there are also many other high-level thematic meetings, summits and informal events held during general debate week. The General debate is held in the General Assembly Hall at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Special sessions Special sessions, or UNGASS, may be convened in three different ways, at the request of the Security Council, at the request of a majority of United Nations members States or by a single member, as long as a majority concurs. Special sessions typically cover one single topic and end with the adoption of one or two outcome documents, such as a political declaration, action plan or strategy to combat said topic. They are also typically high-level events with participation from heads of state and government, as well as by government ministers. There have been 30 special sessions in the history of the United Nations. Emergency special sessions If the Security Council is unable, usually due to disagreement among the permanent members, to come to a decision on a threat to international peace and security, then emergency special sessions can be convened in order to make appropriate recommendations to Members States for collective measures. This power was given to the Assembly in Resolution 377(V) of 3 November 1950. Emergency special sessions can be called by the Security Council, if supported by at least seven members, or by a majority of Member States of the United Nations. If enough votes are had, the Assembly must meet within 24 hours, with Members being notified at least twelve hours before the opening of the session. There have been 11 emergency special sessions in the history of the United Nations. Subsidiary organs The General Assembly subsidiary organs are divided into five categories: committees (30 total, six main), commissions (six), boards (seven), councils (four) and panels (one), working groups, and "other". Committees Main committees The main committees are ordinally numbered, 1–6: The First Committee: Disarmament and International Security (DISEC) is concerned with disarmament and related international security questions The Second Committee: Economic and Financial (ECOFIN) is concerned with economic questions The Third Committee: Social, Cultural, and Humanitarian (SOCHUM) deals with social and humanitarian issues The Fourth Committee: Special Political and Decolonisation (SPECPOL) deals with a variety of political subjects not dealt with by the First Committee, as well as with decolonization The Fifth Committee: Administrative and Budgetary and general deals with the administration and budget of the United Nations The Sixth Committee: Legal deals with legal matters The roles of many of the main committees have changed over time. Until the late 1970s, the First Committee was the Political and Security Committee (POLISEC) and there was also a sufficient number of additional "political" matters that an additional, unnumbered main committee, called the Special Political Committee, also sat. The Fourth Committee formerly handled Trusteeship and Decolonization matters. With the decreasing number of such matters to be addressed as the trust territories attained independence and the decolonization movement progressed, the functions of the Special Political Committee were merged into the Fourth Committee during the 1990s. Each main committee consists of all the members of the General Assembly. Each elects a chairman, three vice chairmen, and a rapporteur at the outset of each regular General Assembly session. Other committees These are not numbered. According to the General Assembly website, the most important are: Credentials CommitteeThis committee is charged with ensuring that the diplomatic credentials of all UN representatives are in order. The Credentials Committee consists of |
January 2013 Owers was promoted from Argyle's youth set-up to begin working with the first team by newly appointed manager John Sheridan. In April 2014 he left Plymouth Argyle, with his role being taken up by Sean McCarthy and player Paul Wotton. In March 2015, he was confirmed Head of Recruitment at SPFL Premiership side Motherwell. However, only three months later in June 2015 he was named as assistant manager to Malcolm Crosby at National League club Gateshead but left the club in November 2015 following the sacking of Crosby. On 4 February 2016, he returned to Twerton Park for a second spell as manager of Bath City. On 13 September 2017, Owers left his position at Bath City to accept the role of head coach at National League club Torquay United. On 25 October 2017, after Torquay achieved a 1–0 away win at Ebbsfleet United, courtesy of a Jamie Reid special, Gary Owers claimed of Torquay United "we're not rubbish anymore". However a number of poor performances and results ensued. Under Owers Torquay were relegation from the National League with 2 games to spare, finishing the season 7 points from safety. A poor start to Torquay's following season saw Owers step down from his role one day shy of a year in charge. Managerial statistics References External links 1968 births Living people Footballers from Newcastle upon Tyne English footballers Association football midfielders Sunderland A.F.C. players Bristol City F.C. players Notts County F.C. players Forest Green Rovers F.C. players Bath City F.C. players Weston-super-Mare A.F.C. players Minehead A.F.C. players English Football League players National League (English football) | SPFL Premiership side Motherwell. However, only three months later in June 2015 he was named as assistant manager to Malcolm Crosby at National League club Gateshead but left the club in November 2015 following the sacking of Crosby. On 4 February 2016, he returned to Twerton Park for a second spell as manager of Bath City. On 13 September 2017, Owers left his position at Bath City to accept the role of head coach at National League club Torquay United. On 25 October 2017, after Torquay achieved a 1–0 away win at Ebbsfleet United, courtesy of a Jamie Reid special, Gary Owers claimed of Torquay United "we're not rubbish anymore". However a number of poor performances and results ensued. Under Owers Torquay were relegation from the National League with 2 games to spare, finishing the season 7 points from safety. A poor start to Torquay's following season saw Owers step down from his role one day shy of a year in charge. Managerial statistics References External links 1968 births Living people Footballers from Newcastle upon Tyne English footballers Association football midfielders Sunderland A.F.C. players Bristol City F.C. players Notts County F.C. players Forest Green Rovers F.C. players Bath City F.C. players Weston-super-Mare A.F.C. players Minehead A.F.C. players English Football League players National League (English football) players Southern Football League players English football managers Bath City F.C. managers Forest Green Rovers F.C. |
(IMO) International Telecommunication Union (ITU) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Universal Postal Union (UPU) World Bank Group (WBG) International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) International Development Association (IDA) International Finance Corporation (IFC) Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) World Health Organization (WHO) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) World Meteorological Organization (WMO) "World Economic and Social Survey 2011: The Great Green Technological Transformation" In a report issued in early July 2011, the UN called for spending nearly US$2 trillion on green technologies to prevent what it termed "a major planetary catastrophe", warning that "It is rapidly expanding energy use, mainly driven by fossil fuels, that explains why humanity is on the verge of breaching planetary sustainability boundaries through global warming, biodiversity loss, and disturbance of the nitrogen-cycle balance and other measures of the sustainability of the earth's ecosystem". UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added: "Rather than viewing growth and sustainability as competing goals on a collision course, we must see them as complementary and mutually supportive imperatives". The report concluded that "Business as usual is not an option". Reform of the Economic and Social Council Governance of the multilateral system has historically been complex and fragmented. This has limited the capacity of ECOSOC to influence international policies in trade, finance, and investment. Reform proposals aim to enhance the relevance and contribution of the council. A major reform was approved by the 2005 World Summit based on proposals submitted by secretary-general Kofi Annan. The Summit aimed to establish ECOSOC as a quality platform for high-level engagement among member states and with international financial institutions, the private sector, and civil society on global trends, policies, and action. It resolved to hold biennial high-level Development Cooperation Forums at the national-leadership level, transforming the high-level segment of the Council to review trends in international development cooperation and promote greater coherence in development activities. At the Summit it was also decided to hold annual ministerial-level substantive reviews to assess progress in achieving internationally agreed on development goals (particularly the Millennium Development Goals). These "Annual Ministerial Reviews" will be replaced by the High-Level Political Forum from 2016 onwards after the new post-MDG/post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals are agreed. Subsequent proposals by the High-Level Panel Report on System-Wide Coherence in November 2006 aimed to establish a forum within the ECOSOC as a counter-model to the exclusive clubs of the G8 and G20. The Forum was to comprise 27 heads of states (L27, corresponding to half of ECOSOC's membership) to meet annually and provide international leadership in the development area. This proposal, however, was not approved by the General Assembly. Chamber design The Economic and Social Council Chamber in the United Nations Conference Building was a gift from Sweden. It was conceived by Swedish architect Sven Markelius, one of the 11 architects in the international team that designed the UN headquarters. Wood from Swedish pine trees was used in the delegates' area for the railings and doors. The pipes and ducts in the ceiling above the public gallery were deliberately left exposed; the architect believed that anything useful could be left uncovered. The "unfinished" ceiling is a symbolic | Member States, which are elected yearly by the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms. Seats on the Council are allocated ensuring equitable geographic rotation among the United Nations regional groups, with 14 being allocated to the African Group, 11 to the Asia-Pacific Group, 6 to the Eastern European Group, 10 to the Latin American and Caribbean Group and 13 to the Western European and Others Group. Current and future members Observer Inter-Governmental Autonomous Organisations Participation on a continuing basis: Participation on an ad hoc basis: Commissions Functional commissions Active The following are the active functional commission of the Council: Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) Commission on Population and Development (CPD) Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) Statistical Commission Commission for Social Development (CSocD) Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) Forum on Forests (UNFF) Disbanded The following commissions were disbanded by the Council and replaced by other bodies: Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) Disbanded in 2006 and replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) Disbanded in 2013 and replaced by the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), a joint subsidiary body of the General Assembly and ECOSOC. Regional commissions The following are the active regional commissions of the Council: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) Committees and other bodies The following are some of the other bodies that the Council oversees in some capacity: Standing committees Committee for Programme and Coordination (CPC) Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations Committee on Negotiations with Intergovernmental Agencies Expert bodies Committee for Development Policy (CDP) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) Other subsidiary bodies System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) High-Level Committee on Programmes (HLCP) Specialized agencies The specialized agencies of the United Nations are autonomous organizations working within the United Nations System, meaning that while they report their activities to the Economic and Social Council, they are mostly free to their own devices. Each agency must negotiate with the Council as to what their |
the Council was to consist of (1) all U.N. members administering trust territories, (2) the five permanent members of the Security Council, and (3) as many other non-administering members as needed to equalize the number of administering and non-administering members, elected by the United Nations General Assembly for renewable three-year terms. Over time, as trust territories attained independence, the size and workload of the Trusteeship Council was reduced. Ultimately, the Trusteeship Council came to include only the five permanent Security Council members (China, France, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States), as the only country administering a Trust Territory (the United States) was a permanent member. With the independence of Palau, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, in 1994, there presently are no trust territories, leaving the Trusteeship Council without responsibilities. (Since the Northern Mariana Islands was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and became a commonwealth of the USA in 1986, it is technically the only area not to have joined as a part of another state or gained full independence as a sovereign nation.) The Trusteeship Council was not assigned responsibility for colonial territories outside the trusteeship system, although the Charter did establish the principle that member states were to administer such territories in conformity with the best interests of their inhabitants. Present status Its mission fulfilled, the Trusteeship Council suspended its operation on 1 November 1994, and although under the United Nations Charter it continues to exist on paper, its future role and even existence remains uncertain. The Trusteeship Council is currently () headed by Anne Gueguen, with Jonathan Guy Allen as vice-president, although the sole current duty of these officers is to meet with the heads of other UN agencies on occasion. According to the United Nations website: By a resolution adopted on 25th of May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council. | trust territories, leaving the Trusteeship Council without responsibilities. (Since the Northern Mariana Islands was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and became a commonwealth of the USA in 1986, it is technically the only area not to have joined as a part of another state or gained full independence as a sovereign nation.) The Trusteeship Council was not assigned responsibility for colonial territories outside the trusteeship system, although the Charter did establish the principle that member states were to administer such territories in conformity with the best interests of their inhabitants. Present status Its mission fulfilled, the Trusteeship Council suspended its operation on 1 November 1994, and although under the United Nations Charter it continues to exist on paper, its future role and even existence remains uncertain. The Trusteeship Council is currently () headed by Anne Gueguen, with Jonathan Guy Allen as vice-president, although the sole current duty of these officers is to meet with the heads of other UN agencies on occasion. According to the United Nations website: By a resolution adopted on 25th of May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council. The chamber itself is still used for other purposes. Following a three-year refurbishment, restoring its original design by Danish architect, Finn Juhl, the chamber was re-opened in 2013. Future prospects The formal elimination of |
a permanent body. UNHCR's mandate was originally set out in its statute, annexed to resolution 428 (V) of the United Nations General Assembly of 1950. This mandate has been subsequently broadened by numerous resolutions of the General Assembly and its Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). According to UNHCR, its mandate is to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them. Soon after the signing of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, it became clear that refugees were not solely restricted to Europe. In 1956, UNHCR was involved in coordinating the response to the uprising in Hungary. Just a year later, UNHCR was tasked with dealing with Chinese refugees in Hong Kong, while also responding to Algerian refugees who had fled to Morocco and Tunisia in the wake of Algeria's war for independence. The responses marked the beginning of a wider, global mandate in refugee protection and humanitarian assistance. Decolonisation in the 1960s triggered large refugee movements in Africa, creating a massive challenge that would transform UNHCR; unlike the refugee crises in Europe, there were no durable solutions in Africa, and many refugees who fled one country only found instability in their new country of refuge. By the end of the decade, two-thirds of UNHCR's budget was focused on operations in Africa and in just one decade, the organization's focus had shifted from an almost exclusive focus on Europe. In 1967, the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees was ratified to remove the geographical and temporal restrictions of UNHCR under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. As the Convention was confined to the refugee crisis in the aftermath of World War II in Europe, the Protocol was made to address the “new refugee situations that have arisen since the Convention was adopted and the refugees concerned that may therefore not fall within the scope of the Convention”. In the 1970s, UNHCR refugee operations continued to spread around the globe, with the mass exodus of East Pakistanis to India shortly before the birth of Bangladesh. Adding to the woes in Asia was the Vietnam War, with millions fleeing Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. The 1980s saw new challenges for UNHCR, with many member states unwilling to resettle refugees due to the sharp rise in refugee numbers over the 1970s. Often, these refugees were not fleeing wars between states, but inter-ethnic conflict in newly independent states. The targeting of civilians as military strategy added to the displacement in many nations, so even 'minor' conflicts could result in a large number of displaced persons. Whether in Asia, Central America or Africa, these conflicts, fueled by superpower rivalry and aggravated by socio-economic problems within the concerned countries, durable solutions continued to prove a massive challenge for the UNHCR. As a result, the UNHCR became more heavily involved with assistance programs within refugee camps, often located in hostile environments. The end of the Cold War marked continued inter-ethnic conflict and contributed heavily to refugee flight. In addition, humanitarian intervention by multinational forces became more frequent and the media began to play a big role, particularly in the lead up to the 1999 NATO mission in FR Yugoslavia, while by contrast, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide had little attention. The genocide in Rwanda caused a massive refugee crisis, again highlighting the difficulties for UNHCR to uphold its mandate, and the UNHCR continued to battle against restrictive refugee policies in so called 'rich' nations. According to a 2021 study, the UNHCR has fulfilled its mandate to serve refugees independent of their location consistently over time. The organization has shown limited bias towards donors in the geographical distribution of its funds. Function UNHCR was established on 14 December 1950 and succeeded the earlier United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees (other than Palestinian refugees, who are assisted by UNRWA) and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another state, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. UNHCR's mandate has gradually been expanded to include protecting and providing humanitarian assistance to whom it describes as other persons "of concern," including internally displaced persons (IDPs) who would fit the legal definition of a refugee under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization for African Unity Convention, or some other treaty if they left their country, but who presently remain in their country of origin. UNHCR presently has major missions in Lebanon, South Sudan, Chad/Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan as well as Kenya to assist and provide services to IDPs and refugees in camps and in urban settings. UNHCR maintains a database of refugee information, ProGres, which was created during the Kosovo War in the 1990s. The database today contains data on over 11 million refugees or about 11% of all displaced persons globally. The database contains biometric data, including fingerprints and iris scans and is used to determine aid distribution for recipients. The results of using biometric verification have been successful. When introduced in Kenyan refugee camps of Kakuma and Dadaab in the year 2013, the UN World Food Programme was able to eliminate $1.4m in waste and fraud. To achieve its mandate, the UNHCR engages in activities both in the countries of interest and in countries with donors. This includes hosting "expert roundtables" to discuss issues of concern to the international refugee community. Palestine refugee mandate Palestinian refugees living in the regions covered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) are not under the care of UNHCR. Public awareness and future of refugees Several new programs have recently been introduced to support and to heighten awareness of the issues faced by refugees around the world. These two new programs are a product of the benchmarks set out by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The UNHCR works in different regions of the world to raise awareness about the refugee crisis and the needs of these refugees. Since 2009, the UNHCR acknowledged a large presence of migration and refugees in the Caribbean, where the refugee crisis remained largely unreported. The issue stems from refugees who, instead of applying to the U.N., improperly search for asylum in the United States, ultimately failing to reach their destination and remaining in the Caribbean. However, migrant laws in some of these nations lacked any protections for asylum-seekers, including the ability to be recognized as such. In response, the UNHCR organized talks with these nations in Costa Rica in 2009, seeking to address the lack of protections for refugees and their prosecution as unauthorized migrants. A refugee-seeker applies through the U.N. for placement and an asylum-seeker applies within the Country in which asylum is sought. This is why some Countries label refugees as illegal when they did not apply through the U.N. for placement and entered the country unlawfully. In 2007, UNHCR offices in Canada launched an aggressive media campaign to shed light on the plight of refugees. This campaign was meant to humanize the refugee crisis by showing refugees living in the midst of disturbing conditions. Using emotional appeals to raise public awareness, the campaign hoped to increase the interest of particularly "30 to 45-year-old professionals who are generally well educated, well-read, but have not had direct experience or knowledge of refugee issues,” according to fund-raising officer Jonathan Wade. In Ireland, the UNHCR works to inform the public through different channels. The UNHCR in Ireland actively pursues media relations. It also holds public events with the aim of informing people about current refugee crises. One of | of outstanding service to the cause of refugees, displaced or stateless people. The UNHCR itself was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981. The UNHCR was awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize in 2015. In 1991 was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. Persons of concern to UNHCR The UNHCR's Mid-Year Trends report of June 2015 (based on information for mid-2015 or latest available information up to that date) reported an "unprecedented" 57,959,702 individuals falling under its mandate (for reference, on 1 January 2007, 21,018,589 people – or less than half of the number in 2015 – fell under the mandate of the UNHCR). The sharp increase was mainly attributed to the Syrian Civil War, "with the outbreak of armed crises or the deterioration of ongoing ones in countries like Afghanistan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan and the Ukraine contributing to prevailing trends." Persons of concern include refugees and asylum-seekers, people in refugee-like conditions, internally-displaced people (IDPs), stateless persons and "others of concern to the UNHCR". Sorted by the UNHCR bureau in which refuge or asylum is sought, the number for June 2015 included: 16,796,426 in the Middle East and North Africa, of which 2,941,121 are refugees 64,166 are in refugee-like situations 109,847 have pending asylum cases 374,309 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State") 13,297,101 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 9,694,535 in the Asia and Pacific bureau, of which 3,506,644 are refugees 278,350 are in refugee-like situations 133,894 have pending asylum cases 1,801,802 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State") 2,965,211 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 8,451,275 in East and Horn of Africa, of which 2,713,748 are refugees 33,553 are in refugee-like situations 108,016 have pending asylum cases 233,726 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State" 5,119,463 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 7,726,594 in the Americas, of which 501,049 are refugees 251,888 are in refugee-like situations 276,394 have pending asylum cases 136,413 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State") 6,520,270 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 7,585,581 in Europe, of which 3,506,644 are refugees 14,261 are in refugee-like situations 827,374 are asylum-seekers 610,532 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State" 2,574,886 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 3,580,181 in Central Africa-Great Lakes, of which 865,112 are refugees 13,741 are in refugee-like situations 18,623 have pending asylum cases 1,302 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State" 2,021,269 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 2,754,893 in Western Africa of which 258,893 are refugees (Information not applicable/unavailable) on number in refugee-like situations 9,298 have pending asylum cases 700,116 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State") 1,549,516 are IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 1,370,217 in Southern Africa, of which 179,837 are refugees (Information not applicable/unavailable) on number in refugee-like situations 860,500 have pending asylum cases 300,000 are stateless ("persons not considered as nationals by any State") (Information not applicable/unavailable) on number of IDPs or people in IDP-like situations assisted by the UNHCR 2019 Staffing , the UNHCR employed a staff of 16,765 people in 138 countries. High Commissioners The UN General Assembly elects High Commissioners every five years. High Commissioners are supported by the 'Executive Committee to the High Commissioner's Programme' and he or she has to make annual reports to the UN General Assembly and needs to follow their directives. The current High Commissioner is Filippo Grandi, who has held the post since 1 January 2016. Prior to the establishment of the UNHCR, Fridtjof Nansen was the League's High Commissioner for Refugees. The post of High Commissioner has been held by: Special Envoy of High Commissioner Filippo Grandi Angelina Jolie After 10 years serving as a Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie was promoted in 2012 to Special Envoy to the High Commissioner. In this role she represents the UNHCR and High Commissioner Filipo Grandi at the diplomatic level and works to facilitate long-term solutions for people displaced by large-scale crises, such as Afghanistan and Somalia. "This is an exceptional position reflecting an exceptional role she has played for us," said a UNHCR spokesman. Goodwill ambassadors UNHCR is also represented by a number of UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors, who at present are: Barbara Hendricks (Honorary Lifetime Goodwill Ambassador) Cate Blanchett David Morrissey Neil Gaiman Yao Chen Julien Clerc George Dalaras Alessandro Gassman Muazzez Ersoy Khaled Hosseini Kristin Davis Adel Emam Ger Duany Rokia Traore Osvaldo Laport Jesús Vázquez Alek Wek Jung Woo-sung Praya Lundberg John Abraham Yusra Mardini Sheikha Rima al-Sabah Iskui Abalyan Atom Araullo Alphonso Davies Tahsan Rahman Khan Previous ambassadors include: Richard Burton Nazia Hassan James Mason Sophia Loren Controversies The 1994–95 repatriation of Rohingyans According to some scholars, with time UNHCR left an initial preference for asylum and resettlement policies, tending to prefer repatriation measures of refugees instead. Sometimes, this might have led the agency's bureaucratic apparatus to adopt pathological behaviours. An example of the latter might be considered the handling of the 1995 Rohingyan crisis. At the time, thousands of Rohingyans were fleeing Burma (or Myanmar), seeking shelter in UNHCR camps in Bangladesh. According to some, UNHCR has been decisive in promoting the repatriation of refugees, although NGOs on the field and the UN were skeptical about better political and security conditions in Burma. Also, controversies arose on the methods with which the UNHCR staff was conducting surveys in the camps to establish if refugees were willing to move back to Burma or not. See also Against All Odds (video game) Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative Fund, a scholarship program for refugees administered by UNHCR Dadaab Nansen International Office for Refugees Representative of the UNHCR and WFP, London UNHCR Representation in India United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Representation in Cyprus United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UniRef References Citations Sources Janmyr, Maja. 2016. “Precarity in Exile: The Legal Status of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon”. Refugee Survey Quarterly, no. 35 (November): 58–78. Gil Loescher, Alexander Betts and James Milner. UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection into the Twenty-First Century, Routledge. 2008. Alexander Betts. Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime, Cornell University Press. 2009. Gil Loescher. The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path. Oxford University Press. 2002 Fiona Terry. |
22 September 1992, United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/47/1 was adopted, by which it considered that "the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) cannot continue automatically the membership of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the United Nations," and therefore decided that "the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) should apply for membership in the United Nations and that it shall not participate in the work of the General Assembly". For many years the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia refused to comply with the resolution, arguing that it was the legitimate successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that the resolution and the sanctions were illegal and counted as a de facto expulsion of Yugoslavia from the UN (though the UN itself that the resolution was legal and de-jure not an expulsion of Yugoslavia since they weren't the legal successors of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and so the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was never a UN member). Following the ousting of President Slobodan Milošević from office, Yugoslavia applied for membership, and was admitted to the UN as Serbia and Montenegro on 1 November 2000. On 4 February 2003, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had its official name changed to Serbia and Montenegro, following the adoption and promulgation of the Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro by the Assembly of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On the basis of a referendum held on 21 May 2006, Montenegro declared independence from Serbia and Montenegro on 3 June 2006. In a letter dated on the same day, the President of Serbia informed the United Nations Secretary-General that the membership of Serbia and Montenegro in the UN was being continued by Serbia, following Montenegro's declaration of independence, in accordance with the Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro. Montenegro was admitted to the UN on 28 June 2006. In the aftermath of the Kosovo War, the territory of Kosovo, then an autonomous province of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was put under the interim administration of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo on 10 June 1999. On 17 February 2008 it declared independence, but this has not been recognised by Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo is not a member of the UN, but is a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, both specialized agencies in the United Nations System. The Republic of Kosovo has been , including three of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (France, the United Kingdom, and the United States); several states have suspended or withdrawn their recognition of Kosovo's independence, bringing down the total to 98. On 22 July 2010, the International Court of Justice, the primary judicial organ of the UN, issued an advisory opinion, ruling that Kosovo's declaration of independence was not in violation of international law. Suspension, expulsion and withdrawal of members A member state may be suspended or expelled from the UN, according to the United Nations Charter. From Chapter II, Article 5: From Article 6: Since its inception, no member state has been suspended or expelled from the UN under Articles 5 or 6. However, in a few cases, states were suspended or expelled from participating in UN activities by means other than Articles 5 or 6: On 25 October 1971, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 was adopted, which recognized the People's Republic of China instead of the Republic of China (since 1949 controlling only Taiwan) as the legitimate representative of China in the UN and effectively expelled the Republic of China from the UN in 1971 (see the section Former members: Republic of China). This act did not constitute as the expulsion of a member state under Article 6, as this would have required Security Council approval and been subjected to vetoes by its permanent members, which included the Republic of China itself and the United States, which at that time still recognized the Republic of China. In October 1974, the Security Council considered a draft resolution that would have recommended that the General Assembly immediately expel South Africa from the UN, in compliance with Article 6 of the United Nations Charter, due to its apartheid policies. However, the resolution was not adopted because of vetoes by three permanent members of the Security Council: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In response, the General Assembly decided to suspend South Africa from participation in the work of the Assembly's 29th session on 12 November 1974; however, South Africa was not formally suspended under Article 5. The suspension lasted until the General Assembly welcomed South Africa back to full participation in the UN on 23 June 1994, following its successful democratic elections earlier that year. On 28 April 1992, the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established, by the remaining republics of Serbia and Montenegro of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 22 September 1992, United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/47/1 was adopted, by which it considered that "the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) cannot continue automatically the membership of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the United Nations," and therefore decided that "the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) should apply for membership in the United Nations and that it shall not participate in the work of the General Assembly". It did not apply for membership until Slobodan Milošević was ousted from the presidency and was admitted on 1 November 2000 (see the section Former members: Yugoslavia). Withdrawal of Indonesia (1965–1966) Since the inception of the UN, only one member state (excluding those that dissolved or merged with other member states) has unilaterally withdrawn from the UN. During the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, and in response to the election of Malaysia as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, in a letter dated 20 January 1965, Indonesia informed the United Nations Secretary-General that it had decided "at this stage and under the present circumstances" to withdraw from the UN. However, following the overthrow of President Sukarno, in a telegram dated 19 September 1966, Indonesia notified the Secretary-General of its decision "to resume full cooperation with the United Nations and to resume participation in its activities starting with the twenty-first session of the General Assembly". On 28 September 1966, the United Nations General Assembly took note of the decision of the Government of Indonesia and its President invited the representatives of that country to take their seats in the Assembly. Unlike suspension and expulsion, no express provision is made in the United Nations Charter of whether or how a member can legally withdraw from the UN (largely to prevent the threat of withdrawal from being used as a form of political blackmail, or to evade obligations under the Charter, similar to withdrawals that weakened the UN's predecessor, the League of Nations), or on whether a request for readmission by a withdrawn member should be treated the same as an application for membership, i.e., requiring Security Council as well as General Assembly approval. Indonesia's return to the UN would suggest that this is not required; however, scholars have argued that the course of action taken by the General Assembly was not in accordance with the Charter from a legal point of view. Observers and non-members In addition to the member states, there are two United Nations General Assembly non-member observer states: the Holy See and the State of Palestine. The Holy See holds sovereignty over the state of Vatican City and maintains diplomatic relations with 180 other states. It has been a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) non-member observer state since 6 April 1964, and gained all the rights of full membership except voting on 1 July 2004. The Palestine Liberation Organization was granted observer status as a "non-member entity" on 22 November 1974. Acknowledging the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988, the United Nations General Assembly decided that, effective as of 15 December 1988, the designation "Palestine" should be used in place of the designation "Palestine Liberation Organization" in the United Nations System. On 23 September 2011, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted the application for UN membership for the State of Palestine to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; the application has not been voted on by the | in the UN was held by the Republic of China, but as a result of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971, it is now held by the People's Republic of China (see the section Former members: Republic of China (Taiwan)). A number of the original members were not sovereign when they joined the UN, and only gained full independence later: Belarus (then the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic) and Ukraine (then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) were both constituent republics of the Soviet Union, until gaining full independence in 1991. India (whose territory at that time, before the Partition of India, also included the present-day territories of Pakistan and Bangladesh) was under British colonial rule, until gaining full independence in 1947. The Philippines (then the Philippine Commonwealth) was a commonwealth with the United States, until gaining full independence in 1946. New Zealand, while de facto sovereign at that time, "only gained full capacity to enter into relations with other states in 1947 when it passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act. This occurred 16 years after the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931 that recognised New Zealand's autonomy. If judged by the Montevideo Convention criteria, New Zealand did not achieve full de jure statehood until 1947." Current members The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by the United Nations. The alphabetical order by the member states' official designations is used to determine the seating arrangement of the General Assembly sessions, where a draw is held each year to select a member state as the starting point. Some member states use their full official names in their official designations and thus are sorted out of order from their common names: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Moldova, and the United Republic of Tanzania. The member states can be sorted by their official designations and dates of admission by clicking on the buttons in the header of the columns. See related sections on former members by clicking on the links in the column "See also". Original members are listed with a blue background. Former members Republic of China The Republic of China (ROC) joined the UN as an original member on 24 October 1945, and as set out by the United Nations Charter, Chapter V, Article 23, became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. In 1949, as a result of the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang-led ROC government lost effective control of mainland China and relocated to the island of Taiwan, and the Communist Party-led government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), declared on 1 October 1949, took control of mainland China. The UN was notified on 18 November 1949 of the formation of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China; however, the Government of the Republic of China continued to represent China at the UN, despite the small size of the ROC's jurisdiction of Taiwan and a number of smaller islands compared to the PRC's jurisdiction of mainland China. As both governments claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of China, proposals to effect a change in the representation of China in the UN were discussed but rejected for the next two decades, as the ROC was still recognized as the sole legitimate representative of China by a majority of UN members. Both sides rejected compromise proposals to allow both states to participate in the UN, based on the One-China policy. By the 1970s, a shift had occurred in international diplomatic circles and the PRC had gained the upper hand in international diplomatic relations and recognition count. On 25 October 1971, the 21st time the United Nations General Assembly debated on the PRC's admission into the UN, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 was adopted, by which it recognized that "the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations and that the People's Republic of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council," and decided "to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it." This effectively transferred the seat of China in the UN, including its permanent seat on the Security Council, from the ROC to the PRC, and expelled the ROC from the UN. In addition to losing its seat in the UN, the UN Secretary-General concluded from the resolution that the General Assembly considered Taiwan to be a province of "China", which refers to the Greater China region. Consequently, the Secretary-General decided that it was not permitted for the ROC to become a party to treaties deposited with it. Bids for readmission as the representative of Taiwan In 1993 the ROC began campaigning to rejoin the UN separately from the People's Republic of China. A number of options were considered, including seeking membership in the specialized agencies, applying for observer status, applying for full membership, or having resolution 2758 revoked to reclaim the seat of China in the UN. Every year from 1993 to 2006, UN member states submitted a memorandum to the UN Secretary-General requesting that the UN General Assembly consider allowing the ROC to resume participating in the United Nations. This approach was chosen, rather than a formal application for membership, because it could be enacted by the General Assembly, while a membership application would need Security Council approval, where the PRC held a veto. Early proposals recommended admitting the ROC with parallel representation over China, along with the People's Republic of China, pending eventual reunification, citing examples of other divided countries which had become separate UN member states, such as East and West Germany and North and South Korea. Later proposals emphasized that the ROC was a separate state, over which the PRC had no effective sovereignty. These proposed resolutions referred to the ROC under a variety of names: "Republic of China in Taiwan" (1993–94), "Republic of China on Taiwan" (1995–97, 1999–2002), "Republic of China" (1998), "Republic of China (Taiwan)" (2003) and "Taiwan" (2004–06). However, all fourteen attempts were unsuccessful as the General Assembly's General Committee declined to put the issue on the Assembly's agenda for debate, under strong opposition from the PRC. While all these proposals were vague, requesting the ROC be allowed to participate in UN activities without specifying any legal mechanism, in 2007 the ROC submitted a formal application under the name "Taiwan" for full membership in the UN. However, the application was rejected by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs citing General Assembly Resolution 2758, without being forwarded to the Security Council. Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon stated that: Responding to the UN's rejection of its application, the ROC government has stated that Taiwan is not now nor has it ever been under the jurisdiction of the PRC, and that since General Assembly Resolution 2758 did not clarify the issue of Taiwan's representation in the UN, it does not prevent Taiwan's participation in the UN as an independent sovereign nation. The ROC government also criticized Ban for asserting that Taiwan is part of China and returning the application without passing it to the Security Council or the General Assembly, contrary to UN's standard procedure (Provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council, Chapter X, Rule 59). On the other hand, the PRC government, which has stated that Taiwan is part of China and firmly opposes the application of any Taiwan authorities to join the UN either as a member or an observer, praised that UN's decision "was made in accordance with the UN Charter and Resolution 2758 of the UN General Assembly, and showed the UN and its member states' universal adherence to the one-China principle". A group of UN member states put forward a draft resolution for that fall's UN General Assembly calling on the Security Council to consider the application. The following year two referendums in Taiwan on the government's attempts to regain participation at the UN did not pass due to low turnout. That fall the ROC took a new approach, with its allies submitting a resolution requesting that the "Republic of China (Taiwan)" be allowed to have "meaningful participation" in the UN specialized agencies. Again the issue was not put on the Assembly's agenda. In 2009, the ROC chose not to bring the issue of its participation in the UN up for debate at the General Assembly for the first time since it began the campaign in 1993. In May 2009, the Department of Health of the Republic of China was invited by the World Health Organization to attend the 62nd World Health Assembly as an observer under the name "Chinese Taipei". This was the ROC's first participation in an event organized by a UN-affiliated agency since 1971, as a result of the improved cross-strait relations since Ma Ying-jeou became the President of the Republic of China a year before. The Republic of China is officially and the Holy See. It maintains unofficial relations with around 100 nations, including the United States and Japan. Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia joined the UN as an original member on 24 October 1945, with its name changed to the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic on 20 April 1990. Upon the imminent dissolution of Czechoslovakia, in a letter dated 10 December 1992, its Permanent Representative informed the United Nations Secretary-General that the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic would cease to exist on 31 December 1992 and that the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as successor states, would apply for membership in the UN. Neither state sought sole successor state status. Both states were readmitted to the UN on 19 January 1993. German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Both the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) were admitted to the UN on 18 September 1973. Through the accession of the East German federal states to the Federal Republic of Germany, effective from 3 October 1990, the territory of the German Democratic Republic became part of the Federal Republic of Germany, today simply known as Germany. Consequently, the Federal Republic of Germany continued being a member of the UN while the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist. Federation of Malaya The Federation of Malaya joined the United Nations on 17 September 1957. On 16 September 1963, its name was changed to Malaysia, following the formation of Malaysia from Singapore, North Borneo (now Sabah), Sarawak and the existing states of the Federation of Malaya. Singapore became an independent State on 9 August 1965 and a Member of the United Nations on 21 September 1965. Tanganyika and Zanzibar Tanganyika was admitted to the UN on 14 December 1961, and Zanzibar was admitted to the UN on 16 December 1963. Following the ratification on 26 April 1964 of the Articles of Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the two states merged to form the single member "United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar", with its name changed to the United Republic of Tanzania on 1 November 1964. Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) joined the UN as an original member on 24 October 1945, and as set out by the United Nations Charter, Chapter V, Article 23, became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Upon the imminent dissolution of the USSR, in a letter dated 24 December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, informed the United Nations Secretary-General that the membership of the USSR in the Security Council and all other UN organs was being continued by the Russian Federation with the support of the 11 member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The other fourteen independent states established from the former Soviet Republics were all admitted to the UN: The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic joined the UN on 24 October 1945 together with the USSR. After declaring independence, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic changed its name to Ukraine on 24 August 1991, and on 19 September 1991, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic informed the UN that it had changed its name to Belarus. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were admitted to the UN on 17 September 1991, after regaining independence before the dissolution of the USSR. Russia took over the Soviet Union's seat on 24 December 1991, after a letter by president Boris Yeltsin was received by the secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were admitted to the UN on 2 March 1992. Georgia was admitted to the UN on 31 July 1992. United Arab Republic Both Egypt and Syria joined the UN as original members on 24 October 1945. Following a plebiscite on 21 February 1958, the United Arab Republic was established by a union of Egypt and Syria and continued as a single member. On 13 October 1961, Syria, having resumed its status as an independent state, resumed its separate membership in the UN. Egypt continued as a UN member under the name of the United Arab Republic, until it reverted to its original name on 2 September 1971. Syria changed its name to the Syrian Arab Republic on 14 September 1971. Yemen and Democratic Yemen Yemen (i.e., North Yemen) was admitted to the UN on 30 September 1947; Southern Yemen (i.e., South Yemen) was admitted to the UN on 14 December 1967, with its name changed to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen on 30 November 1970, and was later referred to as Democratic Yemen. On 22 May 1990, the two states merged to form the Republic of Yemen, which continued as a single member under the name Yemen. Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, referred to as Yugoslavia, joined the UN as an original member on 24 October 1945. By 1992, it had been effectively dissolved into five independent states, which were all subsequently admitted to the UN: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia were admitted to the UN on 22 May 1992. North Macedonia was |
High German. From the Middle High German, it was sometimes denoted in written German by adding an e to the affected vowel, either after the vowel or, in the small form, above it. This can still be seen in some names: Goethe, Goebbels, Staedtler. In blackletter handwriting, as used in German manuscripts of the later Middle Ages and also in many printed texts of the early modern period, the superscript e still had a form that would now be recognisable as an e, but in manuscript writing, umlauted vowels could be indicated by two dots since the late medieval period. Unusual umlaut designs are sometimes also created for graphic design purposes, such as to fit an umlaut into tightly-spaced lines of text. It may include umlauts placed vertically or inside the body of the letter. Morphological effects Although umlaut was not a grammatical process, umlauted vowels often serve to distinguish grammatical forms (and thus show similarities to ablaut when viewed synchronically), as can be seen in the English word man. In ancient Germanic, it and some other words had the plural suffix -iz, with the same vowel as the singular. As it contained an i, this suffix caused fronting of the vowel, and when the suffix later disappeared, the mutated vowel remained as the only plural marker: men. In English, such plurals are rare: man, woman, tooth, goose, foot, mouse, louse, brother (archaic or specialized plural in brethren), and cow (poetic and dialectal plural in kine). It also can be found in a few fossilized diminutive forms, such as kitten from cat and kernel from corn, and the feminine vixen from fox. Umlaut is conspicuous when it occurs in one of such a pair of forms, but there are many mutated words without an unmutated parallel form. Germanic actively derived causative weak verbs from ordinary strong verbs by applying a suffix, which later caused umlaut, to a past tense form. Some of these survived into modern English as doublets of verbs, including fell and set vs. fall and sit. Umlaut could occur in borrowings as well if stressed vowel was coloured by a subsequent front vowel, such as German Köln, "Cologne", from Latin Colonia, or Käse, "cheese", from Latin caseus. Parallel umlauts in some modern Germanic languages Umlaut in Germanic verbs Some interesting examples of umlaut involve vowel distinctions in Germanic verbs. Although these are often subsumed under the heading "ablaut" in tables of Germanic irregular verbs, they are a separate phenomenon. Present stem Umlaut in strong verbs A variety of umlaut occurs in the second and third person singular forms of the present tense of some Germanic strong verbs. For example, German fangen ("to catch") has the present tense ich fange, du fängst, er fängt. The verb geben ("give") has the present tense ich gebe, du gibst, er gibt, but the shift e→i would not be a normal result of umlaut in German. There are, in fact, two distinct phenomena at play here; the first is indeed umlaut as it is best known, but the second is older and occurred already in Proto-Germanic itself. In both cases, a following i triggered a vowel change, but in Proto-Germanic, it affected only e. The effect on back vowels did not occur until hundreds of years later, after the Germanic languages had already begun to split up: *fą̄haną, *fą̄hidi with no umlaut of a, but *gebaną, *gibidi with umlaut of e. Present stem Umlaut in weak verbs ("Rückumlaut") The German word Rückumlaut ("reverse umlaut"), sometimes known in English as "unmutation", is a term given to the vowel distinction between present and preterite forms of certain Germanic weak verbs. These verbs exhibit the dental suffix used to form the preterite of weak verbs, and also exhibit what appears to be the vowel gradation characteristic of strong verbs. Examples in English are think/thought, bring/brought, tell/told, sell/sold. The phenomenon can also be observed in some German verbs including brennen/brannte ("burn/burnt"), kennen/kannte ("know/knew"), and a handful of others. In some dialects, particularly of western Germany, the phenomenon is preserved in many more forms (for example Luxembourgish stellen/gestallt, "to put", and Limburgish tèlle/talj/getaldj, "to tell, count"). The cause lies with the insertion of the semivowel between the verb stem and inflectional ending. This triggers umlaut, as explained above. In short stem verbs, the is present in both the present and preterite. In long stem verbs however, the fell out of the preterite. Thus, while short stem verbs exhibit umlaut in all tenses, long stem verbs only do so in the present. When the German philologist Jacob Grimm first attempted to explain the phenomenon, he assumed that the lack of umlaut in the preterite resulted from the reversal of umlaut. In actuality, umlaut never occurred in the first place. Nevertheless, the term "Rückumlaut" makes some sense since the verb exhibits a shift from an umlauted vowel in the basic form (the infinitive) to a plain vowel in the respective inflections. Umlaut as a subjunctive marker In German, some verbs which display a back vowel in the past tense undergo umlaut in the subjunctive mood: singen/sang (ind.)→sänge (subj.) ("sing/sang"); fechten/focht (ind.)→föchte (subj.) ("fight/fought"). Again, this is due to the presence of a following i in the verb endings in the Old High German period. Historical survey by language West Germanic languages Although umlaut operated the same way in all the West Germanic languages, the exact words in which it took place and the outcomes of the process differ between the languages. Of particular note is the loss of word-final -i after heavy syllables. In the more southern languages (Old High German, Old Dutch, Old Saxon), forms that lost -i often show no umlaut, but in the more northern languages (Old English, Old Frisian), the forms do. Compare Old English ġiest "guest", which shows umlaut, and Old High German gast, which does not, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz. That may mean that there was dialectal variation in the timing and spread of the two changes, with final loss happening before umlaut in the south but after it in the north. On the other hand, umlaut may have still been partly allophonic, and the loss of the conditioning sound may have triggered an "un-umlauting" of the preceding vowel. Nevertheless, medial -ij- consistently triggers umlaut although its subsequent loss is universal in West Germanic except for Old Saxon and early Old High German. I-mutation in Old English I-mutation generally affected Old English vowels as follows in each of the main dialects. It led to the introduction into Old English of the new sounds , (which, in most varieties, soon turned into ), and a sound written in Early West Saxon manuscripts as ie but whose phonetic value is debated. I-mutation is particularly visible in the inflectional and derivational morphology of Old English since it affected so many of the Old English vowels. Of 16 basic vowels and diphthongs in Old English, only the four vowels ǣ, ē, i, ī were unaffected by i-mutation. Although i-mutation was originally triggered by an or in the syllable following the affected vowel, by the time of the surviving Old English texts, the or had generally changed (usually to ) or been lost entirely, with the result that i-mutation generally appears as a morphological process that affects a certain (seemingly arbitrary) set of forms. These are most common forms affected: The plural, and genitive/dative singular, forms of consonant-declension nouns (Proto-Germanic (PGmc) *-iz), as compared to the nominative/accusative singular – e.g., fōt "foot", fēt "feet"; mūs "mouse", mȳs "mice". Many more words were affected by this change in Old English vs. modern English – e.g., bōc "book", bēc "books"; frēond "friend", frīend "friends". The second and third person present singular indicative of strong verbs (Pre-Old-English (Pre-OE) *-ist, *-iþ), as compared to the infinitive and other present-tense forms – e.g. helpan "to help", helpe "(I) help", hilpst "(you sg.) help", hilpþ "(he/she) helps", helpaþ "(we/you pl./they) help". The comparative form of some adjectives (Pre-OE *-ira < PGmc *-izǭ, Pre-OE *-ist < PGmc *-istaz), as compared to the base form – e.g. eald "old", ieldra "older", ieldest "oldest" (cf. "elder, eldest"). Throughout the first class of weak verbs (original suffix -jan), as compared to the forms from which the verbs were derived – e.g. fōda "food", fēdan "to feed" < Pre-OE *fōdjan; lār "lore", lǣran "to teach"; feallan "to fall", fiellan "to fell". In the abstract nouns in þ(u) (PGmc *-iþō) corresponding to certain adjectives – e.g., strang "strong", strengþ(u) "strength"; hāl "whole/hale", hǣlþ(u) "health"; fūl "foul", fȳlþ(u) "filth". In female forms of several nouns with the suffix -enn (PGmc *-injō) – e.g., god "god", gydenn "goddess" (cf. German Gott, Göttin); fox "fox", fyxenn "vixen". In i-stem abstract nouns derived from verbs (PGmc *-iz) – e.g. cyme "a coming", cuman "to come"; byre "a son (orig., a being born)", beran "to bear"; fiell "a falling", feallan "to fall"; bend "a bond", bindan "to bind". Note that in some cases the abstract noun has a different vowel than the corresponding verb, due to Proto-Indo-European ablaut. Notes The phonologically expected umlaut of is . However, in many cases appears. Most in Old English stem from earlier because of a change called a-restoration. This change was blocked when or followed, leaving , which subsequently mutated to . For example, in the case of talu "tale" vs. tellan "to tell", the forms at one point in the early history of Old English were *tælu and *tælljan, respectively. A-restoration converted *tælu to talu, but left *tælljan alone, and it subsequently evolved to tellan by i-mutation. The same process "should" have led to *becþ instead of bæcþ. That is, the early forms were *bæcan and *bæciþ. A-restoration converted *bæcan to bacan but left alone *bæciþ, which would normally have evolved by umlaut to *becþ. In this case, however, once a-restoration took effect, *bæciþ was modified to *baciþ by analogy with bacan, and then later umlauted to bæcþ. A similar process resulted in the umlaut of sometimes appearing as and sometimes (usually, in fact) as . In Old English, generally stems from a-mutation of original . A-mutation of was blocked by a following or , which later triggered umlaut of the to , the reason for alternations between and being common. Umlaut of to occurs only when an original was modified to by analogy before umlaut took place. For example, dohtor comes from late Proto-Germanic *dohter, from earlier *duhter. The plural in Proto-Germanic was *duhtriz, with unaffected by a-mutation due to the following . At some point prior to i-mutation, the form *duhtriz was modified to *dohtriz by analogy with the singular form, which then allowed it to be umlauted to a form that resulted in dehter. A few hundred years after i-umlaut began, another similar change called double umlaut occurred. It was triggered by an or in the third or fourth syllable of a word and mutated all previous vowels but worked only when the vowel directly preceding the or was . This typically appears as e in Old English or is deleted: hægtess "witch" < PGmc *hagatusjō (cf. Old High German hagazussa) ǣmerge "embers" < Pre-OE *āmurja < PGmc *aimurjǭ (cf. Old High German eimurja) ǣrende "errand" < PGmc *ǣrundijaz (cf. Old Saxon ārundi) efstan "to hasten" < archaic øfestan < Pre-OE *ofustan ȳmest "upmost" < PGmc *uhumistaz (cf. Gothic áuhumists) As shown by the examples, affected words typically had in the second syllable and in the first syllable. The developed too late to break to ea or to trigger palatalization of a preceding velar. I-mutation in High German I-mutation is visible in Old High German (OHG), c. 800 AD, only on short , which was mutated to (the so-called "primary umlaut"), although in certain phonological environments the mutation fails to occur. By then, it had already become partly phonologized, since some of the conditioning and sounds had been deleted or modified. The later history of German, however, shows that and , as well as long vowels and diphthongs, and the remaining instances of that had not been umlauted already, were also affected (the so-called "secondary umlaut"); starting in Middle High German, the remaining conditioning environments disappear and and appear as and in the appropriate environments. That has led to a controversy over when and how i-mutation appeared on these vowels. Some (for example, Herbert Penzl) have suggested that the vowels must have been modified without being | generally changed (usually to ) or been lost entirely, with the result that i-mutation generally appears as a morphological process that affects a certain (seemingly arbitrary) set of forms. These are most common forms affected: The plural, and genitive/dative singular, forms of consonant-declension nouns (Proto-Germanic (PGmc) *-iz), as compared to the nominative/accusative singular – e.g., fōt "foot", fēt "feet"; mūs "mouse", mȳs "mice". Many more words were affected by this change in Old English vs. modern English – e.g., bōc "book", bēc "books"; frēond "friend", frīend "friends". The second and third person present singular indicative of strong verbs (Pre-Old-English (Pre-OE) *-ist, *-iþ), as compared to the infinitive and other present-tense forms – e.g. helpan "to help", helpe "(I) help", hilpst "(you sg.) help", hilpþ "(he/she) helps", helpaþ "(we/you pl./they) help". The comparative form of some adjectives (Pre-OE *-ira < PGmc *-izǭ, Pre-OE *-ist < PGmc *-istaz), as compared to the base form – e.g. eald "old", ieldra "older", ieldest "oldest" (cf. "elder, eldest"). Throughout the first class of weak verbs (original suffix -jan), as compared to the forms from which the verbs were derived – e.g. fōda "food", fēdan "to feed" < Pre-OE *fōdjan; lār "lore", lǣran "to teach"; feallan "to fall", fiellan "to fell". In the abstract nouns in þ(u) (PGmc *-iþō) corresponding to certain adjectives – e.g., strang "strong", strengþ(u) "strength"; hāl "whole/hale", hǣlþ(u) "health"; fūl "foul", fȳlþ(u) "filth". In female forms of several nouns with the suffix -enn (PGmc *-injō) – e.g., god "god", gydenn "goddess" (cf. German Gott, Göttin); fox "fox", fyxenn "vixen". In i-stem abstract nouns derived from verbs (PGmc *-iz) – e.g. cyme "a coming", cuman "to come"; byre "a son (orig., a being born)", beran "to bear"; fiell "a falling", feallan "to fall"; bend "a bond", bindan "to bind". Note that in some cases the abstract noun has a different vowel than the corresponding verb, due to Proto-Indo-European ablaut. Notes The phonologically expected umlaut of is . However, in many cases appears. Most in Old English stem from earlier because of a change called a-restoration. This change was blocked when or followed, leaving , which subsequently mutated to . For example, in the case of talu "tale" vs. tellan "to tell", the forms at one point in the early history of Old English were *tælu and *tælljan, respectively. A-restoration converted *tælu to talu, but left *tælljan alone, and it subsequently evolved to tellan by i-mutation. The same process "should" have led to *becþ instead of bæcþ. That is, the early forms were *bæcan and *bæciþ. A-restoration converted *bæcan to bacan but left alone *bæciþ, which would normally have evolved by umlaut to *becþ. In this case, however, once a-restoration took effect, *bæciþ was modified to *baciþ by analogy with bacan, and then later umlauted to bæcþ. A similar process resulted in the umlaut of sometimes appearing as and sometimes (usually, in fact) as . In Old English, generally stems from a-mutation of original . A-mutation of was blocked by a following or , which later triggered umlaut of the to , the reason for alternations between and being common. Umlaut of to occurs only when an original was modified to by analogy before umlaut took place. For example, dohtor comes from late Proto-Germanic *dohter, from earlier *duhter. The plural in Proto-Germanic was *duhtriz, with unaffected by a-mutation due to the following . At some point prior to i-mutation, the form *duhtriz was modified to *dohtriz by analogy with the singular form, which then allowed it to be umlauted to a form that resulted in dehter. A few hundred years after i-umlaut began, another similar change called double umlaut occurred. It was triggered by an or in the third or fourth syllable of a word and mutated all previous vowels but worked only when the vowel directly preceding the or was . This typically appears as e in Old English or is deleted: hægtess "witch" < PGmc *hagatusjō (cf. Old High German hagazussa) ǣmerge "embers" < Pre-OE *āmurja < PGmc *aimurjǭ (cf. Old High German eimurja) ǣrende "errand" < PGmc *ǣrundijaz (cf. Old Saxon ārundi) efstan "to hasten" < archaic øfestan < Pre-OE *ofustan ȳmest "upmost" < PGmc *uhumistaz (cf. Gothic áuhumists) As shown by the examples, affected words typically had in the second syllable and in the first syllable. The developed too late to break to ea or to trigger palatalization of a preceding velar. I-mutation in High German I-mutation is visible in Old High German (OHG), c. 800 AD, only on short , which was mutated to (the so-called "primary umlaut"), although in certain phonological environments the mutation fails to occur. By then, it had already become partly phonologized, since some of the conditioning and sounds had been deleted or modified. The later history of German, however, shows that and , as well as long vowels and diphthongs, and the remaining instances of that had not been umlauted already, were also affected (the so-called "secondary umlaut"); starting in Middle High German, the remaining conditioning environments disappear and and appear as and in the appropriate environments. That has led to a controversy over when and how i-mutation appeared on these vowels. Some (for example, Herbert Penzl) have suggested that the vowels must have been modified without being indicated for lack of proper symbols and/or because the difference was still partly allophonic. Others (such as Joseph Voyles) have suggested that the i-mutation of and was entirely analogical and pointed to the lack of i-mutation of these vowels in certain places where it would be expected, in contrast to the consistent mutation of . Perhaps the answer is somewhere in between — i-mutation of and was indeed phonetic, occurring late in OHG, but later spread analogically to the environments where the conditioning had already disappeared by OHG (this is where failure of i-mutation is most likely). It must also be kept in mind that it is an issue of relative chronology: already early in the history of attested OHG, some umlauting factors are known to have disappeared (such as word-internal j after geminates and clusters), and depending on the age of OHG umlaut, that could explain some cases where expected umlaut is missing. However, sporadic place-name attestations demonstrate the presence of the secondary umlaut already for the early 9th century, which makes it likely that all types of umlaut were indeed already present in Old High German, even if they were not indicated in the spelling. Presumably, they arose already in the early 8th century. Ottar Grønvik, also in view of spellings of the type ei, ui, and oi in the early attestations, affirms the old epenthesis theory, which views the origin of the umlaut vowels in the insertion of after back vowels, not only in West, but also in North Germanic. Fausto Cercignani prefers the assimilation theory and presents a history of the OHG umlauted vowels up to the present day. In modern German, umlaut as a marker of the plural of nouns is a regular feature of the language, and although umlaut itself is no longer a productive force in German, new plurals of this type can be created by analogy. Likewise, umlaut marks the comparative of many adjectives and other kinds of derived forms. Because of the grammatical importance of such pairs, the German umlaut diacritic was developed, making the phenomenon very visible. The result in German is that the vowels written as , , and become , , and , and the diphthong becomes : Mann "man" vs. Männer "men", Fuß "foot" vs. Füße "feet", Maus "mouse" vs. Mäuse "mice". In various dialects, the umlaut became even more important as a morphological marker of the plural after the apocope of final schwa (-e); that rounded front vowels have become unrounded in many dialects does not prevent them from serving as markers of the plural given that they remain distinct from their non-umlauted counterparts (just like in English foot – feet, mouse – mice). The example Gast "guest" vs. Gäst(e) "guests" served as the model for analogical pairs like Tag "day" vs. Täg(e) "days" (vs. standard Tage) and Arm "arm" vs. Ärm(e) "arms" (vs. standard Arme). Even plural forms like Fisch(e) "fish" which had never had a front rounded vowel in the first place were interpreted as such (i.e., as if from Middle High German **füsche) and led to singular forms like Fusch that are attested in some dialects. I-mutation in Old Saxon In Old Saxon, umlaut is much less apparent than in Old Norse. The only vowel that is regularly fronted before an or is short : gast – gesti, slahan – slehis. It must have had a greater effect than the orthography shows since all later dialects have a regular umlaut of both long and short vowels. I-mutation in Dutch Late Old Dutch saw a merger of and , causing their umlauted results to merge as well, giving . The lengthening in open syllables in early Middle Dutch then lengthened and lowered this short to long (spelled eu) in some words. This is parallel to the lowering of in open syllables to , as in schip ("ship") – schepen ("ships"). In general, the effects of the Germanic umlaut in plural formation are limited. One of the defining phonological features of Dutch, is the general absence of the I-mutation or secondary umlaut when dealing with long vowels. Unlike English and German, Dutch does not palatalize the long vowels, which are notably absent from the language. Thus, for example, where modern German has fühlen and English has feel (from Proto-Germanic |
moment of impact, the plane was in a sustained power dive, descending more than 24,000 feet in 5minutes 4seconds, at an average rate of over 5,000 feet per minute. Bottiglia reported he and his colleagues "were counting down the altitudes, and they were descending, right at the end, at 10,000 feet per minute. That is absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet." Calls Flight attendant Robert Fangman and passengers Peter Hanson and Brian David Sweeney made phone calls from GTE airphones in the rear of the aircraft. Airphone records also indicate that passenger Garnet Bailey made four phone call attempts to his wife. At 08:52, a male flight attendant – likely Fangman – called a United Airlines maintenance office in San Francisco and spoke with Marc Policastro. Fangman reported the hijacking and said the hijackers were likely flying the plane. He also said both pilots were dead and that a flight attendant had been stabbed. After a minute and 15 seconds, Fangman's call was disconnected. Policastro subsequently made attempts to contact the aircraft's cockpit using the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) message system. He wrote, "I heard of a reported incident aboard your acft [aircraft]. Plz verify all is normal." He received no reply. Brian David Sweeney tried calling his wife, Julie, at 08:59, but ended up leaving a message, telling her the plane had been hijacked. He then called his parents at 09:00 and spoke with his mother, Louise. Sweeney told his mother about the hijacking and mentioned that passengers were considering storming the cockpit and taking control of the aircraft. Sweeney said he thought the hijackers might come back, so he might have to hang up quickly. He then said goodbye to his mother as he quickly hung up. At 08:52, Peter Hanson called his father, Lee Hanson, in Easton, Connecticut, telling him of the hijacking. Hanson was traveling with his wife, Sue, and their two-year-old daughter, Christine, the youngest victim of the September 11 attacks. The family was originally seated in Row 19, in seats C, D, and E; however, Peter placed the call to his father from seat 30E. Speaking softly, Hanson said the hijackers had commandeered the cockpit, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and that possibly someone else in the front of the aircraft had been killed. He also said the plane was flying erratically. Hanson asked his father to contact United Airlines, but Lee could not get through and instead called the police. Peter Hanson made a second phone call to his father at 09:00: It's getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It's getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast... Oh my God... oh my God, oh my God. As the call abruptly ended, Hanson's father heard a woman screaming. Crash As the plane approached New York City, Shehhi would have seen the fire and smoke pouring from the North Tower in the distance. The aircraft was in a banking left turn in its final moments, as it appeared the plane might have otherwise missed the building or merely scraped it with a wing. Therefore, those who were on the left side of the plane would also have had a clear view of the towers approaching, with one burning. At 09:01, two minutes before impact as Flight175 continued its descent into Lower Manhattan, the New York Center alerted another nearby Air Traffic Facility responsible for low-flying aircraft, which was able to monitor the aircraft's path over New Jersey, and then over Staten Island and Upper New York Bay in its final moments. At 09:03, Flight 175 crashed nose-first into the southern façade of the South Tower of the World Trade Center at over , striking through floors 77 and 85 with approximately of jet fuel on board. The youngest person on Flight175 was Christine Hanson, aged two and a half, and the oldest was 82-year-old Dorothy DeAraujo of Long Beach, California. By the time Flight 175 struck the South Tower, multiple media organizations were already covering the crash of Flight11, which had hit the North Tower 17 minutes earlier. The image of Flight175's crash was thus caught on video from multiple vantage points on live television and amateur video, while approximately a hundred cameras captured Flight175 in photographs before it crashed. Video footage of the crash was replayed numerous times in news broadcasts on the day of the attacks and in the following days, before major news networks put restrictions on use of the footage. After the plane penetrated through the tower, part of the plane's landing gear and fuselage came out the north side of the tower and crashed through the roof and two of the floors of 45–47 Park Place, between West Broadway and Church Street, 600 feet (180 meters) north of the former World Trade Center. Three floor beams of the top floor of the building were destroyed, causing major structural damage. Collapse Unlike at the North Tower, initially, one of the three stairwells (A) was still intact after Flight175 crashed into the South Tower. This was because the plane struck the tower offset from the center and not centrally as Flight11 in the North Tower had done. Only 18 people passed the impact zone through the available stairway and left the South Tower safely before it collapsed. Only one person on the 81st floor survived: Stanley Praimnath, whose office was sliced by the wing of the plane. He witnessed Flight175 coming toward him. One of the wings sliced through his office and wound up wedged in a doorway about away from him. No one escaped above the impact point in the North Tower. Some people above the impact zone made their way upward toward the roof in hopes of a helicopter rescue. However, access doors to the roof were locked. In any case, thick smoke and intense heat prevented rescue helicopters from landing. The South Tower collapsed at 09:58:59, after burning for 56 minutes. Aftermath The flight recorder for Flight175, as with Flight11's, was never found. Some debris from Flight175 was recovered nearby, including landing gear found on top of a building on the corner of West Broadway and Park Place, an engine found at Church and Murray Street, and a section of the fuselage which landed on top of 5 World Trade Center. In April 2013, a piece of the inboard wing flap mechanism from a Boeing 767 was discovered wedged between two buildings at Park Place. During the recovery process, small fragments were identified from some passengers on Flight175, including a piece of bone belonging to Peter Hanson, and small bone fragments of Lisa Frost. In 2008, the remains of Flight175 passenger Alona Abraham were identified using DNA samples. Remains of many others aboard Flight175 were never recovered. Shortly after September 11, the number for future flights on the same route was changed from 175 to 1525. Since then, United Airlines has renumbered and rescheduled all flights from Boston to Los Angeles. United Airlines Flight1820 now operates the Boston to LAX route, leaving at 08:05 and is operated by a Boeing 757-200. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 175 and 93 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. However, United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated. The names of the victims of Flight175 are inscribed at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The federal government provided financial aid—a minimum of $500,000—for the families of victims who died in the attack. Individuals who accepted funds from the government were required to forfeit their ability to sue any entity for damages. More than $7 billion has been paid out to victims by the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, although that figure includes damages to those who were injured or killed on the other hijacked flights or the towers. In total, lawsuits were filed on behalf of 96 people against the airline and associated companies. The vast majority were settled under terms that were | below the average load factor of 49 percent in the three months preceding September11. The nine crew members included Captain Victor Saracini (51), First Officer Michael Horrocks (38), purser Kathryn Laborie, and flight attendants Robert Fangman, Amy Jarret, Amy King, Alfred Marchand, Michael Tarrou, and Alicia Titus. Boarding Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi checked out of their hotel and called a taxi to take them to Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. They arrived at the United Airlines counter in Terminal C at 06:20 Eastern Time and Ahmed al-Ghamdi checked two bags. Both hijackers indicated they wanted to purchase tickets, even though they already had paper tickets, which were purchased approximately 2 weeks before the attacks. They had trouble answering the standard security questions, so the counter agent repeated the questions very slowly until satisfied with their responses. Hijacker pilot Marwan al-Shehhi checked a single bag at 06:45, and the other remaining hijackers, Fayez Banihammad and Mohand al-Shehri, checked in at 06:53; Banihammad checked two bags. None of the Flight 175 hijackers were selected for extra scrutiny by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). Shehhi and the other hijackers boarded Flight175 between 07:23 and 07:28. Banihammad boarded first and sat in first class seat 2A, while Mohand al-Shehri was in seat 2B. At 07:27, Shehhi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi boarded and sat in business class seats 6C and 9D, respectively. One minute later, Hamza al-Ghamdi boarded and sat in 9C. The flight was scheduled to depart at 08:00 for Los Angeles. Fifty-one passengers and the five hijackers boarded the 767 through Terminal C's Gate 19. The plane pushed back at 07:58 and took off at 08:14 from Runway 9, about the same time Flight11 was hijacked. By 08:33, the aircraft reached cruising altitude of 31,000 feet, which is the point when cabin service would normally begin. At 08:37, air traffic controllers asked the pilots of Flight175 whether they could see American Airlines Flight 11. The crew first responded saying they couldn't locate the hijacked plane but would continue looking. They then responded that Flight11 was at 29,000 feet, and controllers instructed Flight175 to turn and avoid the aircraft. The pilots declared that they had heard a suspicious transmission from Flight11 upon takeoff. "Sounds like someone keyed the mic and said 'Everyone, stay in your seats'," the flight crew reported. This was the last transmission from Flight175. Hijacking Flight 175 was hijacked between 08:42 and 08:46, while Flight11 was just minutes away from hitting the North Tower. It is believed that hijackers Banihammad and al-Shehri forcibly entered the cockpit and attacked the pilots while the al-Ghamdis commanded passengers and crew to the aft of the cabin and al-Shehhi took over the controls. Knives were used to stab the flight crew and kill both pilots. One passenger also reported, during a phone call, the use of mace and bomb threats. The first operational evidence that something was abnormal on Flight175 came at 08:47, when the plane's transponder signal changed twice within the span of one minute, and the aircraft began deviating from its assigned course. However, the air traffic controller in charge of the flight did not notice until minutes later at 08:51. Unlike Flight11, which had turned its transponder off, Flight175's flight data could still be properly monitored. Also, at 08:51, Flight175 changed altitude. Over the next three minutes, the controller made five unsuccessful attempts to contact Flight175 and worked to move other aircraft in the vicinity away from Flight175. Near-collisions Around this time, the flight had a near midair collision with Delta Air Lines Flight2315 flying from Hartford to Tampa, reportedly missing the plane by only . Air traffic controller Dave Bottiglia was the first person in the control center to realize Flight175 had been hijacked. When he directed Flight175 to turn, the cockpit was unresponsive; instead, the aircraft accelerated and headed toward the Delta plane. He then advised the Delta aircraft to take evasive actions, adding "We have an airplane that we don't know what he's doing. Any action at all." Moments before Flight175 crashed, it avoided another near collision with Midwest Express Flight7, which was flying from Milwaukee to New York. At 08:55 a supervisor at the New York Air Traffic Control Center notified the center's operations manager of the Flight175 hijacking. Bottigliawho was handling both Flight11 and Flight175remarked, "We might have a hijack over here, two of them." At 08:58, Flight175 was over New Jersey at 28,500 feet, heading toward New York City. In the five minutes from approximately 08:58 when Shehhi completed the final turn toward New York City until the moment of impact, the plane was in a sustained power dive, descending more than 24,000 feet in 5minutes 4seconds, at an average rate of over 5,000 feet per minute. Bottiglia reported he and his colleagues "were counting down the altitudes, and they were descending, right at the end, at 10,000 feet per minute. That is absolutely unheard of for a commercial jet." Calls Flight attendant Robert Fangman and passengers Peter Hanson and Brian David Sweeney made phone calls from GTE airphones in the rear of the aircraft. Airphone records also indicate that passenger Garnet Bailey made four phone call attempts to his wife. At 08:52, a male flight attendant – likely Fangman – called a United Airlines maintenance office in San Francisco and spoke with Marc Policastro. Fangman reported the hijacking and said the hijackers were likely flying the plane. He also said both pilots were dead and that a flight attendant had been stabbed. After a minute and 15 seconds, Fangman's call was disconnected. Policastro subsequently made attempts to contact the aircraft's cockpit using the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) message system. He wrote, "I heard of a reported incident aboard your acft [aircraft]. Plz verify all is normal." He received no reply. Brian David Sweeney tried calling his wife, Julie, at 08:59, but ended up leaving a message, telling her the plane had been hijacked. He then called his parents at 09:00 and spoke with his mother, Louise. Sweeney told his mother about the hijacking and mentioned that passengers were considering storming the cockpit and taking control of the aircraft. Sweeney said he thought the hijackers might come back, so he might have to hang up quickly. He then said goodbye to his mother as he quickly hung up. At 08:52, Peter Hanson called his father, Lee Hanson, in Easton, Connecticut, telling him of the hijacking. Hanson was traveling with his wife, Sue, and their two-year-old daughter, Christine, the youngest victim of the September 11 attacks. The family was originally seated in Row 19, in seats C, D, and E; however, Peter placed the call to his father from seat 30E. Speaking softly, Hanson said the hijackers had commandeered the cockpit, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and that possibly someone else in the front of the aircraft had been killed. He also said the plane was flying erratically. Hanson asked his father to contact United Airlines, but Lee could not get through and instead called the police. Peter Hanson made a second phone call to his father at 09:00: It's getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It's getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast... Oh my God... oh my God, oh my God. As the call abruptly ended, Hanson's father heard a woman screaming. Crash As the plane approached New York City, Shehhi would have seen the fire and smoke pouring from the North Tower in the distance. The aircraft was in a banking left turn in its final moments, as it appeared the plane might have otherwise missed the building or merely scraped it with a wing. Therefore, those who were on the left side of the plane would also have had a clear view of the towers approaching, with one burning. At 09:01, two minutes before impact as Flight175 continued its descent into Lower Manhattan, the New York Center alerted another nearby Air Traffic Facility responsible for low-flying aircraft, which was able to monitor the aircraft's path over New Jersey, and then over Staten Island and Upper |
work on projects. Fellows may also work with other government entities, including the Congress, White House, and executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and Department of Homeland Security. The program is named in honor of Benjamin Franklin, and aims to attract mid-career professionals to enrich and expand the department's capabilities. Unlike the Jefferson Science Fellows Program, a Franklin Fellowship is a year-long volunteer position for which one may obtain sponsor support or participate out of personal resources. Participation areas assigned to Franklin Fellows are determined by several factors, including issues of priority to the country as well as a candidate's degree of career seniority and personal interests. Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) See also Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative The Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) (pronounced ) is a program of the DoS for emerging leaders from Southeast Asia. The program was launched by President Barack Obama in Manila in December 2013 as a way to strengthen leadership development, networking, and cultural exchange among emerging leaders within the age range of 18 to 35 years old from the 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Timor Leste. YSEALI's programs include competitive exchange fellowship programs to the United States, virtual and on-ground workshops within Southeast Asia, and seed grant funding opportunities. The programs fall under the key core themes of civic engagement, sustainable development, economic development, governance, and the environment. Notable alumni of YSEALI include Vico Sotto, Syed Saddiq, Carrie Tan, and Lee Chean Chung. Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) See also Young African Leaders Initiative The Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) is a program of the DoS for emerging young leaders in Africa. It was begun in 2010 by President Barack Obama to promote education and networking among emerging African leaders through the Mandela Washington Fellowship which brings them to study in the United States for six weeks, with follow-up resources, and student exchange programs. In 2014, the program was expanded to include four regional "leadership centers" in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. Diplomats in Residence Diplomats in Residence are career Foreign Service Officers and Specialists located throughout the US who provide guidance and advice on careers, internships, and fellowships to students and professionals in communities they serve. Diplomats in Residence are located in 16 population-based regions throughout the United States. Military components Department of State Air Wing In 1978, the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) formed an office to use excess military and government aircraft to support counter-narcotics operations of foreign states. The first aircraft used was a crop duster used to eradicate illicit crops in Mexico in cooperation with local authorities. The separate Air Wing was established in 1986 as use of aviation assets grew in the war on drugs. The aircraft fleet grew from crop spraying planes to larger transports and helicopters to support ground troops and move personnel. As these operations became more involved in direct combat, the need for search and rescue and armed escort helicopters became evident. Operations in the 1980s and 1990s were primarily carried out in Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia and Belize. Many aircraft have since been passed on to the governments involved, as they become able to take over the operations themselves. After the September 11 attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, the Air Wing went on to expand its operations from mainly anti-narcotics operations to providing security support for United States nationals and interests, primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Safe transports for various diplomatic missions were undertaken, requiring acquisition of larger aircraft, such as Sikorsky S-61, Boeing Vertol CH-46, Beechcraft King Air and De Haviland DHC-8-300. In 2011, the Air Wing was operating over 230 aircraft around the world, the main missions still being counter narcotics and transportation of state officials. Naval Support Unit: Department of State In 1964, at the height of the Cold War, Seabees were assigned to the State Department after listening devices were found in the Embassy of the United States in Moscow; this initial unit was called the "Naval Mobile Construction Battalion FOUR, Detachment November". The U.S. had just constructed a new embassy in Warsaw, and the Seabees were dispatched to locate "bugs". This led to the creation of the Naval Support Unit in 1966, which was made permanent two years later. That year William Darrah, a Seabee of the support unit, is credited with saving the U.S. Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia from a potentially disastrous fire. In 1986, "as a result of reciprocal expulsions ordered by Washington and Moscow" Seabees were sent to "Moscow and Leningrad to help keep the embassy and the consulate functioning". The Support Unit has a limited number of special billets for select NCOs, E-5 and above. These Seabees are assigned to the Department of State and attached to Diplomatic Security. Those chosen can be assigned to the Regional Security Officer of a specific embassy or be part of a team traveling from one embassy to the next. Duties include the installation of alarm systems, CCTV cameras, electromagnetic locks, safes, vehicle barriers, and securing compounds. They can also assist with the security engineering in sweeping embassies (electronic counter-intelligence). They are tasked with new construction or renovations in security sensitive areas and supervise private contractors in non-sensitive areas. Due to Diplomatic protocol the Support Unit is required to wear civilian clothes most of the time they are on duty and receive a supplemental clothing allowance for this. The information regarding this assignment is very scant, but State Department records in 1985 indicate department security had 800 employees, plus 1,200 marines and 115 Seabees. That Seabee number is roughly the same today. Expenditures In FY 2010 the Department of State, together with "Other International Programs" (such as USAID), had a combined projected discretionary budget of $51.7 billion. The United States Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2010, entitled 'A New Era of Responsibility', specifically 'Imposes Transparency on the Budget' for the Department of State. The end-of-year FY 2010 DoS Agency Financial Report, approved by Secretary Clinton on November 15, 2010, showed actual total costs for the year of $27.4 billion. Revenues of $6.0 billion, $2.8 billion of which were earned through the provision of consular and management services, reduced total net cost to $21.4 billion. Total program costs for 'Achieving Peace and Security' were $7.0 billion; 'Governing Justly and Democratically', $0.9 billion; 'Investing in People', $4.6 billion; 'Promoting Economic Growth and Prosperity', $1.5 billion; 'Providing Humanitarian Assistance', $1.8 billion; 'Promoting International Understanding', $2.7 billion; 'Strengthening Consular and Management Capabilities', $4.0 billion; 'Executive Direction and Other Costs Not Assigned', $4.2 billion. Audit of expenditures The Department of State's independent auditors are Kearney & Company. Since in FY 2009 Kearney & Company qualified its audit opinion, noting material financial reporting weaknesses, the DoS restated its 2009 financial statements in 2010. In its FY 2010 audit report, Kearney & Company provided an unqualified audit opinion while noting significant deficiencies, of controls in relation to financial reporting and budgetary accounting, and of compliance with a number of laws and provisions relating to financial management and accounting requirements. In response the DoS Chief Financial Officer observed that "The Department the equal of any large multi-national corporation." Central Foreign Policy File Since 1973 the primary record keeping system of the Department of State is the Central Foreign Policy File. It consists of copies of official telegrams, airgrams, reports, memorandums, correspondence, diplomatic notes, and other documents related to foreign relations. Over 1,000,000 records spanning the time period from 1973 to 1979 can be accessed online from the National Archives and Records Administration. Freedom of Information Act processing performance In the 2015 Center for Effective Government analysis of 15 federal agencies which receive the most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (using 2012 and 2013 data), the State Department was the lowest performer, earning an "F" by scoring only 37 out of a possible 100 points, unchanged from 2013. The State Department's score was dismal due to its extremely low processing score of 23 percent, which was completely out of line with any other agency's performance. See also Foreign policy of the United States History of United States foreign policy Timeline of United States diplomatic history Awards of the United States Department of State Diplomatic missions of the United States Diplomatic Reception Rooms Five Nations Passport Group United States Foreign Service | State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the nation's foreign policy and international relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nations, its primary duties are advising the U.S. president, administering diplomatic missions, negotiating international treaties and agreements, and representing the U.S. at the United Nations. The department is headquartered in the Harry S Truman Building, a few blocks from the White House, in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.; "Foggy Bottom" is thus sometimes used as a metonym. Established in 1789 as the first administrative arm of the U.S. executive branch, the State Department is considered among the most powerful and prestigious executive agencies. It is headed by the Secretary of State, who reports directly to the President of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet. Analogous to a foreign minister, the secretary of state serves as the federal government's chief diplomat and representative abroad, and is the first Cabinet official in the order of precedence and in the presidential line of succession. The position is currently held by Antony Blinken who was appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate on January 26, 2021 by a vote of 78–22. As of 2019, the State Department maintains 273 diplomatic posts worldwide, second only to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It also manages the US Foreign Service, provides diplomatic training to US officials and military personnel, exercises partial jurisdiction over immigration, and provides various services to Americans, such as issuing passports and visas, posting foreign travel advisories, and advancing commercial ties abroad. The department administers the oldest US civilian intelligence agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and maintains a law enforcement arm, the Diplomatic Security Service. History Origin and early history The U.S. Constitution, drafted September 1787 and ratified the following year, gave the President responsibility for conducting the federal government's affairs with foreign states. To that end, on July 21, 1789, the First Congress approved legislation to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs, which President George Washington signed into law on July 27, making the department the first federal agency to be created under the new Constitution. This legislation remains the basic law of the Department of State. In September 1789, additional legislation changed the name of the agency to the Department of State and assigned it a variety of domestic duties, including managing the United States Mint, keeping the Great Seal of the United States, and administering the census. President Washington signed the new legislation on September 15. Most of these domestic duties gradually were transferred to various federal departments and agencies established in the 19th century. However, the Secretary of State still retains a few domestic responsibilities, such as serving as keeper of the Great Seal and being the officer to whom a President or Vice President wishing to resign must deliver an instrument in writing declaring the decision. On September 29, 1789, Washington appointed Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, then Minister to France, as the first U.S. Secretary of State. John Jay had been serving as Secretary of Foreign Affairs as a holdover from the Confederation since before Washington took office; he would continue in that capacity until Jefferson returned from Europe many months later. Reflecting the fledgling status of the US at the time, Jefferson's department comprised only six personnel, two diplomatic posts (in London and Paris), and 10 consular posts. Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries For much of its history, the State Department was composed of two primary administrative units: the diplomatic service, which staffed US legations and embassies, and the consular service, which was primarily responsible for promoting American commerce abroad and assisting distressed American sailors. Each service developed separately, but both lacked sufficient funding to provide for a career; consequently, appointments to either service fell on those with the financial means to sustain their work abroad. Combined with the common practice of appointing individuals based on politics or patronage, rather than merit, this led the department to largely favor those with political networks and wealth, rather than skill and knowledge. Twentieth century reforms and growth The Department of State underwent its first major overhaul with the Rogers Act of 1924, which merged the diplomatic and consular services into the Foreign Service, a professionalized personnel system under which the Secretary of State is authorized to assign diplomats abroad. An extremely difficult Foreign Service examination was also implemented to ensure highly qualified recruits, along with a merit-based system of promotions. The Rogers Act also created the Board of the Foreign Service, which advises the Secretary of State on managing the Foreign Service, and the Board of Examiners of the Foreign Service, which administers the examination process. The post-Second World War period saw an unprecedented increase in funding and staff commensurate with the US's emergence as a superpower and its competition with the Soviet Union in the subsequent Cold War. Consequently, the number of domestic and overseas employees grew from roughly 2,000 in 1940 to over 13,000 in 1960. In 1997, Madeleine Albright became the first woman appointed Secretary of State and the first foreign-born woman to serve in the Cabinet. Twenty-first century The 21st century saw the department reinvent itself in response to the rapid digitization of society and the global economy. In 2007, it launched an official blog, Dipnote, as well as a Twitter account of the same name, to engage with a global audience. Internally, it launched a wiki, Diplopedia; a suggestion forum called the Sounding Board; and a professional networking software, "Corridor". In May 2009, the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) was created to provide remote internships to students. The same year, the Department of State was the fourth most desired employer for undergraduates according to BusinessWeek. From 2009 to 2017, the State Department launched 21st Century Statecraft, with the official goal of "complementing traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the technologies of our interconnected world." The initiative was designed to utilize digital technology and the Internet to promote foreign policy goals; examples include promoting an SMS campaign to provide disaster relief to Pakistan, and sending DOS personnel to Libya to assist in developing Internet infrastructure and e-government. Colin Powell, who led the department from 2001 to 2005, became the first African-American to hold the post; his immediate successor, Condoleezza Rice, was the second female Secretary of State and the second African-American. Hillary Clinton became the third female Secretary of State when she was appointed in 2009. In 2014, the State Department began expanding into the Navy Hill Complex across 23rd Street NW from the Truman Building. A joint venture consisting of the architectural firms of Goody, Clancy and the Louis Berger Group won a $2.5 million contract in January 2014 to begin planning the renovation of the buildings on the Navy Hill campus, which housed the World War II headquarters of the Office of Strategic Services and was the first headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. Duties and responsibilities The Executive Branch and the Congress have constitutional responsibilities for US foreign policy. Within the Executive Branch, the Department of State is the lead US foreign affairs agency, and its head, the Secretary of State, is the President's principal foreign policy advisor. The Department advances US objectives and interests in the world through its primary role in developing and implementing the President's foreign policy. It also provides an array of important services to US citizens and to foreigners seeking to visit or immigrate to the United States. All foreign affairs activities — US representation abroad, foreign assistance |
starting at 09:30 using GTE airphones and mobile phones. Altogether, the passengers and crew made 35 airphone calls and two cell phone calls from the flight. Ten passengers and two crew members were able to connect, providing information to family, friends, and others on the ground. Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife, Deena, beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row 4. Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb. He also said a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers. Burnett said the stabbed passenger was dead, having failed to exhibit signs of a pulse. It is believed that passenger Mark Rothenberg was the victim. Rothenberg was the only first class passenger who did not make a phone call after the hijacking. Rothenberg was seated in 5B, and Haznawi sat directly behind him in 6B. On Flight 11, Satam al-Suqami, in seat 10B, attacked passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated directly in front of him in 9B. One assumption is that Haznawi attacked Rothenberg, unprovoked, to frighten other passengers and crew into compliance. Alternatively, Rothenberg may have attempted to stop the hijacking and confront the hijackers. Burnett's wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane.... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission." He began asking her for information about the attacks, interrupting her from time to time to tell other passengers nearby what she was saying. Then he hung up. In his next call, Deena informed Burnett of the attack on the Pentagon. Burnett relayed this to the other passengers, and told Deena he and a group of other passengers were putting together a plan to retake the plane. He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something." An unknown flight attendant attempted to contact the United Airlines maintenance facility at 09:32:29. The call lasted 95 seconds, but was not received as it may have been in queue. Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called the maintenance facility at 09:35:40 from row 33. She reported the flight had been hijacked by men with knives who were in the cabin and flight deck and had stabbed another flight attendant, possibly Debbie Welsh. Mark Bingham called his mother at 09:37:03 from row 25. He reported that the plane had been hijacked by three men who claimed to have a bomb. Jeremy Glick called his wife at 09:37:41 from row 27 and told her the flight was hijacked by three dark-skinned men who looked "Iranian", wearing red bandanas and wielding knives. Glick remained connected until the end of the flight. He reported that the passengers voted whether to "rush" the hijackers. The United air traffic control coordinator for West Coast flights, Alessandro "Sandy" Rogers, alerted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Herndon Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, that Flight93 was not responding and was off course. A minute later, the transponder was turned off, but the Cleveland controller continued to monitor the flight on primary radar. The Herndon Center relayed information on Flight93 to FAA headquarters. Joseph DeLuca called his father at 09:43:03 from row 26 to inform him the flight had been hijacked. Todd Beamer attempted to call his wife from row 32 at 09:43:48, but was routed to GTE phone operator Lisa D. Jefferson. Beamer told the operator the flight had been hijacked and that two people who he thought were the pilots were on the floor, dead or injured. He said one of the hijackers had a red belt with what looked to be a bomb strapped to his waist. When the hijackers veered the plane sharply south, Beamer briefly panicked, exclaiming, "We're going down! We're going down!" Linda Gronlund called her sister, Elsa Strong, at 09:46:05 and left her a message saying there were "men with a bomb". Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles called her husband at 09:47:57 and left him a message saying the plane had been hijacked. Marion Britton called her friend, Fred Fiumano, at 09:49:12. Fiumano recalled, "she said, 'We're gonna. They're gonna kill us, you know, We're gonna die.' And I told her, 'Don't worry, they hijacked the plane, they're gonna take you for a ride, you go to their country, and you come back. You stay there for vacation.' You don't know what to saywhat are you gonna say? I kept on saying the same things, 'Be calm.' And she was crying and... screaming and yelling." Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called her husband at 09:50:04 and told him she was heating water to throw at the hijackers. Passenger Lauren Grandcolas called her husband twice, once before takeoff and once during the hijacking. He missed both her calls. Although it was thought that Grandcolas lent her phone to Honor Elizabeth Wainio, it was later determined to be Britton. Wainio called her stepmother at 09:53:43 and concluded, four and a half minutes later, by saying, "I have to go. They're breaking into the cockpit. I love you." Jarrah dialed in the VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) frequency for the VOR navigational aid at Reagan National Airport at 09:55:11 to direct the plane toward Washington, D.C. Bradshaw, on the phone with her husband, said "Everyone is running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye." Beamer told GTE phone operator Lisa Jefferson that he and a few passengers were getting together and were planning to "jump" the hijacker with the bomb. Beamer recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in. Beamer requested of Jefferson, "If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them." After this, Jefferson heard muffled voices and Beamer answering, "Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll." These were Beamer's last words to Jefferson. During the hijacking, Flight 93 passed within (instead of the normal ) of a NASA KC-135 returning from a microgravity flight over Lake Ontario. NASA pilot Dominic Del Rosso recalled how odd the silence on the radio was that morning. Passenger revolt The passenger revolt on Flight93 began at 09:57, after the passengers voted on whether to act. By this time, Flight77 had struck the Pentagon and Flights 11 and 175 had struck the World Trade Center towers. The plane left its Washington, D.C. course after the passengers revolted and the hijackers began maneuvering the plane violently in response. The hijackers in the cockpit became aware of the revolt at 09:57:55, Jarrah exclaiming, "Is there something? A fight?" Edward Felt dialed 9-1-1 from his cell phone from the rear lavatory of the aircraft seeking information at 09:58. His call was answered by dispatcher John Shaw, and Felt was able to tell him about the hijacking before the call was disconnected. Multiple news reports (originally based on a 9-1-1 supervisor's account after having overheard the call) asserted that Edward Felt reported hearing an explosion and seeing smoke from an undetermined location on the plane. These reports were not corroborated by Shaw or Felt's wife, Sandra, who listened to the recording afterwards. CeeCee Lyles called her husband once more from a cell phone and told him the passengers were forcing their way into the cockpit. Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance. He told another hijacker in the cockpit at 09:58:57, "They want to get in here. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold." Jarrah changed tactics at 09:59:52 and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of crashing, screaming, and the shattering of glass and plates. Three times in a period of five seconds there were shouts of pain or distress from a hijacker outside the cockpit, suggesting a hijacker who was standing guard outside the cockpit was being attacked by the passengers. Jarrah stabilized the plane at 10:00:03. Five seconds later, he asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" Another hijacker responded, "No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off." Jarrah once again pitched the airplane up and down. A passenger in the background cried, "In the cockpit! If we don't, we'll die!" at 10:00:25. Sixteen seconds later, another passenger yelled, "Roll it!", possibly referring to using the food cart. The voice recorder captured the sound of the passengers using the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door. Jarrah ceased the violent maneuvers at 10:01:00 and recited the takbir twice. He then asked another hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" The other hijacker responded, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down." The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:17, a male passenger said, "Turn it up!" A second later, a hijacker said, "Pull it down! Pull it down!" At 10:02:33, Jarrah made a desperate plea in Arabic, repeatedly screaming "Give it to me!", possibly referring to the plane's yoke. The hijackers inside the cockpit are heard yelling "No!" over the sound of breaking glass. The final spoken words on the recorder were a calm voice in English instructing, "Pull it up." The plane then crashed into an empty field in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes' flying time from Washington, D.C. The last entry on the voice recorder was made at 10:03:09. The last piece of flight data was recorded at 10:03:10. There is disagreement among some family members of the passengers and the investigative officials as to whether the passengers managed to breach the cockpit or even break the cockpit door. The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that "the hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them". Many of the passengers' family members, having heard the audio recordings, believe the passengers breached the cockpit and killed at least one of the hijackers guarding the cockpit door; some interpreted the audio as suggesting that the passengers and hijackers struggled for control of the yoke. Vice President Dick Cheney, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center deep under the White House, authorized Flight 93 to be shot down, but upon learning of the crash, is reported to have said, "I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane." Crash At 10:03:11, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed coal strip mine known as the Diamond T. Mine owned by PBS Coals in Stonycreek Township in Somerset County. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the flight impacted at 563mph (906km/h, 252m/s, or 489 knots) at a forty-degree nose-down inverted attitude. The impact left a crater eight to ten feet deep (3m) and thirty to fifty feet wide (12m). The coroner ruled that everyone on board who was still alive at the time of the crash died instantly of blunt-force trauma. Many media reports and eyewitness accounts said the time of the crash was 10:06 or 10:10; an initial analysis of seismographic data in the area concluded that the crash occurred at 10:06, but the 9/11 Commission report states that this analysis was not definitive and was retracted. Other media outlets and the 9/11 Commission reported the time of impact as 10:03, based on when the flight recorders stopped, analysis of radar data, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmissions. The only known witness to the actual crash, and the last one to see United 93 airborne, was Stoney Creek resident Nevin Lambert, who reported that he saw the plane upside down as it crashed to the ground in a 45 degree-angled nosedive. Kelly Leverknight, a local resident, was watching news of the attacks when she heard the plane. "I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down. It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there. Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke." Another witness, Eric Peterson, looked up when he heard the plane, "It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets. You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side. There was a great explosion and you could see the flames. It was a massive, massive explosion. Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud." Val McClatchey had been watching footage of the attacks when she heard the plane. She saw it briefly, then heard the impact. The crash knocked out the electricity and phones. McClatchey grabbed her camera and took the only known picture of the smoke cloud from the explosion. In September 2011, shortly before the 10th anniversary of the attacks, a video of the rising smoke cloud filmed by Dave Berkebile (who had died by 2011) from his yard miles away from the crash site was published on YouTube. The first responders arrived at the crash site after 10:06. Cleveland Center controllers, unaware the flight had crashed, notified the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) at 10:07 that Flight93 had a bomb on board and passed the last known position. This call was the first time the military was notified about the flight. Ballinger sent one final ACARS message to Flight93 at 10:10, "Don't divert to DC. Not an option." He repeated the message one minute later. The Herndon Command Center alerted FAA headquarters that Flight93 had crashed at 10:13. NEADS called the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center for an update on Flight93 and received notification that the flight had crashed. At 10:37, CNN correspondent Aaron Brown, covering the collapse of the World Trade Center, announced, "We are getting reports and we are getting lots of reports and we want to be careful to tell you when we have confirmed them and not, but we have a report that a 747 is down in Pennsylvania, and that remains unconfirmed at this point." He followed that up at 10:49 by reporting "We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning, north of the Somerset County Airport, which is in western Pennsylvania, not too terribly far from Pittsburgh, about 80 miles or so, a Boeing 767 jet. Don't know whose airline it was, whose airplane it was, and we don't have any details beyond that which I have just given you." In the confusion, he also erroneously reported a second hijacked plane heading for the Pentagon after the crash of the first. Aftermath Flight 93 fragmented violently upon impact. Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater. Investigators found very light debris including paper and nylon scattered up to eight miles (13km) from the impact point in New Baltimore. Other tiny aircraft fragments were found away at Indian Lake. All human remains were found within a 70-acre (28 ha) area surrounding the impact point. Somerset County Coroner Wally Miller was involved in the investigation and identification of the remains. In examining the wreckage, the only human body part he could see was part of a backbone. Miller later found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains totaling about , or eight percent of the total. The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact. Investigators identified four victims by September 22 and eleven by September 24. They identified another by September 29. 34 passengers were identified by October 27. All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so fragmented that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed. Death certificates for the 40 victims listed the cause of death as homicide and listed the cause of death for the four hijackers as suicide. The remains and personal effects of the victims were returned to the families. The remains of the hijackers, identified by the process of elimination, were turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as evidence. Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. They located the flight data recorder on September 13 and the cockpit voice recorder the following day. The voice recorder was found buried below the crater. The FBI initially refused to release the voice recording, rejecting requests by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and family members of those on board. While access to voice recordings is usually restricted to government crash investigators and plane crash litigants, the FBI made an exception by allowing the relatives of Flight93 victims to listen to the recording in a closed session on April 18, 2002. Jurors for the Zacarias Moussaoui trial heard the tape as part of the proceedings and the transcript was publicly released on April 12, 2006. The audio recording has still not been released to the public, per the request of the victim's loved ones. All passengers and crew on board Flight93 were nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2001. Congressman Bill Shuster introduced a bill to this effect in 2006, and they were granted on September 11, 2014. The obverse of the Medal is inscribed with "A common field one day, a field of honor forever" and "Act of Congress 2011". The reverse of the Medal features 40 stars (in honor of each of the passengers and crew), a sentinel eagle clasping laurel branches, the western front of the U.S. Capitol, and the inscription "We honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who perished in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. Their courageous action will be remembered forever." Beamer's final words, "let's roll", became a national catchphrase. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey changed the name of Newark's airport from Newark International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport and a flag now flies over Terminal A's Gate A17. Flight93 has been the subject of various films and documentaries including The Flight That Fought Back, Flight 93, and the feature film United 93. Flight number "93" was discontinued by United Airlines after the hijacking. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 93 and 175 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated. Possible targets The intended target of Flight93 has never been definitively confirmed. Before the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden told 9/11 planner Ramzi bin al-Shibh to advise Mohamed Atta that he preferred the White House over the Capitol as a target. Atta cautioned bin al-Shibh that this would be difficult, but agreed to include the White House as a possible target and suggested they keep the Capitol as an alternative in case the White House proved too difficult. Eventually, Atta told bin al-Shibh that Jarrah planned to hit the Capitol. Atta briefly mentioned the possibility of striking a nuclear facility, but relented after the other attack pilots voiced their opposition. Based on an exchange between Atta and bin al-Shibh two days before the attacks, the White House would be the primary target for the fourth plane and the Capitol the secondary target. If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane. Immediately after the attacks, there was speculation that Camp David was the intended target. According to testimony by captured al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, U.S. | ACARS message to Flight93 at 10:10, "Don't divert to DC. Not an option." He repeated the message one minute later. The Herndon Command Center alerted FAA headquarters that Flight93 had crashed at 10:13. NEADS called the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center for an update on Flight93 and received notification that the flight had crashed. At 10:37, CNN correspondent Aaron Brown, covering the collapse of the World Trade Center, announced, "We are getting reports and we are getting lots of reports and we want to be careful to tell you when we have confirmed them and not, but we have a report that a 747 is down in Pennsylvania, and that remains unconfirmed at this point." He followed that up at 10:49 by reporting "We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning, north of the Somerset County Airport, which is in western Pennsylvania, not too terribly far from Pittsburgh, about 80 miles or so, a Boeing 767 jet. Don't know whose airline it was, whose airplane it was, and we don't have any details beyond that which I have just given you." In the confusion, he also erroneously reported a second hijacked plane heading for the Pentagon after the crash of the first. Aftermath Flight 93 fragmented violently upon impact. Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater. Investigators found very light debris including paper and nylon scattered up to eight miles (13km) from the impact point in New Baltimore. Other tiny aircraft fragments were found away at Indian Lake. All human remains were found within a 70-acre (28 ha) area surrounding the impact point. Somerset County Coroner Wally Miller was involved in the investigation and identification of the remains. In examining the wreckage, the only human body part he could see was part of a backbone. Miller later found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains totaling about , or eight percent of the total. The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact. Investigators identified four victims by September 22 and eleven by September 24. They identified another by September 29. 34 passengers were identified by October 27. All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so fragmented that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed. Death certificates for the 40 victims listed the cause of death as homicide and listed the cause of death for the four hijackers as suicide. The remains and personal effects of the victims were returned to the families. The remains of the hijackers, identified by the process of elimination, were turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as evidence. Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. They located the flight data recorder on September 13 and the cockpit voice recorder the following day. The voice recorder was found buried below the crater. The FBI initially refused to release the voice recording, rejecting requests by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and family members of those on board. While access to voice recordings is usually restricted to government crash investigators and plane crash litigants, the FBI made an exception by allowing the relatives of Flight93 victims to listen to the recording in a closed session on April 18, 2002. Jurors for the Zacarias Moussaoui trial heard the tape as part of the proceedings and the transcript was publicly released on April 12, 2006. The audio recording has still not been released to the public, per the request of the victim's loved ones. All passengers and crew on board Flight93 were nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2001. Congressman Bill Shuster introduced a bill to this effect in 2006, and they were granted on September 11, 2014. The obverse of the Medal is inscribed with "A common field one day, a field of honor forever" and "Act of Congress 2011". The reverse of the Medal features 40 stars (in honor of each of the passengers and crew), a sentinel eagle clasping laurel branches, the western front of the U.S. Capitol, and the inscription "We honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who perished in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. Their courageous action will be remembered forever." Beamer's final words, "let's roll", became a national catchphrase. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey changed the name of Newark's airport from Newark International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport and a flag now flies over Terminal A's Gate A17. Flight93 has been the subject of various films and documentaries including The Flight That Fought Back, Flight 93, and the feature film United 93. Flight number "93" was discontinued by United Airlines after the hijacking. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 93 and 175 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated. Possible targets The intended target of Flight93 has never been definitively confirmed. Before the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden told 9/11 planner Ramzi bin al-Shibh to advise Mohamed Atta that he preferred the White House over the Capitol as a target. Atta cautioned bin al-Shibh that this would be difficult, but agreed to include the White House as a possible target and suggested they keep the Capitol as an alternative in case the White House proved too difficult. Eventually, Atta told bin al-Shibh that Jarrah planned to hit the Capitol. Atta briefly mentioned the possibility of striking a nuclear facility, but relented after the other attack pilots voiced their opposition. Based on an exchange between Atta and bin al-Shibh two days before the attacks, the White House would be the primary target for the fourth plane and the Capitol the secondary target. If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane. Immediately after the attacks, there was speculation that Camp David was the intended target. According to testimony by captured al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, U.S. officials believed the White House was the intended target. A post-9/11 interview with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin al-Shibh by Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda said Flight93 was heading for the Capitol. The 9/11 Commission Report cited the actions of the crew and passengers in preventing the destruction of either the White House or the Capitol. According to further testimony by Sheikh Mohammed, bin Laden preferred the Capitol over the White House as a target. Salim Hamdan, bin Laden's driver, told interrogators that he knew that the flight was heading for the Capitol. Fighter jet response Two F-16 fighter pilots from the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard, Marc Sasseville and Heather "Lucky" Penney, were scrambled and ordered to intercept Flight 93. The pilots intended to ram it since they did not have time to arm the jets; this was in the days before armed jets stood ready to take off at a moment's notice to protect the capital's airspace. They never reached Flight 93 and did not learn of its crash until hours afterwards. A fighter pilot based at Andrews Air Force Base, Billy Hutchison, claimed that while in the air he spotted Flight 93 on his scope and planned to first fire his training rounds into the engine and cockpit, and then ram the airplane with his own jet. His account was published in Lynn Spencer's book Touching History. John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 commission, pointed out that this would have been impossible, as Hutchison's squadron was not in the air until 10:38, almost 30 minutes after Flight 93 had crashed. When the 9/11 Commission asked Hutchison why he gave this false claim he refused to give an answer and stormed out of the room. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) stated to the 9/11 Commission that fighters would have intercepted Flight93 before it reached its target in Washington, D.C., but the commission disagreed, saying that "NORAD did not even know the plane was hijacked until after it had crashed" and concluding that had it not crashed it probably would have arrived in Washington by 10:23. The 9/11 Commission Report stated that NEADS fighters pursued Delta Air Lines Flight 1989, a flight thought to be hijacked. The commission found that NORAD and the FAA gave inaccurate testimony. Memorials A temporary memorial formed from spontaneous tributes left by visitors in the days after the attacks at the crash site. Foundations across the country began to raise money to fund a memorial to the victims within a month of the crash. Two years after the attacks, federal officials formed the Flight93 National Memorial Advisory Commission responsible for making design recommendations for a permanent memorial. A national design competition was held to create a public memorial in the Pennsylvania field where Flight93 crashed. The winning design, "Crescent of Embrace", was selected out of a pool of 1,011 submissions on September 7, 2005. The site plan features a large crescent pathway with red maples and sugar maples planted along the outer arc. This design ran into opposition over funding, size, and appearance. Republican Congressman Charles H. Taylor blocked $10million in federal funds toward the project as he saw it as "unrealistic". Republican Congressional leaders later persuaded him to acquiesce to political pressure and began approving federal funds. The proposed design has also attracted critics who see Islamic symbolism in the crescent design. On August 31, 2009, an agreement was announced between the landowners and the National Park Service to allow the purchase of land for $9.5million. The memorial area with a white marble Wall of Names was dedicated on September 10, 2011, the day before the 10th anniversary of the crash. A concrete and glass visitor center was opened on September 10, 2015 on a hill overlooking the memorial, with both the visitor center and the Wall of Names being aligned with the flight path and the final piece, the "Tower of Voices", was dedicated during a ceremony on September 9, 2018. CeeCee Lyles was one of the flight attendants on board. In 2003, a statue of Lyles was unveiled in her hometown of Fort Pierce, Florida, which has since gained national recognition as one of the many monuments to the attacks. On August 9, 2007, a portion of U.S.219 in Somerset County, near the Flight 93 National Memorial, was co-signed as the Flight 93 Memorial Highway. At the National September 11 Memorial, the names of the victims of Flight93 are inscribed on Panels S-67 and S-68 at the South Pool. On the sixteenth anniversary of the crash, Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the memorial: "Without regard to personal safety, they [the victims] rushed forward to save [our] lives... I will always believe that I and many others in our nation's capital were able to go home that day and hug our families because of the courage and sacrifice of the heroes of Flight93." Victims The passengers (excluding the hijackers) and crew were from: See also The Flight That Fought Back I Missed Flight 93 Flight 93 United 93 American Airlines Flight 11 United |
in late 2013, it was announced that renovations would take place over two years, starting in spring 2014. Extensive scaffolding was erected in 2014, enclosing and obscuring the dome. All exterior scaffolding was removed by mid-September 2016. With the increased use of technologies such as the internet, a bid tendering process was approved in 2001/2002 for a contract to install the multidirectional radio communication network for Wi-Fi and mobile-phone within the Capitol Building and annexes, followed by the new Capitol Visitor Center. The winning bidder was an Israeli company called Foxcom which has since changed its name and been acquired by Corning Incorporated. Interior The Capitol building is marked by its central dome above a rotunda in the central section of the structure (which also includes the older original smaller center flanked by the two original (designed 1793, occupied 1800) smaller two wings (inner north and inner south) containing the two original smaller meeting chambers for the Senate and the House of Representatives (between 1800 and late 1850s) and then flanked by two further extended (newer) wings, one also for each chamber of the larger, more populous Congress: the new north wing is the Senate chamber and the new south wing is the House of Representatives chamber. Above these newer chambers are galleries where visitors can watch the Senate and House of Representatives. It is an example of neoclassical architecture. Tunnels and internal subways connect the Capitol building with the Congressional office buildings in the Capitol Complex. All rooms in the Capitol are designated as either S (for Senate) or H (for House), depending on whether they are in the Senate or House wing of the Capitol. Art The Capitol has a long history in art of the United States, beginning in 1856 with Italian/Greek American artist Constantino Brumidi and his murals in the hallways of the first floor of the Senate side of the Capitol. The murals, known as the Brumidi Corridors, reflect great moments and people in United States history. Among the original works are those depicting Benjamin Franklin, John Fitch, Robert Fulton, and events such as the Cession of Louisiana. Also decorating the walls are animals, insects and natural flora indigenous to the United States. Brumidi's design left many spaces open so future events in United States history could be added. Among those added are the Spirit of St. Louis, the Moon landing, and the Space Shuttle Challenger crew. Brumidi also worked within the Rotunda. He is responsible for the painting of The Apotheosis of Washington beneath the top of the dome, and also the Frieze of American History. The Apotheosis of Washington was completed in 11 months and painted by Brumidi while suspended nearly in the air. It is said to be the first attempt by the United States to deify a founding father. Washington is depicted surrounded by 13 maidens in an inner ring with many Greek and Roman gods and goddesses below him in a second ring. The frieze is located around the inside of the base of the dome and is a chronological, pictorial history of the United States from the landing of Christopher Columbus to the Wright Brothers's flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The frieze was started in 1878 and was not completed until 1953. The frieze was therefore painted by four different artists: Brumidi, Filippo Costaggini, Charles Ayer Whipple, and Allyn Cox. The final scenes depicted in the fresco had not yet occurred when Brumidi began his Frieze of the United States History. Within the Rotunda there are eight large paintings about the development of the United States as a nation. On the east side are four paintings depicting major events in the discovery of America. On the west are four paintings depicting the founding of the United States. The east side paintings include The Baptism of Pocahontas by John Gadsby Chapman, The Embarkation of the Pilgrims by Robert Walter Weir, The Discovery of the Mississippi by William Henry Powell, and The Landing of Columbus by John Vanderlyn. The paintings on the west side are by John Trumbull: Declaration of Independence, Surrender of General Burgoyne, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and General George Washington Resigning His Commission. Trumbull was a contemporary of the United States' founding fathers and a participant in the American Revolutionary War; he painted a self-portrait into Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, an 1864 painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, hangs over the west staircase in the Senate wing. The Capitol also houses the National Statuary Hall Collection, comprising two statues donated by each of the fifty states to honor persons notable in their histories. One of the most notable statues in the National Statuary Hall is a bronze statue of King Kamehameha donated by the state of Hawaii upon its accession to the union in 1959. The statue's extraordinary weight of raised concerns that it might come crashing through the floor, so it was moved to Emancipation Hall of the new Capitol Visitor Center. The 100th, and last statue for the collection, that of Po'pay from the state of New Mexico, was added on September 22, 2005. It was the first statue moved into the Emancipation Hall. Crypt On the ground floor is an area known as the Crypt. It was intended to be the burial place of George Washington, with a ringed balustrade at the center of the Rotunda above looking down to his tomb. However, under the stipulations of his last will, Washington was buried at Mount Vernon. The Crypt houses exhibits on the history of the Capitol. A compass star inlaid in the floor marks the point at which Washington, D.C. is divided into its four quadrants and is the basis for how addresses in Washington, D.C., are designated (NE, NW, SE, or SW). Within the Crypt is Gutzon Borglum's massive Abraham Lincoln Bust. The sculptor had a fascination with large-scale art and themes of heroic nationalism, and carved the piece from a six-ton block of marble. Borglum carved the bust in 1908, and it was donated to the Congress by Eugene Meyer Jr., and accepted by the Joint Committee on the Library, in the same year. The pedestal was specially designed by the sculptor and installed in 1911. The bust and pedestal were on display in the Rotunda for many years until 1979 when, after a rearrangement of all sculpture in the Rotunda, they were placed in the Crypt. Borglum was a patriot; believing the "monuments we have built are not our own", he looked to create art that was "American, drawn from American sources, memorializing American achievement", according to a 1908 interview article. Borglum's depiction of Lincoln was so accurate, that Robert Todd Lincoln, the president's son, praised the bust as "the most extraordinarily good portrait of my father I have ever seen". Supposedly, according to legend, the marble head remains unfinished (missing the left ear) to symbolize Lincoln's unfinished life. Features At one end of the room near the Old Supreme Court Chamber is a statue of John C. Calhoun. On the right leg of the statue, a mark from a bullet fired during the 1998 shooting incident is clearly visible. The bullet also left a mark on the cape, located on the back right side of the statue. Twelve presidents have lain in state in the Rotunda for public viewing, most recently George H. W. Bush. The tomb meant for Washington stored the catafalque which is used to support coffins lying in state or honor in the Capitol. The catafalque now on display in the Exhibition Hall of the Capitol Visitor Center was used for President Lincoln. The Hall of Columns is located on the House side of the Capitol, home to twenty-eight fluted columns and statues from the National Statuary Hall Collection. In the basement of the Capitol building in a utility room are two marble bathtubs, which are all that remain of the once elaborate Senate baths. These baths were a spa-like facility designed for members of Congress and their guests before many buildings in the city had modern plumbing. The facilities included several bathtubs, a barbershop, and a massage parlor. A steep, metal staircase, totaling 365 steps, leads from the basement to an outdoor walkway on top of the Capitol's dome. The number of steps represents each day of the year. Also in the basement, the weekly Jummah prayer is held on Fridays by Muslim staffers. Height Contrary to a popular myth, D.C. building height laws have never referred to the height of the Capitol building, which rises to . Indeed, the Capitol is only the fourth-tallest structure in Washington. House Chamber The House of Representatives Chamber has 448 permanent seats. Unlike senators, representatives do not have assigned seats. The chamber is large enough to accommodate members of all three branches of the federal government and invited guests for joint sessions of Congress such as the State of the Union speech and other events. The Chamber is adorned with relief portraits of famous lawmakers and lawgivers throughout history. The United States national motto "In God We Trust" is written over the tribune below the clock and above the United States flag. Of the twenty-three relief portraits only Moses is sculpted from a full front view and is located across from the dais where the Speaker of the House ceremonially sits. In order clockwise around the chamber: There is also a quote etched in the marble of the chamber, as stated by venerable statesman Daniel Webster: "Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered." Senate Chamber The current Senate Chamber opened in 1859 and is adorned with white marble busts of the former Presidents of the Senate (Vice Presidents). Old Chambers Statuary Hall (Old Hall of the House) The National Statuary Hall is a chamber in the United States Capitol devoted to sculptures of prominent Americans. The hall, also known as the Old Hall of the House, is a large, two-story, semicircular room with a second story gallery along the curved perimeter. It is located immediately south of the Rotunda. It was the meeting place of the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years (1807–1857). After a few years of disuse, in 1864, it was repurposed as a statuary hall. Old Senate Chamber The Old Senate Chamber is a room in the United States Capitol that was the legislative chamber of the United States Senate from 1810 to 1859, and served as the Supreme Court chamber from 1860 until 1935. Old Supreme Court Chamber This room was originally the lower half of the Old Senate Chamber from 1800 to 1806. After division of the chamber in two levels, this room was used from 1806 until 1860 as the Supreme Court Chamber. In 1860, the Supreme Court began using the newly vacated Old Senate Chamber. In 1935, the Supreme Court vacated the Capitol Building and began meeting in the newly constructed United States Supreme Court Building across the street. Floor plans Exterior Grounds The Capitol Grounds cover approximately 274 acres (1.11 km2), with the grounds proper consisting mostly of lawns, walkways, streets, drives, and planting areas. Several monumental sculptures used to be located on the east facade and lawn of the Capitol including The Rescue and George Washington. The current grounds were designed by noted American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who planned the expansion and landscaping performed from 1874 to 1892. In 1875, as one of his first recommendations, Olmsted proposed the construction of the marble terraces on the north, west, and south sides of the building that exist today. Olmsted also designed the Summerhouse, the open-air brick building that sits just north of the Capitol. Three arches open into the hexagonal structure, which encloses a fountain and twenty-two brick chairs. A fourth wall holds a small window which looks onto an artificial grotto. Built between 1879 and 1881, the Summerhouse was intended to answer complaints that visitors to the Capitol had no place to sit and no place to obtain water for their horses and themselves. Modern drinking fountains have since replaced Olmsted's fountain for the latter purpose. Olmsted intended to build a second, matching Summerhouse on the southern side of the Capitol, but congressional objections led to the project's cancellation. Flags Up to four U.S. flags can be seen flying over the Capitol. Two flagpoles | a chamber in the United States Capitol devoted to sculptures of prominent Americans. The hall, also known as the Old Hall of the House, is a large, two-story, semicircular room with a second story gallery along the curved perimeter. It is located immediately south of the Rotunda. It was the meeting place of the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 50 years (1807–1857). After a few years of disuse, in 1864, it was repurposed as a statuary hall. Old Senate Chamber The Old Senate Chamber is a room in the United States Capitol that was the legislative chamber of the United States Senate from 1810 to 1859, and served as the Supreme Court chamber from 1860 until 1935. Old Supreme Court Chamber This room was originally the lower half of the Old Senate Chamber from 1800 to 1806. After division of the chamber in two levels, this room was used from 1806 until 1860 as the Supreme Court Chamber. In 1860, the Supreme Court began using the newly vacated Old Senate Chamber. In 1935, the Supreme Court vacated the Capitol Building and began meeting in the newly constructed United States Supreme Court Building across the street. Floor plans Exterior Grounds The Capitol Grounds cover approximately 274 acres (1.11 km2), with the grounds proper consisting mostly of lawns, walkways, streets, drives, and planting areas. Several monumental sculptures used to be located on the east facade and lawn of the Capitol including The Rescue and George Washington. The current grounds were designed by noted American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who planned the expansion and landscaping performed from 1874 to 1892. In 1875, as one of his first recommendations, Olmsted proposed the construction of the marble terraces on the north, west, and south sides of the building that exist today. Olmsted also designed the Summerhouse, the open-air brick building that sits just north of the Capitol. Three arches open into the hexagonal structure, which encloses a fountain and twenty-two brick chairs. A fourth wall holds a small window which looks onto an artificial grotto. Built between 1879 and 1881, the Summerhouse was intended to answer complaints that visitors to the Capitol had no place to sit and no place to obtain water for their horses and themselves. Modern drinking fountains have since replaced Olmsted's fountain for the latter purpose. Olmsted intended to build a second, matching Summerhouse on the southern side of the Capitol, but congressional objections led to the project's cancellation. Flags Up to four U.S. flags can be seen flying over the Capitol. Two flagpoles are located at the base of the dome on the East and West sides. These flagpoles have flown the flag day and night since World War I. The other two flagpoles are above the North (Senate) and South (House of Representatives) wings of the building, and fly only when the chamber below is in session. The flag above the House of Representatives is raised and lowered by House pages. The flag above the United States Senate is raised and lowered by Senate Doorkeepers. To raise the flag, Doorkeepers access the roof of the Capitol from the Senate Sergeant at Arms's office. Several auxiliary flagpoles, to the west of the dome and not visible from the ground, are used to meet congressional requests for flags flown over the Capitol. Constituents pay for U.S. flags flown over the Capitol to commemorate a variety of events such as the death of a veteran family member. Major events The Capitol, as well as the grounds of Capitol Hill, have played host to major events, including presidential inaugurations held every four years. During an inauguration, the front of the Capitol is outfitted with a platform and a grand staircase. Annual events at the Capitol include Independence Day celebrations, and the National Memorial Day Concert. The general public has paid respect to a number of individuals lying in state at the Capitol, including numerous former presidents, senators, and other officials. Other Americans lying in honor include Officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, the two officers killed in the 1998 shooting incident. Chestnut was the first African American ever to lie in honor in the Capitol. The public also paid respect to Rosa Parks, an icon of the civil rights movement, at the Capitol in 2005. She was the first woman and second African American to lie in honor in the Capitol. In February 2018, the evangelical Rev. Billy Graham became the fourth private citizen to lie in honor in the Rotunda. On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis gave a joint address to Congress, the first Pope to do so. Security The U.S. Capitol is believed to have been the intended target of United Airlines Flight 93, one of the four planes that were hijacked on September 11, 2001. The plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers tried to regain control of the plane from the hijackers. Since the September 11 attacks, the roads and grounds around the Capitol have undergone dramatic changes. The United States Capitol Police have also installed checkpoints to inspect vehicles at specific locations around Capitol Hill, and have closed a section of one street indefinitely. The level of screening employed varies. On the main east–west thoroughfares of Constitution and Independence Avenues, barricades are implanted in the roads that can be raised in the event of an emergency. Trucks larger than pickups are interdicted by the Capitol Police and are instructed to use other routes. On the checkpoints at the shorter cross streets, the barriers are typically kept in a permanent "emergency" position, and only vehicles with special permits are allowed to pass. All Capitol visitors are screened by a magnetometer, and all items that visitors may bring inside the building are screened by an x-ray device. In both chambers, gas masks are located underneath the chairs in each chamber for members to use in case of emergency. Structures ranging from scores of Jersey barriers to hundreds of ornamental bollards have been erected to obstruct the path of any vehicles that might stray from the designated roadways. After the 2021 United States Capitol attack, security increased again. Additional security fences were installed around the perimeter, and National Guard troops were deployed to bolster security. List of security incidents On January 30, 1835, what is believed to be the first attempt to kill a sitting President of the United States occurred just outside the United States Capitol. As President Andrew Jackson was leaving the Capitol out of the East Portico after the funeral of South Carolina Representative Warren R. Davis, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed and deranged housepainter from England, either burst from a crowd or stepped out from hiding behind a column and aimed a pistol at Jackson which misfired. Lawrence then pulled out a second pistol which also misfired. It has since been postulated that the moisture from the humid weather of the day contributed to the double misfiring. Lawrence was then restrained, with legend saying that Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane, prompting his aides to restrain him. Others present, including Davy Crockett, restrained and disarmed Lawrence. On April 23, 1844, then House-Speaker John White was involved in a physical confrontation on the House floor with Democratic Congressman George O. Rathbun of New York. White was delivering a speech in defense of Senator Henry Clay, the Whig nominee for President in that year's presidential election, and objected to a ruling from the Speaker denying him time to conclude his remarks. When Rathbun told White to be quiet, White confronted him and their disagreement lead to a fistfight between the two with dozens of their colleagues rushing to break up the fight. During the disturbance, an unknown visitor fired a pistol into the crowd, wounding a police officer. Both White and Rathbun subsequently apologized for their actions. On July 2, 1915, prior to the United States' entry into World War I, Eric Muenter (aka Frank Holt), a German professor who wanted to stop American support of the Allies of World War I, exploded a bomb in the reception room of the U.S. Senate. The next morning he tried to assassinate J. P. Morgan Jr., son of the financier, at his home on Long Island, New York. J.P. Morgan's company served as Great Britain's principal U.S. purchasing agent for munitions and other war supplies. In a letter to the Washington Evening Star published after the explosion, Muenter, writing under an assumed name, said he hoped that the detonation would "make enough noise to be heard above the voices that clamor for war." In the 1954 United States Capitol shooting, Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire on members of Congress from the visitors' gallery, injuring five representatives. On March 1, 1971, a bomb exploded on the ground floor of the Capitol, placed by the radical left domestic terrorist group the Weather Underground. They placed the bomb as a demonstration against U.S. involvement in Laos. In the 1983 United States Senate bombing, a group called the Armed Resistance Unit claimed responsibility for a bomb that detonated in the lobby outside the office of Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd. Six people associated with the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee were later found in contempt of court for refusing to testify about the bombing. In 1990, three members of the Armed Resistance Unit were convicted of the bombing, which they claimed was in response to the invasion of Grenada. In the 1998 United States Capitol shooting, Russell Eugene Weston Jr. burst into the Capitol and opened fire, killing two Capitol Police officers, Officer Jacob Chestnut and Det. John Gibson. In 2004, the Capitol was briefly evacuated after a plane carrying the then-governor of Kentucky strayed into restricted airspace above the district. In 2013, Miriam Carey, 34, a dental hygienist from Stamford, Connecticut, attempted to drive through a White House security checkpoint in her black Infiniti G37 coupe, struck a U.S. Secret Service officer, and was chased by the Secret Service to the United States Capitol where she was fatally shot by law enforcement officers. A shooting incident occurred in March 2016. One female bystander was wounded by police but not seriously injured; a man pointing a gun was shot and arrested, in critical but stable condition. The city police of Washington D.C. described the shooting incident as "isolated". In the 2021 United States Capitol attack, during the counting of electoral college votes for the 2020 United States presidential election, a pro-Trump rally resulted in a mob that violently stormed the Capitol. The rioters unlawfully entered the Capitol during the joint session of Congress certifying the election of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, temporarily disrupting the proceedings. This triggered a lockdown in the building. Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and other staff members were evacuated, while others were instructed to barricade themselves inside offices and closets. The rioters breached the Senate Chamber and multiple staff offices, including the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One person was shot by law enforcement, and later succumbed to the injury. President-elect Joe Biden criticized the violence as "insurrection" and said democracy was "under unprecedented assault" as a result of the attack. The attack resulted in the death of four rioters, including a woman who was shot as she attempted to breach the Capitol. The events ultimately led to the second impeachment of Donald Trump. It was the first time the Capitol had been violently seized since 1814, when it was taken by the British in the War of 1812. In the April 2021 United States Capitol car attack, an attacker rammed a car into barriers outside the Capitol, hitting several Capitol Police Officers before exiting his vehicle and attempting to attack others with a knife. An officer hit by the attacker's car died shortly thereafter. The attacker was shot by Capitol Police and later died of his injuries. Capitol Visitor Center The United States Capitol Visitor Center (CVC), located below the East Front of the Capitol and its plaza, between the Capitol building and 1st Street East, opened on December 2, 2008. The CVC provides a single security checkpoint for all visitors, including those with disabilities, and an expansion space for the US Congress. The complex contains of space below ground on three floors, and offers visitors a food court, restrooms, and educational exhibits, including an 11-foot scale model of the Capitol dome. It also features skylights affording views of the actual dome. Long in the planning stages, construction began in the fall of 2001, following the killing of two Capitol police officers in 1998. The estimated final cost of constructing the CVC was $621 million. Gallery See also Apotheosis of Democracy by Paul Wayland Bartlett, a pediment on the east front of the House of Representatives Portico Congressional Prayer Room Hideaways, secret offices used by members of the Senate History of modern period domes President's Room, an ornate office sometimes used by the President United States fifty-dollar bill, which pictures the Capitol on the back Vice President's Room Washington's Tomb Citations References Fryd, Vivien Green (1987). Two Sculptures for the Capitol: Horatio Greenough’s “Rescue” and Luigi Persico’s “Discovery of America.” In American Art Journal (Vol. 19, pp. 16–39). Further reading Aikman, Lonnelle. We, the People: the Story of the United States Capitol, Its Past and Its Promise. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Capitol Historical Society, in cooperation with the National Geographic Society, 1964. Ovason, David, The Secret Architecture of our Nation's Capital: the Masons and the building of Washington, D.C., New York City, New York: Harper Collins, 2000. External links Capitol Visitors Center United States Capitol Historical Society Architect of the Capitol Capitol History Project Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation, Library of Congress U.S. Capitol Police "Book Discussion on Freedom's Cap, C-SPAN, March 20, 2012 Committee for the Preservation of the National Capitol Records, 1949–1958. Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. 1800 establishments in Washington, D.C. African-American history of Washington, D.C. Buildings and structures in Washington, D.C. Buildings of the United States government in Washington, D.C. Capitol Hill Capitol Legislative buildings Seats of national |
Sudan liable for the attack, while another has released over $13 million in Sudanese frozen assets to the relatives of those killed. The United States Navy has reconsidered its rules of engagement in response to this attack. On 30 October 2020, Sudan and the United States signed a bilateral claims agreement to compensate families of the sailors who died in the bombing. The agreement entered into force in February 2021. Attack On the morning of Thursday, 12 October 2000, Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, docked in Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 9:30 and began refueling at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small fiberglass boat carrying C4 explosives and two suicide bombers approached the port side of the destroyer and exploded, creating a gash in the ship's port side, according to the memorial plate to those who lost their lives. Former CIA intelligence officer Robert Finke said the blast appeared to be caused by C4 explosives molded into a shaped charge against the hull of the boat. Around of explosive were used. Much of the blast entered a mechanical space below the ship's galley, violently pushing up the deck, thereby killing crew members who were lining up for lunch. The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control after three days. Divers inspected the hull and determined that the keel had not been damaged. The sailors injured in the explosion were taken to the United States Army's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein, Germany, before being sent to the United States. The attack was the deadliest against a U.S. naval vessel since the Iraqi attack on on 17 May 1987. The asymmetric warfare attack was organized and directed by the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. In June 2001, an al-Qaeda recruitment video featuring Osama bin Laden boasted about the attack and encouraged similar attacks. Al-Qaeda had previously attempted a similar but less publicized attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer while in port at Aden on 3 January 2000, as a part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. The plan was to load a boat full of explosives and detonate them near The Sullivans. However, the boat was so overladen that it sank, forcing the attack to be abandoned. Planning for the October attack was discussed at the Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit from 5 to 8 January, shortly after the failed attempt. Along with other plotters, the summit was attended by future 11 September hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar, who then traveled to San Diego, California. On 10 June 2000, Mihdhar left San Diego to visit his wife in Yemen at a house also used as a communications hub for al-Qaeda. After the bombing, Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul Karim al-Iryani reported that Mihdhar had been one of the key planners of the attack and had been in the country at the time of the attacks. He later returned to the United States to participate in the 9/11 hijack of American Airlines Flight 77, which flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people. Rescue The first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken Cole was , a Type 23 frigate of the Royal Navy, under the command of Captain Anthony Rix. She was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf. Marlborough had full medical and damage control teams on board, and when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden. Eleven of the most badly injured sailors were sent via MEDEVAC provided by the French air force to a French military hospital in Djibouti and underwent surgery before being sent to Germany. The first U.S. military support to arrive was a U.S. Air Force Security Forces Quick Reaction Force from the 363rd Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing, based in Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, transported by C-130 aircraft. They were followed by another small group of United States Marines from the Interim Marine Corps Security Force Company, Bahrain flown in by P-3 Orion aircraft. Both forces landed a few hours after the ship was struck and were reinforced by a U.S Marine platoon with the 1st Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company (FAST), based out of Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines from 6th Platoon, 1st FAST arrived on 13 October from Norfolk, Virginia. The FAST platoon and security forces airmen secured Cole and a nearby hotel that was housing the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. and made best speed to arrive in the vicinity of Aden that afternoon providing repair and logistical support. , , , and arrived in Aden some days later, providing watch relief crews, harbor security, damage control equipment, billeting, and food service for the crew of Cole. Landing craft (LCU) from the amphibious assault ships provided daily runs from Tarawa with hot food and supplies, and ferried personnel to and from all other naval vessels supporting Cole. In the remaining days LCU 1632 and various personnel from LCU 1666 teamed up to patrol around Cole. Investigation In a form of transport pioneered in 1988 by aboard Mighty Servant 2, Cole was hauled from Aden aboard the Dutch semi-submersible heavy lift salvage ship . Cole arrived in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 13 December 2000, where she was rebuilt. FBI and NCIS agents sent to Yemen to investigate the bombing worked in an extremely hostile environment. They were met at the airport by Yemeni special forces with "...each soldier pointing an AK-47." Speakers in the Yemeni parliament "calling for jihad against America," were broadcast on local television each night. After some delay, the Yemenis produced a CCTV video from a harborside security camera, but the crucial moment of the explosion was deleted. "There were so many perceived threats that the agents often slept in their clothes and with their weapons at their sides." At one point, the hotel where the agents stayed "was surrounded with men in traditional dress, some in Jeeps, all carrying guns." Finally the agents abandoned their hotel to stay at a US Navy vessel in the Bay of Aden, but they still did not feel safe. After being granted "...permission from the Yemeni government to fly back to shore," an agent said their helicopter took evasive action during the flight due to fears of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. Responsibility On 14 March 2007, a federal judge in the United States, Robert G. Doumar, ruled that the Sudanese government was liable for the bombing. The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed against the Sudanese government by relatives of the victims, who claim that al-Qaeda could not have carried out the attacks without the support of Sudanese officials. The judge stated; On 25 July 2007, Doumar ordered the Sudanese government to pay $8 million to the families of the 17 sailors who died. He calculated the amount they should receive by multiplying the salary of the sailors by the number of years they would have continued to work. Sudan's Justice Minister Mohammed al-Mard has stated that Sudan intended to appeal the ruling. By May 2008, all defendants convicted in the attack had escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. On 30 June 2008, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, legal advisor to the U.S. Military tribunal system, announced charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian citizen of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. According to the Pentagon, the charges have been defined as "...organizing and directing..." the bombing of USS Cole. The charges still must be approved by a Department of Defense official who oversees military commissions set up for terrorism suspects. The Pentagon will seek the death penalty. Alleged mastermind Several individuals have been described as the Cole bombing mastermind. Among the allegations leveled by a Guantanamo Military Commission against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, captured in late 2002, was that he was the mastermind of the Cole bombing. Al-Nashiri was one of the three "high-value detainees" the George W. Bush Presidency was to acknowledge had been subjected to waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques." Abu Ali al-Harithi was one of the first suspected terrorists to be targeted by a missile-armed Predator drone. He, too, was described as the mastermind of the Cole bombing. In 2003, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two people who were believed to have been the last main co-conspirators who were still at large, Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi and Fahd al-Quso. Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi was convicted in Yemen and sentenced to death. Al-Badawi, also called a "mastermind" of the Cole bombing, was one of seventeen captives who escaped through a tunnel from a Yemeni jail in 2006. Al-Badawi was killed in a drone strike on 1 January 2019 in the Marib governate, Yemen. Tawfiq bin Attash, who was captured in Pakistan 2003 and is currently being held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, was "...considered the mastermind..." of the bombing. An al-Qaeda commander in Yemen also confirmed that another co-conspirator in the bombing, Abdul Mun'im Salim al-Fatahani, was killed in a U.S. drone strike on 31 January 2012. On 6 May 2012, officials from the Yemen government reported that al-Quso was killed in an airstrike earlier in the day in southern Yemen. The report was later confirmed by U.S. officials and al-Qaeda's media network As-Sahab. Aftermath Rules of engagement The destroyer's rules of engagement, as approved by the Pentagon, kept her guards from firing upon the small boat (which was not known to be loaded with explosives) as it neared them without first obtaining permission from Coles captain or another officer. Petty Officer John Washak said that right after the blast, a senior chief petty officer ordered him to turn an M-60 machine gun on Coles fantail away from a second small boat approaching. "With blood still on my face", he said, he | flew into the Pentagon, killing 184 people. Rescue The first naval ship on the scene to assist the stricken Cole was , a Type 23 frigate of the Royal Navy, under the command of Captain Anthony Rix. She was on passage to the UK after a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf. Marlborough had full medical and damage control teams on board, and when her offer of assistance was accepted she immediately diverted to Aden. Eleven of the most badly injured sailors were sent via MEDEVAC provided by the French air force to a French military hospital in Djibouti and underwent surgery before being sent to Germany. The first U.S. military support to arrive was a U.S. Air Force Security Forces Quick Reaction Force from the 363rd Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing, based in Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, transported by C-130 aircraft. They were followed by another small group of United States Marines from the Interim Marine Corps Security Force Company, Bahrain flown in by P-3 Orion aircraft. Both forces landed a few hours after the ship was struck and were reinforced by a U.S Marine platoon with the 1st Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company (FAST), based out of Norfolk, Virginia. The Marines from 6th Platoon, 1st FAST arrived on 13 October from Norfolk, Virginia. The FAST platoon and security forces airmen secured Cole and a nearby hotel that was housing the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen. and made best speed to arrive in the vicinity of Aden that afternoon providing repair and logistical support. , , , and arrived in Aden some days later, providing watch relief crews, harbor security, damage control equipment, billeting, and food service for the crew of Cole. Landing craft (LCU) from the amphibious assault ships provided daily runs from Tarawa with hot food and supplies, and ferried personnel to and from all other naval vessels supporting Cole. In the remaining days LCU 1632 and various personnel from LCU 1666 teamed up to patrol around Cole. Investigation In a form of transport pioneered in 1988 by aboard Mighty Servant 2, Cole was hauled from Aden aboard the Dutch semi-submersible heavy lift salvage ship . Cole arrived in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on 13 December 2000, where she was rebuilt. FBI and NCIS agents sent to Yemen to investigate the bombing worked in an extremely hostile environment. They were met at the airport by Yemeni special forces with "...each soldier pointing an AK-47." Speakers in the Yemeni parliament "calling for jihad against America," were broadcast on local television each night. After some delay, the Yemenis produced a CCTV video from a harborside security camera, but the crucial moment of the explosion was deleted. "There were so many perceived threats that the agents often slept in their clothes and with their weapons at their sides." At one point, the hotel where the agents stayed "was surrounded with men in traditional dress, some in Jeeps, all carrying guns." Finally the agents abandoned their hotel to stay at a US Navy vessel in the Bay of Aden, but they still did not feel safe. After being granted "...permission from the Yemeni government to fly back to shore," an agent said their helicopter took evasive action during the flight due to fears of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles. Responsibility On 14 March 2007, a federal judge in the United States, Robert G. Doumar, ruled that the Sudanese government was liable for the bombing. The ruling was issued in response to a lawsuit filed against the Sudanese government by relatives of the victims, who claim that al-Qaeda could not have carried out the attacks without the support of Sudanese officials. The judge stated; On 25 July 2007, Doumar ordered the Sudanese government to pay $8 million to the families of the 17 sailors who died. He calculated the amount they should receive by multiplying the salary of the sailors by the number of years they would have continued to work. Sudan's Justice Minister Mohammed al-Mard has stated that Sudan intended to appeal the ruling. By May 2008, all defendants convicted in the attack had escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials. On 30 June 2008, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, legal advisor to the U.S. Military tribunal system, announced charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian citizen of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. According to the Pentagon, the charges have been defined as "...organizing and directing..." the bombing of USS Cole. The charges still must be approved by a Department of Defense official who oversees military commissions set up for terrorism suspects. The Pentagon will seek the death penalty. Alleged mastermind Several individuals have been described as the Cole bombing mastermind. Among the allegations leveled by a Guantanamo Military Commission against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, captured in late 2002, was that he was the mastermind of the Cole bombing. Al-Nashiri was one of the three "high-value detainees" the George W. Bush Presidency was to acknowledge had been subjected to waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques." Abu Ali al-Harithi was one of the first suspected terrorists to be targeted by a missile-armed Predator drone. He, too, was described as the mastermind of the Cole bombing. In 2003, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two people who were believed to have been the last main co-conspirators who were still at large, Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi and Fahd al-Quso. Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi was convicted in Yemen and sentenced to death. Al-Badawi, also called a "mastermind" of the Cole bombing, was one of seventeen captives who escaped through a tunnel from a Yemeni jail in 2006. Al-Badawi was killed in a drone strike on 1 January |
markup language syntax, font, and varying levels of support by web browsers. HTML document characters Web pages are typically HTML or XHTML documents. Both types of documents consist, at a fundamental level, of characters, which are graphemes and grapheme-like units, independent of how they manifest in computer storage systems and networks. An HTML document is a sequence of Unicode characters. More specifically, HTML 4.0 documents are required to consist of characters in the HTML document character set : a character repertoire wherein each character is assigned a unique, non-negative integer code point. This set is defined in the HTML 4.0 DTD, which also establishes the syntax (allowable sequences of characters) that can produce a valid HTML document. The HTML document character set for HTML 4.0 consists of most, but not all, of the characters jointly defined by Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646: the Universal Character Set (UCS). Like HTML documents, an XHTML document is a sequence of Unicode characters. However, an XHTML document is an XML document, which, while not having an explicit "document character" layer of abstraction, nevertheless relies upon a similar definition of permissible characters that cover most, but not all, of the Unicode/UCS character definitions. The sets used by HTML and XHTML/XML are slightly different, but these differences have little effect on the average document author. Regardless of whether the document is HTML or XHTML, when stored on a file system or transmitted over a network, the document's characters are encoded as a sequence of bit octets (bytes) according to a particular character encoding. This encoding may either be a Unicode Transformation Format, like UTF-8, that can directly encode any Unicode character, or a legacy encoding, like Windows-1252, that cannot. However, even when using encodings that do not support all Unicode characters, the encoded document may make use of numeric character references. For example, ☺ (☺) is used to indicate a smiling face character in the Unicode character set. Character encoding In order to support all Unicode characters without resorting to numeric character references, a web page must have an encoding covering all of Unicode. The most popular is UTF-8, where the ASCII characters, such as English letters, digits, and some other common characters are preserved unchanged against ASCII. This makes HTML code (such as <br> and </div>) unchanged compared to ASCII. Characters outside the ASCII range are stored in 2-4 bytes. It is also possible to use UTF-16 where most characters are stored as two bytes with varying endianness, which is supported by modern browsers but less commonly used. Numeric character references In order to work around the limitations of legacy encodings, HTML is designed such that it is possible to represent characters from the whole of Unicode inside an HTML document by using a numeric character reference: a sequence of characters that explicitly spell out the Unicode code point of the character being represented. A character reference takes the form &#N;, where N is either a decimal number for the Unicode code point, or a hexadecimal number, in which case it must be prefixed by x. The characters that compose the numeric character reference are universally representable in every encoding approved for use on the Internet. The support for hexadecimal in this context is more recent, so older browsers might have problems displaying characters referenced with hexadecimal numbers—but they will probably have a problem displaying Unicode characters above code point 255 anyway. To ensure better compatibility with older browsers, it is still a common practice to convert the hexadecimal code point into a decimal value (for example 合 instead of 合). Named character entities In HTML 4, there is a standard set of 252 named character entities for characters - some common, some obscure - that are either not found in certain character encodings or are markup sensitive in some contexts (for example angle brackets and quotation marks). Although any Unicode character can be referenced by its numeric code point, some HTML document authors prefer to use these named entities instead, where possible, as they are less cryptic and were better supported by early browsers. Character entities can be included in an HTML document via the use of entity references, which take the form &EntityName;, where EntityName is the name of the entity. For example, —, much like — or —, represents : the em dash character "—" even if the character encoding used doesn't contain that character. For the full list, see: List of XML and HTML character entity | is supported by modern browsers but less commonly used. Numeric character references In order to work around the limitations of legacy encodings, HTML is designed such that it is possible to represent characters from the whole of Unicode inside an HTML document by using a numeric character reference: a sequence of characters that explicitly spell out the Unicode code point of the character being represented. A character reference takes the form &#N;, where N is either a decimal number for the Unicode code point, or a hexadecimal number, in which case it must be prefixed by x. The characters that compose the numeric character reference are universally representable in every encoding approved for use on the Internet. The support for hexadecimal in this context is more recent, so older browsers might have problems displaying characters referenced with hexadecimal numbers—but they will probably have a problem displaying Unicode characters above code point 255 anyway. To ensure better compatibility with older browsers, it is still a common practice to convert the hexadecimal code point into a decimal value (for example 合 instead of 合). Named character entities In HTML 4, there is a standard set of 252 named character entities for characters - some common, some obscure - that are either not found in certain character encodings or are markup sensitive in some contexts (for example angle brackets and quotation marks). Although any Unicode character can be referenced by its numeric code point, some HTML document authors prefer to use these named entities instead, where possible, as they are less cryptic and were better supported by early browsers. Character entities can be included in an HTML document via the use of entity references, which take the form &EntityName;, where EntityName is the name of the entity. For example, —, much like — or —, represents : the em dash character "—" even if the character encoding used doesn't contain that character. For the full list, see: List of XML and HTML character entity references. Character encoding determination In order to correctly process HTML, a web browser must ascertain which Unicode characters are represented by the encoded form of an HTML document. In order to do this, the web browser must know what encoding was used. Encoding information When a document is transmitted via a MIME message or a transport that uses MIME content types such as an HTTP response, the message may signal the encoding via a Content-Type header, such as Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8. Other external means of declaring encoding are permitted but rarely used. If the document uses a Unicode encoding, the encoding info might also be present in the form of a Byte order mark. Finally, the encoding can be declared via the HTML syntax. For the text/html serialisation then, as long as the page is encoded in an extension of ASCII (such as UTF-8, and thus, not if the page is using UTF-16), a meta element, like <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> or (starting with HTML5) <meta charset="UTF-8"> can be used. For HTML pages serialized as XML, then declaration options is to either rely on the encoding default (which for XML documents is UTF-8), or to use an XML encoding declaration. The meta attribute plays no role in HTML served as XML. Encoding defaults An encoding default applies when there is no external or internal encoding declaration and also no Byte order mark. While the encoding default for HTML pages served as XML is required to be UTF-8, the encoding default for a regular Web page (that is: for HTML pages serialized as text/html) varies depending on the localization of the browser. For a system set up mainly for Western European languages, it will generally be Windows-1252. For Cyrillic alphabet locales, the default is typically Windows-1251. For a browser from a location where legacy multi-byte character encodings are prevalent, some form of auto-detection is likely to be applied. Encoding trends Because of the legacy of 8-bit text representations in programming languages and operating systems and the desire to avoid burdening users with the need to understand the nuances of encoding, many text editors used by HTML authors are unable or unwilling to offer a choice of encodings when saving files to disk and often do not even allow input of characters beyond a very limited range. Consequently, many HTML authors are unaware of encoding issues and may not have any idea what encoding their documents actually use. Misunderstandings, such as the belief that the encoding declaration affects a change in the actual encoding (whereas it is actually just a label that could be inaccurate), is also a reason for this editor attitude. Another factor contributing in the same direction, is the arrival of UTF-8 — which greatly diminishes the need for other encodings, and thus modern editors tends to default, as recommended by the HTML5 specification, to UTF-8. Byte order mark/Unicode sniffing For both serializations of HTML |
its black-body spectrum a filament light bulb is a very inefficient ultraviolet source, emitting only a fraction of a percent of its energy as UV. Gas-discharge lamps Specialized UV gas-discharge lamps containing different gases produce UV radiation at particular spectral lines for scientific purposes. Argon and deuterium arc lamps are often used as stable sources, either windowless or with various windows such as magnesium fluoride. These are often the emitting sources in UV spectroscopy equipment for chemical analysis. Other UV sources with more continuous emission spectra include xenon arc lamps (commonly used as sunlight simulators), deuterium arc lamps, mercury-xenon arc lamps, and metal-halide arc lamps. The excimer lamp, a UV source developed in the early 2000s, is seeing increasing use in scientific fields. It has the advantages of high-intensity, high efficiency, and operation at a variety of wavelength bands into the vacuum ultraviolet. Ultraviolet LEDs Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be manufactured to emit radiation in the ultraviolet range. In 2019, following significant advances over the preceding five years, UV‑A LEDs of 365 nm and longer wavelength were available, with efficiencies of 50% at 1.0 W output. Currently, the most common types of UV LEDs that can be found / purchased are in 395 nm and 365 nm wavelengths, both of which are in the UV‑A spectrum. When referring to the wavelength of the UV LEDs, the rated wavelength is the peak wavelength that the LEDs put out, and light at both higher and lower wavelength frequencies near the peak wavelength are present, which is important to consider when looking to apply them for certain purposes. The cheaper and more common 395 nm UV LEDs are much closer to the visible spectrum, and LEDs not only operate at their peak wavelength, but they also give off a purple color, and end up not emitting pure UV light, unlike other UV LEDs that are deeper into the spectrum. Such LEDs are increasingly used for applications such as UV curing applications, charging glow-in-the-dark objects such as paintings or toys, and they are becoming very popular in a process known as retro-brighting, which speeds up the process of refurbishing / bleaching old plastics and portable flashlights for detecting counterfeit money and bodily fluids, and are already successful in digital print applications and inert UV curing environments. Power densities approaching 3 W/cm2 (30 kW/m2) are now possible, and this, coupled with recent developments by photo-initiator and resin formulators, makes the expansion of LED cured UV materials likely. UV‑C LEDs are developing rapidly, but may require testing to verify effective disinfection. Citations for large-area disinfection are for non-LED UV sources known as germicidal lamps. Also, they are used as line sources to replace deuterium lamps in liquid chromatography instruments. Ultraviolet lasers Gas lasers, laser diodes, and solid-state lasers can be manufactured to emit ultraviolet rays, and lasers are available that cover the entire UV range. The nitrogen gas laser uses electronic excitation of nitrogen molecules to emit a beam that is mostly UV. The strongest ultraviolet lines are at 337.1 nm and 357.6 nm in wavelength. Another type of high-power gas lasers are excimer lasers. They are widely used lasers emitting in ultraviolet and vacuum ultraviolet wavelength ranges. Presently, UV argon-fluoride excimer lasers operating at 193 nm are routinely used in integrated circuit production by photolithography. The current wavelength limit of production of coherent UV is about 126 nm, characteristic of the Ar2* excimer laser. Direct UV-emitting laser diodes are available at 375 nm. UV diode-pumped solid state lasers have been demonstrated using cerium-doped lithium strontium aluminum fluoride crystals (Ce:LiSAF), a process developed in the 1990s at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Wavelengths shorter than 325 nm are commercially generated in diode-pumped solid-state lasers. Ultraviolet lasers can also be made by applying frequency conversion to lower-frequency lasers. Ultraviolet lasers have applications in industry (laser engraving), medicine (dermatology, and keratectomy), chemistry (MALDI), free-air secure communications, computing (optical storage), and manufacture of integrated circuits. Tunable vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) The vacuum ultraviolet (V‑UV) band (100–200 nm) can be generated by non-linear 4 wave mixing in gases by sum or difference frequency mixing of 2 or more longer wavelength lasers. The generation is generally done in gasses (e.g. krypton, hydrogen which are two-photon resonant near 193 nm) or metal vapors (e.g. magnesium). By making one of the lasers tunable, the V‑UV can be tuned. If one of the lasers is resonant with a transition in the gas or vapor then the V‑UV production is intensified. However, resonances also generate wavelength dispersion, and thus the phase matching can limit the tunable range of the 4 wave mixing. Difference frequency mixing (i.e., ) as an advantage over sum frequency mixing because the phase matching can provide greater tuning. In particular, difference frequency mixing two photons of an (193 nm) excimer laser with a tunable visible or near IR laser in hydrogen or krypton provides resonantly enhanced tunable V‑UV covering from 100 nm to 200 nm. Practically, the lack of suitable gas / vapor cell window materials above the lithium fluoride cut-off wavelength limit the tuning range to longer than about 110 nm. Tunable V‑UV wavelengths down to 75 nm was achieved using window-free configurations. Plasma and synchrotron sources of extreme UV Lasers have been used to indirectly generate non-coherent extreme UV (E‑UV) radiation at 13.5 nm for extreme ultraviolet lithography. The E‑UV is not emitted by the laser, but rather by electron transitions in an extremely hot tin or xenon plasma, which is excited by an excimer laser. This technique does not require a synchrotron, yet can produce UV at the edge of the X‑ray spectrum. Synchrotron light sources can also produce all wavelengths of UV, including those at the boundary of the UV and X‑ray spectra at 10 nm. Human health-related effects The impact of ultraviolet radiation on human health has implications for the risks and benefits of sun exposure and is also implicated in issues such as fluorescent lamps and health. Getting too much sun exposure can be harmful, but in moderation, sun exposure is beneficial. Beneficial effects UV light (specifically, UV‑B) causes the body to produce vitamin D, which is essential for life. Humans need some UV radiation to maintain adequate vitamin D levels. According to the World Health Organization There is no doubt that a little sunlight is good for you! But 5–15 minutes of casual sun exposure of hands, face and arms two to three times a week during the summer months is sufficient to keep your vitamin D levels high. Vitamin D can also be obtained from food and supplementation. Excess sun exposure produces harmful effects, however. Vitamin D promotes the creation of serotonin. The production of serotonin is in direct proportion to the degree of bright sunlight the body receives. Serotonin is thought to provide sensations of happiness, well-being and serenity to human beings. Skin conditions UV rays also treat certain skin conditions. Modern phototherapy has been used to successfully treat psoriasis, eczema, jaundice, vitiligo, atopic dermatitis, and localized scleroderma. In addition, UV light, in particular UV‑B radiation, has been shown to induce cell cycle arrest in keratinocytes, the most common type of skin cell. As such, sunlight therapy can be a candidate for treatment of conditions such as psoriasis and exfoliative cheilitis, conditions in which skin cells divide more rapidly than usual or necessary. Harmful effects In humans, excessive exposure to UV radiation can result in acute and chronic harmful effects on the eye's dioptric system and retina. The risk is elevated at high altitudes and people living in high latitude areas where snow covers the ground right into early summer and sun positions even at zenith are low, are particularly at risk. Skin, the circadian system, and the immune system can also be affected. The differential effects of various wavelengths of light on the human cornea and skin are sometimes called the "erythemal action spectrum". The action spectrum shows that UVA does not cause immediate reaction, but rather UV begins to cause photokeratitis and skin redness (with lighter skinned individuals being more sensitive) at wavelengths starting near the beginning of the UVB band at 315 nm, and rapidly increasing to 300 nm. The skin and eyes are most sensitive to damage by UV at 265–275 nm, which is in the lower UV‑C band. At still shorter wavelengths of UV, damage continues to happen, but the overt effects are not as great with so little penetrating the atmosphere. The WHO-standard ultraviolet index is a widely publicized measurement of total strength of UV wavelengths that cause sunburn on human skin, by weighting UV exposure for action spectrum effects at a given time and location. This standard shows that most sunburn happens due to UV at wavelengths near the boundary of the UV‑A and UV‑B bands. Skin damage Overexposure to UV‑B radiation not only can cause sunburn but also some forms of skin cancer. However, the degree of redness and eye irritation (which are largely not caused by UV‑A) do not predict the long-term effects of UV, although they do mirror the direct damage of DNA by ultraviolet. All bands of UV radiation damage collagen fibers and accelerate aging of the skin. Both UV‑A and UV‑B destroy vitamin A in skin, which may cause further damage. UVB radiation can cause direct DNA damage. This cancer connection is one reason for concern about ozone depletion and the ozone hole. The most deadly form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, is mostly caused by DNA damage independent from UV‑A radiation. This can be seen from the absence of a direct UV signature mutation in 92% of all melanoma. Occasional overexposure and sunburn are probably greater risk factors for melanoma than long-term moderate exposure. UV‑C is the highest-energy, most-dangerous type of ultraviolet radiation, and causes adverse effects that can variously be mutagenic or carcinogenic. In the past, UV‑A was considered not harmful or less harmful than UV‑B, but today it is known to contribute to skin cancer via indirect DNA damage (free radicals such as reactive oxygen species). UV‑A can generate highly reactive chemical intermediates, such as hydroxyl and oxygen radicals, which in turn can damage DNA. The DNA damage caused indirectly to skin by UV‑A consists mostly of single-strand breaks in DNA, while the damage caused by UV‑B includes direct formation of thymine dimers or cytosine dimers and double-strand DNA breakage. UV‑A is immunosuppressive for the entire body (accounting for a large part of the immunosuppressive effects of sunlight exposure), and is mutagenic for basal cell keratinocytes in skin. UVB photons can cause direct DNA damage. UV‑B radiation excites DNA molecules in skin cells, causing aberrant covalent bonds to form between adjacent pyrimidine bases, producing a dimer. Most UV-induced pyrimidine dimers in DNA are removed by the process known as nucleotide excision repair that employs about 30 different proteins. Those pyrimidine dimers that escape this repair process can induce a form of programmed cell death (apoptosis) or can cause DNA replication errors leading to mutation. As a defense against UV radiation, the amount of the brown pigment melanin in the skin increases when exposed to moderate (depending on skin type) levels of radiation; this is commonly known as a sun tan. The purpose of melanin is to absorb UV radiation and dissipate the energy as harmless heat, protecting the skin against both direct and indirect DNA damage from the UV. UV‑A gives a quick tan that lasts for days by oxidizing melanin that was already present and triggers the release of the melanin from melanocytes. UV‑B yields a tan that takes roughly 2 days to develop because it stimulates the body to produce more melanin. Sunscreen safety debate Medical organizations recommend that patients protect themselves from UV radiation by using sunscreen. Five sunscreen ingredients have been shown to protect mice against skin tumors. However, some sunscreen chemicals produce potentially harmful substances if they are illuminated while in contact with living cells. The amount of sunscreen that penetrates into the lower layers of the skin may be large enough to cause damage. Sunscreen reduces the direct DNA damage that causes sunburn, by blocking UV‑B, and the usual SPF rating indicates how effectively this radiation is blocked. SPF is, therefore, also called UVB-PF, for "UV‑B protection factor". This rating, however, offers no data about important protection against UVA, which does not primarily cause sunburn but is still harmful, since it causes indirect DNA damage and is also considered carcinogenic. Several studies suggest that the absence of UV‑A filters may be the cause of the higher incidence of melanoma found in sunscreen users compared to non-users. Some sunscreen lotions contain titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and avobenzone, which help protect against UV‑A rays. The photochemical properties of melanin make it an excellent photoprotectant. However, sunscreen chemicals cannot dissipate the energy of the excited state as efficiently as melanin and therefore, if sunscreen ingredients penetrate into the lower layers of the skin, the amount of reactive oxygen species may be increased. The amount of sunscreen that penetrates through the stratum corneum may or may not be large enough to cause damage. In an experiment by Hanson et al. that was published in 2006, the amount of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured in untreated and in sunscreen treated skin. In the first 20 minutes, the film of sunscreen had a protective effect and the number of ROS species was smaller. After 60 minutes, however, the amount of absorbed sunscreen was so high that the amount of ROS was higher in the sunscreen-treated skin than in the untreated skin. The study indicates that sunscreen must be reapplied within 2 hours in order to prevent UV light from penetrating to sunscreen-infused live skin cells. Aggravation of certain skin conditions Ultraviolet radiation can aggravate several skin conditions and diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren's syndrome, Sinear Usher syndrome, rosacea, dermatomyositis, Darier's disease, Kindler–Weary syndrome and Porokeratosis. Eye damage The eye is most sensitive to damage by UV in the lower UV‑C band at 265–275 nm. Radiation of this wavelength is almost absent from sunlight but is found in welder's arc lights and other artificial sources. Exposure to these can cause "welder's flash" or "arc eye" (photokeratitis) and can lead to cataracts, pterygium and pinguecula formation. To a lesser extent, UV‑B in sunlight from 310 to 280 nm also causes photokeratitis ("snow blindness"), and the cornea, the lens, and the retina can be damaged. Protective eyewear is beneficial to those exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Since light can reach the eyes from the sides, full-coverage eye protection is usually warranted if there is an increased risk of exposure, as in high-altitude mountaineering. Mountaineers are exposed to higher-than-ordinary levels of UV radiation, both because there is less atmospheric filtering and because of reflection from snow and ice. Ordinary, untreated eyeglasses give some protection. Most plastic lenses give more protection than glass lenses, because, as noted above, glass is transparent to UV‑A and the common acrylic plastic used for lenses is less so. Some plastic lens materials, such as polycarbonate, inherently block most UV. Degradation of polymers, pigments and dyes UV degradation is one form of polymer degradation that affects plastics exposed to sunlight. The problem appears as discoloration or fading, cracking, loss of strength or disintegration. The effects of attack increase with exposure time and sunlight intensity. The addition of UV absorbers inhibits the effect. Sensitive polymers include thermoplastics and speciality fibers like aramids. UV absorption leads to chain degradation and loss of strength at sensitive points in the chain structure. Aramid rope must be shielded with a sheath of thermoplastic if it is to retain its strength. Many pigments and dyes absorb UV and change colour, so paintings and textiles may need extra protection both from sunlight and fluorescent bulbs, two common sources of UV radiation. Window glass absorbs some harmful UV, but valuable artifacts need extra shielding. Many museums place black curtains over watercolour paintings and ancient textiles, for example. Since watercolours can have very low pigment levels, they need extra protection from UV. Various forms of picture framing glass, including acrylics (plexiglass), laminates, and coatings, offer different degrees of UV (and visible light) protection. Applications Because of its ability to cause chemical reactions and excite fluorescence in materials, ultraviolet radiation has a number of applications. The following table gives some uses of specific wavelength bands in the UV spectrum 13.5 nm: Extreme ultraviolet lithography 30–200 nm: Photoionization, ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, standard integrated circuit manufacture by photolithography 230–365 nm: UV-ID, label tracking, barcodes 230–400 nm: Optical sensors, various instrumentation 240–280 nm: Disinfection, decontamination of surfaces and water (DNA absorption has a peak at 260 nm), germicidal lamps 200–400 nm: Forensic analysis, drug detection 270–360 nm: Protein analysis, DNA sequencing, drug discovery 280–400 nm: Medical imaging of cells 300–320 nm: Light therapy in medicine 300–365 nm: Curing of polymers and printer inks 350–370 nm: Bug zappers (flies are most attracted to light at 365 nm) Photography Photographic film responds to ultraviolet radiation but the glass lenses of cameras usually block radiation shorter than 350 nm. Slightly yellow UV-blocking filters are often used for outdoor photography to prevent unwanted bluing and overexposure by UV rays. For photography in the near UV, special filters may be used. Photography with wavelengths shorter than 350 nm requires special quartz lenses which do not absorb the radiation. Digital cameras sensors may have internal filters that block UV to improve color rendition accuracy. Sometimes these internal filters can be removed, or they may be absent, and an external visible-light filter prepares the camera for near-UV photography. A few cameras are designed for use in the UV. Photography by reflected ultraviolet radiation is useful for medical, scientific, and forensic investigations, in applications as widespread as detecting bruising of skin, alterations of documents, or restoration work on paintings. Photography of the fluorescence produced by ultraviolet illumination uses visible wavelengths of light. In ultraviolet astronomy, measurements are used to discern the chemical composition of the interstellar medium, and the temperature and composition of stars. Because the ozone layer blocks many UV frequencies from reaching telescopes on the surface of the Earth, most UV observations are made from space. Electrical and electronics industry Corona discharge on electrical apparatus can be detected by its ultraviolet emissions. Corona causes degradation of electrical insulation and emission of ozone and nitrogen oxide. EPROMs (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) are erased by exposure to UV radiation. These modules have a transparent (quartz) window on the top of the chip that allows the UV radiation in. Fluorescent dye uses Colorless fluorescent dyes that emit blue light under UV are added as optical brighteners to paper and fabrics. The blue light emitted by these agents counteracts yellow tints that may be present and causes the colors and whites to appear whiter or more brightly colored. UV fluorescent dyes that glow in the primary colors are used in paints, papers, and textiles either to enhance color under daylight illumination or to provide special effects when lit with UV lamps. Blacklight paints that contain dyes that glow under UV are used in a number of art and aesthetic applications. Amusement parks often use UV lighting to fluoresce ride artwork and backdrops. This often has the side effect of causing rider's white clothing to glow light-purple. To help prevent counterfeiting of currency, or forgery of important documents such as driver's licenses and passports, the paper may include a UV watermark or fluorescent multicolor fibers that are visible under ultraviolet light. Postage stamps are tagged with a phosphor that glows under UV rays to permit automatic detection of the stamp and facing of the letter. UV fluorescent dyes are used in many applications (for example, biochemistry and forensics). Some brands of pepper spray will leave an invisible chemical (UV dye) that is not easily washed off on a pepper-sprayed attacker, which would help police identify the attacker later. In some types of nondestructive testing UV stimulates fluorescent dyes to highlight defects in a broad range of materials. These dyes may be carried into surface-breaking defects by capillary action (liquid penetrant inspection) or they may be bound to ferrite particles caught in magnetic leakage fields in ferrous materials (magnetic particle inspection). Analytic uses Forensics UV is an investigative tool at the crime scene helpful in locating and identifying bodily fluids such as semen, blood, and saliva. For example, ejaculated fluids or saliva can be detected by high-power UV sources, irrespective of the structure or colour of the surface the fluid is deposited upon. UV–vis microspectroscopy is also used to analyze trace evidence, such as textile fibers and paint chips, as well as questioned documents. Other applications include the authentication of various collectibles and art, and detecting counterfeit currency. Even materials not specially marked with UV sensitive dyes may have distinctive fluorescence under UV exposure or may fluoresce differently under short-wave versus long-wave ultraviolet. Enhancing contrast of ink Using multi-spectral imaging it is possible to read illegible papyrus, such as the burned papyri of the Villa of the Papyri or of Oxyrhynchus, or the Archimedes palimpsest. The technique involves taking pictures of the illegible document using different filters in the infrared or ultraviolet range, finely tuned to capture certain wavelengths of light. Thus, the optimum spectral portion can be found for distinguishing ink from paper on the papyrus surface. Simple NUV sources can be used to highlight faded iron-based ink on vellum. Sanitary compliance Ultraviolet light helps detect organic material deposits that remain on surfaces where periodic cleaning and sanitizing may have failed. It is used in the hotel industry, manufacturing, and other industries where levels of cleanliness or contamination are inspected. Perennial news features for many television news organizations involve an investigative reporter using a similar device to reveal unsanitary conditions in hotels, public toilets, hand rails, and such. Chemistry UV/Vis spectroscopy is widely used as a technique in chemistry to analyze chemical structure, the most notable one being conjugated systems. UV radiation is often used to excite a | large enough to cause damage. Sunscreen reduces the direct DNA damage that causes sunburn, by blocking UV‑B, and the usual SPF rating indicates how effectively this radiation is blocked. SPF is, therefore, also called UVB-PF, for "UV‑B protection factor". This rating, however, offers no data about important protection against UVA, which does not primarily cause sunburn but is still harmful, since it causes indirect DNA damage and is also considered carcinogenic. Several studies suggest that the absence of UV‑A filters may be the cause of the higher incidence of melanoma found in sunscreen users compared to non-users. Some sunscreen lotions contain titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and avobenzone, which help protect against UV‑A rays. The photochemical properties of melanin make it an excellent photoprotectant. However, sunscreen chemicals cannot dissipate the energy of the excited state as efficiently as melanin and therefore, if sunscreen ingredients penetrate into the lower layers of the skin, the amount of reactive oxygen species may be increased. The amount of sunscreen that penetrates through the stratum corneum may or may not be large enough to cause damage. In an experiment by Hanson et al. that was published in 2006, the amount of harmful reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured in untreated and in sunscreen treated skin. In the first 20 minutes, the film of sunscreen had a protective effect and the number of ROS species was smaller. After 60 minutes, however, the amount of absorbed sunscreen was so high that the amount of ROS was higher in the sunscreen-treated skin than in the untreated skin. The study indicates that sunscreen must be reapplied within 2 hours in order to prevent UV light from penetrating to sunscreen-infused live skin cells. Aggravation of certain skin conditions Ultraviolet radiation can aggravate several skin conditions and diseases, including systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjögren's syndrome, Sinear Usher syndrome, rosacea, dermatomyositis, Darier's disease, Kindler–Weary syndrome and Porokeratosis. Eye damage The eye is most sensitive to damage by UV in the lower UV‑C band at 265–275 nm. Radiation of this wavelength is almost absent from sunlight but is found in welder's arc lights and other artificial sources. Exposure to these can cause "welder's flash" or "arc eye" (photokeratitis) and can lead to cataracts, pterygium and pinguecula formation. To a lesser extent, UV‑B in sunlight from 310 to 280 nm also causes photokeratitis ("snow blindness"), and the cornea, the lens, and the retina can be damaged. Protective eyewear is beneficial to those exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Since light can reach the eyes from the sides, full-coverage eye protection is usually warranted if there is an increased risk of exposure, as in high-altitude mountaineering. Mountaineers are exposed to higher-than-ordinary levels of UV radiation, both because there is less atmospheric filtering and because of reflection from snow and ice. Ordinary, untreated eyeglasses give some protection. Most plastic lenses give more protection than glass lenses, because, as noted above, glass is transparent to UV‑A and the common acrylic plastic used for lenses is less so. Some plastic lens materials, such as polycarbonate, inherently block most UV. Degradation of polymers, pigments and dyes UV degradation is one form of polymer degradation that affects plastics exposed to sunlight. The problem appears as discoloration or fading, cracking, loss of strength or disintegration. The effects of attack increase with exposure time and sunlight intensity. The addition of UV absorbers inhibits the effect. Sensitive polymers include thermoplastics and speciality fibers like aramids. UV absorption leads to chain degradation and loss of strength at sensitive points in the chain structure. Aramid rope must be shielded with a sheath of thermoplastic if it is to retain its strength. Many pigments and dyes absorb UV and change colour, so paintings and textiles may need extra protection both from sunlight and fluorescent bulbs, two common sources of UV radiation. Window glass absorbs some harmful UV, but valuable artifacts need extra shielding. Many museums place black curtains over watercolour paintings and ancient textiles, for example. Since watercolours can have very low pigment levels, they need extra protection from UV. Various forms of picture framing glass, including acrylics (plexiglass), laminates, and coatings, offer different degrees of UV (and visible light) protection. Applications Because of its ability to cause chemical reactions and excite fluorescence in materials, ultraviolet radiation has a number of applications. The following table gives some uses of specific wavelength bands in the UV spectrum 13.5 nm: Extreme ultraviolet lithography 30–200 nm: Photoionization, ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, standard integrated circuit manufacture by photolithography 230–365 nm: UV-ID, label tracking, barcodes 230–400 nm: Optical sensors, various instrumentation 240–280 nm: Disinfection, decontamination of surfaces and water (DNA absorption has a peak at 260 nm), germicidal lamps 200–400 nm: Forensic analysis, drug detection 270–360 nm: Protein analysis, DNA sequencing, drug discovery 280–400 nm: Medical imaging of cells 300–320 nm: Light therapy in medicine 300–365 nm: Curing of polymers and printer inks 350–370 nm: Bug zappers (flies are most attracted to light at 365 nm) Photography Photographic film responds to ultraviolet radiation but the glass lenses of cameras usually block radiation shorter than 350 nm. Slightly yellow UV-blocking filters are often used for outdoor photography to prevent unwanted bluing and overexposure by UV rays. For photography in the near UV, special filters may be used. Photography with wavelengths shorter than 350 nm requires special quartz lenses which do not absorb the radiation. Digital cameras sensors may have internal filters that block UV to improve color rendition accuracy. Sometimes these internal filters can be removed, or they may be absent, and an external visible-light filter prepares the camera for near-UV photography. A few cameras are designed for use in the UV. Photography by reflected ultraviolet radiation is useful for medical, scientific, and forensic investigations, in applications as widespread as detecting bruising of skin, alterations of documents, or restoration work on paintings. Photography of the fluorescence produced by ultraviolet illumination uses visible wavelengths of light. In ultraviolet astronomy, measurements are used to discern the chemical composition of the interstellar medium, and the temperature and composition of stars. Because the ozone layer blocks many UV frequencies from reaching telescopes on the surface of the Earth, most UV observations are made from space. Electrical and electronics industry Corona discharge on electrical apparatus can be detected by its ultraviolet emissions. Corona causes degradation of electrical insulation and emission of ozone and nitrogen oxide. EPROMs (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) are erased by exposure to UV radiation. These modules have a transparent (quartz) window on the top of the chip that allows the UV radiation in. Fluorescent dye uses Colorless fluorescent dyes that emit blue light under UV are added as optical brighteners to paper and fabrics. The blue light emitted by these agents counteracts yellow tints that may be present and causes the colors and whites to appear whiter or more brightly colored. UV fluorescent dyes that glow in the primary colors are used in paints, papers, and textiles either to enhance color under daylight illumination or to provide special effects when lit with UV lamps. Blacklight paints that contain dyes that glow under UV are used in a number of art and aesthetic applications. Amusement parks often use UV lighting to fluoresce ride artwork and backdrops. This often has the side effect of causing rider's white clothing to glow light-purple. To help prevent counterfeiting of currency, or forgery of important documents such as driver's licenses and passports, the paper may include a UV watermark or fluorescent multicolor fibers that are visible under ultraviolet light. Postage stamps are tagged with a phosphor that glows under UV rays to permit automatic detection of the stamp and facing of the letter. UV fluorescent dyes are used in many applications (for example, biochemistry and forensics). Some brands of pepper spray will leave an invisible chemical (UV dye) that is not easily washed off on a pepper-sprayed attacker, which would help police identify the attacker later. In some types of nondestructive testing UV stimulates fluorescent dyes to highlight defects in a broad range of materials. These dyes may be carried into surface-breaking defects by capillary action (liquid penetrant inspection) or they may be bound to ferrite particles caught in magnetic leakage fields in ferrous materials (magnetic particle inspection). Analytic uses Forensics UV is an investigative tool at the crime scene helpful in locating and identifying bodily fluids such as semen, blood, and saliva. For example, ejaculated fluids or saliva can be detected by high-power UV sources, irrespective of the structure or colour of the surface the fluid is deposited upon. UV–vis microspectroscopy is also used to analyze trace evidence, such as textile fibers and paint chips, as well as questioned documents. Other applications include the authentication of various collectibles and art, and detecting counterfeit currency. Even materials not specially marked with UV sensitive dyes may have distinctive fluorescence under UV exposure or may fluoresce differently under short-wave versus long-wave ultraviolet. Enhancing contrast of ink Using multi-spectral imaging it is possible to read illegible papyrus, such as the burned papyri of the Villa of the Papyri or of Oxyrhynchus, or the Archimedes palimpsest. The technique involves taking pictures of the illegible document using different filters in the infrared or ultraviolet range, finely tuned to capture certain wavelengths of light. Thus, the optimum spectral portion can be found for distinguishing ink from paper on the papyrus surface. Simple NUV sources can be used to highlight faded iron-based ink on vellum. Sanitary compliance Ultraviolet light helps detect organic material deposits that remain on surfaces where periodic cleaning and sanitizing may have failed. It is used in the hotel industry, manufacturing, and other industries where levels of cleanliness or contamination are inspected. Perennial news features for many television news organizations involve an investigative reporter using a similar device to reveal unsanitary conditions in hotels, public toilets, hand rails, and such. Chemistry UV/Vis spectroscopy is widely used as a technique in chemistry to analyze chemical structure, the most notable one being conjugated systems. UV radiation is often used to excite a given sample where the fluorescent emission is measured with a spectrofluorometer. In biological research, UV radiation is used for quantification of nucleic acids or proteins. In environmental chemistry, UV radiation could also be used to detect Contaminants of emerging concern in water samples. In pollution control applications, ultraviolet analyzers are used to detect emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur compounds, mercury, and ammonia, for example in the flue gas of fossil-fired power plants. Ultraviolet radiation can detect thin sheens of spilled oil on water, either by the high reflectivity of oil films at UV wavelengths, fluorescence of compounds in oil, or by absorbing of UV created by Raman scattering in water. Ultraviolet lamps are also used as part of the analysis of some minerals and gems. Material science uses Fire detection In general, ultraviolet detectors use either a solid-state device, such as one based on silicon carbide or aluminium nitride, or a gas-filled tube as the sensing element. UV detectors that are sensitive to UV in any part of the spectrum respond to irradiation by sunlight and artificial light. A burning hydrogen flame, for instance, radiates strongly in the 185- to 260-nanometer range and only very weakly in the IR region, whereas a coal fire emits very weakly in the UV band yet very strongly at IR wavelengths; thus, a fire detector that operates using both UV and IR detectors is more reliable than one with a UV detector alone. Virtually all fires emit some radiation in the UVC band, whereas the Sun's radiation at this band is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere. The result is that the UV detector is "solar blind", meaning it will not cause an alarm in response to radiation from the Sun, so it can easily be used both indoors and outdoors. UV detectors are sensitive to most fires, including hydrocarbons, metals, sulfur, hydrogen, hydrazine, and ammonia. Arc welding, electrical arcs, lightning, X-rays used in nondestructive metal testing equipment (though this is highly unlikely), and radioactive materials can produce levels that will activate a UV detection system. The presence of UV-absorbing gases and vapors will attenuate the UV radiation from a fire, adversely affecting the ability of the detector to detect flames. Likewise, the presence of an oil mist in the air or an oil film on the detector window will have the same effect. Photolithography Ultraviolet radiation is used for very fine resolution photolithography, a procedure wherein a chemical called a photoresist is exposed to UV radiation that has passed through a mask. The exposure causes chemical reactions to occur in the photoresist. After removal of unwanted photoresist, a pattern determined by the mask remains on the sample. Steps may then be taken to "etch" away, deposit on or otherwise modify areas of the sample where no photoresist remains. Photolithography is used in the manufacture of semiconductors, integrated circuit components, and printed circuit boards. Photolithography processes used to fabricate electronic integrated circuits presently use 193 nm UV and are experimentally using 13.5 nm UV for extreme ultraviolet lithography. Polymers Electronic components that require clear transparency for light to exit or enter (photovoltaic panels and sensors) can be potted using acrylic resins that are cured using UV energy. The advantages are low VOC emissions and rapid curing. Certain inks, coatings, and adhesives are formulated with photoinitiators and resins. When exposed to UV light, polymerization occurs, and so the adhesives harden or cure, usually within a few seconds. Applications include glass and plastic bonding, optical fiber coatings, the coating of flooring, UV coating and paper finishes in offset printing, dental fillings, and decorative fingernail "gels". UV sources for UV curing applications include UV lamps, UV LEDs, and excimer flash lamps. Fast processes such as flexo or offset printing require high-intensity light focused via reflectors onto a moving substrate and medium so high-pressure Hg (mercury) or Fe (iron, doped)-based bulbs are used, energized with electric arcs or microwaves. Lower-power fluorescent lamps and LEDs can be used for static applications. Small high-pressure lamps can have light focused and transmitted to the work area via liquid-filled or fiber-optic light guides. The impact of UV on polymers is used for modification of the (roughness and hydrophobicity) of polymer surfaces. For example, a poly(methyl methacrylate) surface can be smoothed by vacuum ultraviolet. UV radiation is useful in preparing low-surface-energy polymers for adhesives. Polymers exposed to UV will oxidize, thus raising the surface energy of the polymer. Once the surface energy of the polymer has been raised, the bond between the adhesive and the polymer is stronger. Biology-related uses Air purification Using a catalytic chemical reaction from titanium dioxide and UVC exposure, oxidation of organic matter converts pathogens, pollens, and mold spores into harmless inert byproducts. However, the reaction of titanium dioxide and UVC is not a straight path. Several hundreds of reactions occur prior to the inert byproducts stage and can hinder the resulting reaction creating formaldehyde, aldehyde, and other VOC's en route to a final stage. Thus, the use of titanium dioxide and UVC requires very specific parameters for a successful outcome. The cleansing mechanism of UV is a photochemical process. Contaminants in the indoor environment are almost entirely |
his inability to swim and instead spends the bulk of the book reminiscing on his life and the adventures that brought him to be stranded. He returned to semiotics in Kant and the Platypus in 1997, a book which Eco himself reputedly warned fans of his novels away from, saying, "This a hard-core book. It’s not a page turner. You have to stay on every page for two weeks with your pencil. In other words, don’t buy it if you are not Einstein." In 2000 a seminar in Timbuktu, Mali, was followed up with another gathering in Bologna to reflect on the conditions of reciprocal knowledge between East and West. This, in turn, gave rise to a series of conferences in Brussels, Paris and Goa, culminating in Beijing in 2007. The topics of the Beijing conference were "Order and Disorder", "New Concepts of War and Peace", "Human Rights" and "Social Justice and Harmony". Eco presented the opening lecture. Among those giving presentations were anthropologists Balveer Arora, Varun Sahni, and Rukmini Bhaya Nair from India, Moussa Sow from Africa, Roland Marti and Maurice Olender from Europe, Cha Insuk from Korea, and Huang Ping and Zhao Tinyang from China. Also on the program were scholars from the fields of law and science including Antoine Danchin, Ahmed Djebbar and Dieter Grimm. Eco's interest in east–west dialogue to facilitate international communication and understanding also correlates with his related interest in the international auxiliary language Esperanto. Later novels and writing (2000–2016) Baudolino was published in 2000. Baudolino is a much-travelled polyglot Piedmontese scholar who saves the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates during the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. Claiming to be an accomplished liar, he confides his history, from his childhood as a peasant lad endowed with a vivid imagination, through his role as adopted son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, to his mission to visit the mythical realm of Prester John. Throughout his retelling, Baudolino brags of his ability to swindle and tell tall tales, leaving the historian (and the reader) unsure of just how much of his story was a lie. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005) is about Giambattista Bodoni, an old bookseller specializing in antiques who emerges from a coma with only some memories to recover his past. Bodoni is pressed to make a very difficult choice, one between his past and his future. He must either abandon his past to live his future or regain his past and sacrifice his future. The Prague Cemetery, Eco's sixth novel, was published in 2010. It is the story of a secret agent who "weaves plots, conspiracies, intrigues and attacks, and helps determine the historical and political fate of the European Continent". The book is a narrative of the rise of Modern-day antisemitism, by way of the Dreyfus affair, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other important 19th-century events which gave rise to hatred and hostility toward the Jewish people. In 2012, Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière published a book of conversations on the future of information carriers. Eco criticized social networks, saying for example that "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots." From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation (2014). Numero Zero was published in 2015. Set in 1992 and narrated by Colonna, a hack journalist working on a Milan newspaper, it offers a satire of Italy's kickback and bribery culture as well as, among many things, the legacy of Fascism. Influences and themes A group of avant-garde artists, painters, musicians and writers, whom he had befriended at RAI, the Neoavanguardia or Gruppo '63, became an important and influential component in Eco's writing career. In 1971, Eco co-founded Versus: Quaderni di studi semiotici (known as VS among Italian academics), a semiotic journal. VS is used by scholars whose work is related to signs and signification. The journal's foundation and activities have contributed to semiotics as an academic field in its own right, both in Italy and in the rest of Europe. Most of the well-known European semioticians, including Eco, A. J. Greimas, Jean-Marie Floch, and Jacques Fontanille, as well as philosophers and linguists like John Searle and George Lakoff, have published original articles in VS. His work with Serbian and Russian scholars and writers included thought on Milorad Pavić and a meeting with Alexander Genis. Beginning in the early 1990s, Eco collaborated with artists and philosophers such as Enrico Baj, Jean Baudrillard, and Donald Kuspit to publish a number of tongue-in-cheek texts on the imaginary science of 'pataphysics. Eco's fiction has enjoyed a wide audience around the world, with many translations. His novels are full of subtle, often multilingual, references to literature and history. Eco's work illustrates the concept of intertextuality, or the inter-connectedness of all literary works. Eco cited James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who have influenced his work the most. Eco was also a translator: he translated into Italian Raymond Queneau's Exercices de style (1947). Eco's translation was published under the title Esercizi di stile in 1983. He was also the translator of Sylvie, a novella by Gérard de Nerval. Critical reception and legacy As an academic studying philosophy, semiotics, and culture, Eco divided critics as to whether his theorizing should be seen as brilliant or an unnecessary vanity project obsessing over minutiae, while his fiction writing stunned critics with its simultaneous complexity and popularity. In his 1980 review of The Role of the Reader, philosopher Roger Scruton, attacking Eco's esoteric tendencies, writes that, "[Eco seeks] the rhetoric of technicality, the means of generating so much smoke for so long that the reader will begin to blame his own lack of perception, rather than the author’s lack of illumination, for the fact that he has ceased to see." In his 1986 review of Faith in Fakes and Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, art historian Nicholas Penny, meanwhile, accuses Eco of pandering, writing "I suspect that Eco may have first been seduced from intellectual caution, if not modesty, by the righteous cause of ‘relevance’ (a word much in favour when the earlier of these essays appeared) – a cause which Medievalists may be driven to embrace with particularly desperate abandon." At the other end of the spectrum, Eco has been praised for his levity and encyclopedic knowledge, which allowed him to make abstruse academic subjects accessible and engaging. In a 1980 review of The Name of the Rose, literary critic and scholar Frank Kermode refers to Theory of Semiotics, as "a vigorous but difficult treatise", finding Eco's novel, "a wonderfully interesting book – a very odd thing to be born of a passion for the Middle Ages and for semiotics, and a very modern pleasure." Gilles Deleuze cites Eco's 1962 book The Open Work approvingly in his seminal 1968 text Difference and Repetition, a book which poststructuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida is said to have also taken inspiration from. In an obituary by the philosopher and literary critic Carlin Romano, meanwhile, Eco is described as having "[become], over time, the critical conscience at the center of Italian humanistic culture, uniting smaller worlds like no one before him." In 2017, a retrospective of Eco's work was published by Open Court as the 35th volume in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Sara G. Beardsworth and Randall E. Auxier, featuring essays by 23 contemporary scholars. Honors Following the publication of In the Name of the Rose in 1980, in 1981 Eco | Communication Disciplines at University of Bologna, later founding the Higher School for the Study of the Humanities at the same institution. In 1988, at the University of Bologna, Eco created an unusual program called Anthropology of the West from the perspective of non-Westerners (African and Chinese scholars), as defined by their own criteria. Eco developed this transcultural international network based on the idea of Alain le Pichon in West Africa. The Bologna program resulted in the first conference in Guangzhou, China, in 1991 entitled "Frontiers of Knowledge". The first event was soon followed by an Itinerant Euro-Chinese seminar on "Misunderstandings in the Quest for the Universal" along the silk trade route from Guangzhou to Beijing. The latter culminated in a book entitled The Unicorn and the Dragon, which discussed the question of the creation of knowledge in China and in Europe. Scholars contributing to this volume were from China, including Tang Yijie, Wang Bin and Yue Daiyun, as well as from Europe: Furio Colombo, Antoine Danchin, Jacques Le Goff, Paolo Fabbri and Alain Rey. Eco published The Limits of Interpretation in 1990. From 1992 to 1993, Eco was a visiting professor at Harvard University and from 2001 to 2002, at St Anne's College, Oxford. The Island of the Day Before (1994) was Eco's third novel. The book, set in the 17th century, is about a man stranded on a ship within sight of an island which he believes is on the other side of the international date-line. The main character is trapped by his inability to swim and instead spends the bulk of the book reminiscing on his life and the adventures that brought him to be stranded. He returned to semiotics in Kant and the Platypus in 1997, a book which Eco himself reputedly warned fans of his novels away from, saying, "This a hard-core book. It’s not a page turner. You have to stay on every page for two weeks with your pencil. In other words, don’t buy it if you are not Einstein." In 2000 a seminar in Timbuktu, Mali, was followed up with another gathering in Bologna to reflect on the conditions of reciprocal knowledge between East and West. This, in turn, gave rise to a series of conferences in Brussels, Paris and Goa, culminating in Beijing in 2007. The topics of the Beijing conference were "Order and Disorder", "New Concepts of War and Peace", "Human Rights" and "Social Justice and Harmony". Eco presented the opening lecture. Among those giving presentations were anthropologists Balveer Arora, Varun Sahni, and Rukmini Bhaya Nair from India, Moussa Sow from Africa, Roland Marti and Maurice Olender from Europe, Cha Insuk from Korea, and Huang Ping and Zhao Tinyang from China. Also on the program were scholars from the fields of law and science including Antoine Danchin, Ahmed Djebbar and Dieter Grimm. Eco's interest in east–west dialogue to facilitate international communication and understanding also correlates with his related interest in the international auxiliary language Esperanto. Later novels and writing (2000–2016) Baudolino was published in 2000. Baudolino is a much-travelled polyglot Piedmontese scholar who saves the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates during the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade. Claiming to be an accomplished liar, he confides his history, from his childhood as a peasant lad endowed with a vivid imagination, through his role as adopted son of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, to his mission to visit the mythical realm of Prester John. Throughout his retelling, Baudolino brags of his ability to swindle and tell tall tales, leaving the historian (and the reader) unsure of just how much of his story was a lie. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2005) is about Giambattista Bodoni, an old bookseller specializing in antiques who emerges from a coma with only some memories to recover his past. Bodoni is pressed to make a very difficult choice, one between his past and his future. He must either abandon his past to live his future or regain his past and sacrifice his future. The Prague Cemetery, Eco's sixth novel, was published in 2010. It is the story of a secret agent who "weaves plots, conspiracies, intrigues and attacks, and helps determine the historical and political fate of the European Continent". The book is a narrative of the rise of Modern-day antisemitism, by way of the Dreyfus affair, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other important 19th-century events which gave rise to hatred and hostility toward the Jewish people. In 2012, Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière published a book of conversations on the future of information carriers. Eco criticized social networks, saying for example that "Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots." From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation (2014). Numero Zero was published in 2015. Set in 1992 and narrated by Colonna, a hack journalist working on a Milan newspaper, it offers a satire of Italy's kickback and bribery culture as well as, among many things, the legacy of Fascism. Influences and themes A group of avant-garde artists, painters, musicians and writers, whom he had befriended at RAI, the Neoavanguardia or Gruppo '63, became an important and influential component in Eco's writing career. In 1971, Eco co-founded Versus: Quaderni di studi semiotici (known as VS among Italian academics), a semiotic journal. VS is used by scholars whose work is related to signs and signification. The journal's foundation and activities have contributed to semiotics as an academic field in its own right, both in Italy and in the rest of Europe. Most of the well-known European semioticians, including Eco, A. J. Greimas, Jean-Marie Floch, and Jacques Fontanille, as well as philosophers and linguists like John Searle and George Lakoff, have published original articles in VS. His work with Serbian and Russian scholars and writers included thought on Milorad Pavić and a meeting with Alexander Genis. Beginning in the early 1990s, Eco collaborated with artists and philosophers such as Enrico Baj, Jean Baudrillard, and Donald Kuspit to publish a number of tongue-in-cheek texts on the imaginary science of 'pataphysics. Eco's fiction has enjoyed a wide audience around the world, with many translations. His novels are full of subtle, often multilingual, references to literature and history. Eco's work illustrates the concept of intertextuality, or the inter-connectedness of all literary works. Eco cited James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges as the two modern authors who have influenced his work the most. Eco was also a translator: he translated into Italian Raymond Queneau's Exercices de style (1947). Eco's translation was published under the title Esercizi di stile in 1983. He was also the translator of Sylvie, a novella by Gérard de Nerval. Critical reception and legacy As an academic studying philosophy, semiotics, and culture, Eco divided critics as to whether his theorizing should be seen as brilliant or an unnecessary vanity project obsessing over minutiae, while his fiction writing stunned critics with its simultaneous complexity and popularity. In his 1980 review of The Role of the Reader, philosopher Roger Scruton, attacking Eco's esoteric tendencies, writes that, "[Eco seeks] the rhetoric of technicality, the means of generating so much smoke for so long that the reader will begin to blame his own lack of perception, rather than the author’s lack of illumination, for the fact that he has ceased to see." In his 1986 review of Faith in Fakes and Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, art historian Nicholas Penny, meanwhile, accuses Eco of pandering, writing "I suspect that Eco may have first been seduced from intellectual caution, if not modesty, by the righteous cause of ‘relevance’ (a word much in favour when the earlier of these essays appeared) – a cause which Medievalists may be driven to embrace with particularly desperate abandon." At the other end of the spectrum, Eco has been praised for his levity and encyclopedic knowledge, which allowed him to make abstruse academic subjects accessible and engaging. In a 1980 review of The Name of the Rose, literary critic and scholar Frank Kermode refers to Theory of Semiotics, as "a vigorous but difficult treatise", finding Eco's novel, "a wonderfully interesting book – a very odd thing to be born of a passion for the Middle Ages and for semiotics, and a very modern pleasure." Gilles Deleuze cites Eco's 1962 book The Open Work approvingly in his seminal 1968 text Difference and Repetition, a book which poststructuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida is said to have also taken inspiration from. In an obituary by the philosopher and literary critic Carlin Romano, meanwhile, Eco is described as having "[become], over time, the critical conscience at the center of Italian humanistic culture, uniting smaller worlds like no one before him." In 2017, a retrospective of Eco's work was published by Open Court as the 35th volume in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers, edited by Sara G. Beardsworth and Randall E. Auxier, featuring essays by 23 contemporary scholars. Honors Following the publication of In the Name of the Rose in 1980, in 1981 Eco was awarded the Strega prize, Italy's most prestigious literary award, receiving the Anghiari prize the same year. The following year, he received the Mendicis prize, and in 1985 the McLuhan Teleglobe prize. In 2005, Eco was honoured with the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, along with Roger Angell. In 2010, Eco was invited to join the Accademia dei Lincei. Eco was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by the University of Odense in 1986, Loyola University Chicago in 1987, the University of Glasgow in 1990, the University of Kent in 1992, Indiana University Bloomington in 1992, University of Tartu in 1996, Rutgers University in 2002, and the University of Belgrade in 2009. Additionally, Eco was an honorary fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford. Religious views During his university studies, Eco stopped believing in God and left the Catholic Church, later helping co-found the Italian skeptic organization Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sulle Pseudoscienze (Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences) CICAP. Personal life and death In September 1962 he married , a German graphic designer and art teacher with whom he had a son and a daughter. Eco divided his time between an apartment in Milan and a vacation house near Urbino. He |
database of the six major Hadith collections. Although the project currently parked, the referencing remains widely used throughout the Internet. Admissions USC is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as "Most Selective," and Princeton Review rates its admissions selectivity of 98 out of 99. Over 70,000 students applied for admission to the undergraduate class entering in 2021, with 12% being admitted. Among enrolled freshman for Fall 2019, the interquartile (middle 50%) range of SAT scores was 670-740 for evidence-based reading and writing, 680-790 for math, and 1370-1520 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28-34 for math, 32-35 for English, and 31-34 for the composite. USC was ranked the 10th most applied to university in the nation for fall 2014 by U.S. News & World Report. Faculty and research The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, USC spent $891 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 23rd in the nation. USC employs approximately 4,706 full-time faculty, 1,816 part-time faculty, 16,614 staff members, and 4,817 student workers. 350 postdoctoral fellows are supported along with over 800 medical residents. Among the USC faculty, 17 are members of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 are members of the National Academy of Medicine, 37 are members of the National Academy of Engineering, 97 are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and 34 are members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 5 to the American Philosophical Society, and 14 to the National Academy of Public Administration. 29 USC faculty are listed as among the "Highly Cited" in the Institute for Scientific Information database. George Olah won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and was the founding director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute. Leonard Adleman won the Turing Award in 2003. Arieh Warshel won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The university also supports the Pacific Council on International Policy through joint programming, leadership collaboration, and facilitated connections among students, faculty, and Pacific Council members. The university has two National Science Foundation–funded Engineering Research Centers: the Integrated Media Systems Center and the Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems. The Department of Homeland Security selected USC as its first Homeland Security Center of Excellence. Since 1991, USC has been the headquarters of the NSF and USGS funded Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). The University of Southern California is a founding and charter member of CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the nonprofit organization, which provides extremely high-performance Internet-based networking to California's K-20 research and education community. USC researcher Jonathan Postel was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling internet, also known as ARPANET. In July 2016 USC became home to the world's most powerful quantum computer, housed in a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility at the USC Information Sciences Institute, the only other commercially available quantum computing system operated jointly by NASA and Google. Notable USC faculty include or have included the following: Leonard Adleman, Richard Bellman, Aimee Bender, Barry Boehm, Warren Bennis, Todd Boyd, T.C. Boyle, Leo Buscaglia, Drew Casper, Manuel Castells, Erwin Chemerinsky, George V. Chilingar, Thomas Crow, António Damásio, Francis De Erdely, Percival Everett, Murray Gell-Mann, Seymour Ginsburg, G. Thomas Goodnight, Jane Goodall, Solomon Golomb, Midori Goto, Susan Estrich, Janet Fitch, Tomlinson Holman, Jascha Heifetz, Henry Jenkins, Thomas H. Jordan, Mark Kac, Pierre Koenig, Neil Leach, Leonard Maltin, Daniel L. McFadden, Viet Thanh Nguyen, George Olah, Scott Page, Tim Page (music critic), Simon Ramo, Claudia Rankine, Irving Reed, Michael Waterman, Frank Gehry, Arieh Warshel, Lloyd Welch, Jonathan Taplin, and Diane Winston. Athletics The USC Trojans participate in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) as a member of the Pac-12 Conference and have won 123 total team national championships, 97 for men and 26 for women, including non-NCAA championships. Of this total, 80 and 14 are NCAA National Championships for men and women, respectively. The NCAA does not include college football championships in its calculation. Although there are multiple organizations that name national championships, USC claims 11 football championships. The men's 361 Individual Championships are the second-best in the nation and 53 ahead of third place, Texas Longhorns. USC's cross-town rival is the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. USC's rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years. The Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual football game played between these two universities and is considered one of the greatest rivalries in college athletics. USC has won 107 NCAA team championships, 3rd behind Stanford (126) and cross-town rival UCLA (119). The Trojans have also won at least one national team title in 26 consecutive years (1959–60 to 1984–85). USC won the National College All-Sports Championship, an annual ranking by USA Today of the country's top athletic programs, 6 times since its inception in 1971. Four Trojans have won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in America: diver Sammy Lee (1953), shot putter Parry O'Brien (1959), swimmer John Naber (1977) and swimmer Janet Evans (1989). From the 1904 Summer Olympics through the 2014 Winter Olympics, 632 Trojan athletes have competed in the Games, taking home 144 gold medals, 93 silver and 72 bronze. If it were an independent country, USC would be ranked 13th in the world in 2016 in terms of medals. Since 1912, USC is the only university in the world to have a gold medal-winning athlete in every summer Olympiad. Men's sports In men's sports, USC has won 97 team national championships (84 NCAA titles) – more than any other school – and male athletes have won a record 303 individual NCAA titles. The Trojans have won 26 championships in track and field, 21 in tennis, 12 in baseball, 9 in swimming and diving, 9 in water polo, 6 in volleyball, 2 in indoor track and field, and 1 in gymnastics. USC's men's basketball has appeared in the NCAA tournament 15 times, and made 2 NCAA Final Four appearances. The USC football program has historically ranked among the best in Division I FBS. The Trojans football team has won 11 national championships. Seven players have won the Heisman Trophy, although the school claims six, after alleged violations involving Reggie Bush. , 537 Trojans have been taken in the NFL draft, making it the school with the most NFL draft picks. For the 2015 season, USC football was ranked 1st overall in recruiting by Rivals.com, with 4 five-star commits, 17 four-star commits, and 5 three-star commits. Women's sports Women's teams have earned 27 national championships. The Women of Troy have brought home 64 individual NCAA crowns. Two Women of Troy athletes have won the Honda-Broderick Cup as the top collegiate woman athlete of the year: Cheryl Miller (1983–84) and Angela Williams (2001–02). And Trojan women have won 8 Honda Awards, as the top female athlete in their sport. The Women of Troy have won 7 championships in tennis, 6 in volleyball, 4 in water polo, 3 in golf, 2 in basketball, 2 in beach volleyball, 1 in swimming and diving, 2 in track and field and 2 in soccer. Traditions and student activities As one of the oldest universities in California, the University of Southern California has a number of traditions. USC's official fight song is "Fight On", which was composed in 1922 by USC dental student Milo Sweet with lyrics by Sweet and Glen Grant. Rivalries USC has rivalries with multiple schools. Although generally limited to football, USC has a major rivalry with Notre Dame. The annual game is played for the Jeweled Shillelagh. The rivalry has featured more national championship teams, Heisman trophy winners, All-Americans, and future NFL hall-of-famers than any other collegiate match-up. The two schools have kept the annual game on their schedules since 1926 (except 1942–44 because of World War II travel restrictions) and the game is often referred to as the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football.Dave Revsine, Michigan, Ohio State set bar high for other rivalries, ESPN.com, November 24, 2006, Accessed March 24, 2009.Adam Rose, The Color of Misery, LATimes.com, October 20, 2007, Accessed March 24, 2009. USC's most famous rival is UCLA, with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. Both universities are in Los Angeles and approximately apart. Until 1982 the two schools also shared the same football stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The victor of the annual football game takes home the Victory Bell. The Trojans and Bruins also compete in a year-long all-sports competition for the Lexus Gauntlet Trophy. Pranks between UCLA and USC were commonplace several decades ago. Both universities have cracked down on pranks since a 1989 incident when USC students released hundreds of crickets into the main UCLA library during finals week. Days before a clash between rivals UCLA and USC in 2009, the Bruins mascot was vandalized. It was splashed in cardinal and gold paint, USC's official colors sparking memories of pranks played in the years earlier. The week preceding the annual football matchup with UCLA is known as "Troy Week" and features a number of traditions including CONQUEST! "The Ultimate Trojan Experience", Save Tommy Night, the CONQUEST! Bonfire, and all-night vigils by the USC Helenes and Trojan Knights to protect the campus from UCLA Bruins. In addition, USC has rivalries with other Pac-12 schools, particularly the Stanford Cardinal as they are the only two private universities in the Pac-12 Conference and are situated at opposing regions of California, as well as being the two oldest private research universities in California, 1880 and 1891 respectively. Recently, a rivalry has begun to exist between USC and the University of Oregon because of the two universities' dominant football programs, with each school often serving as the toughest match-up on the opponent's schedule. Mascots Traveler, a white Andalusian horse, is the university's official mascot. It first appeared at a football game in 1961, was ridden by Richard Saukko, and was known as Traveler I. The current horse is known as Traveler IX. Tommy Trojan, officially known as the Trojan Shrine, is a bronze statue in the model of a Trojan warrior at the center of campus. It is commonly mistaken as the school's official mascot. The statue was modeled after Trojan football players, and the statue is engraved with the ideal characteristics of a Trojan. It is a popular meeting point for students and a landmark for visitors. In the 1940s, George Tirebiter, a car-chasing dog, was the most popular unofficial mascot. It gained fame among students after it bit the mascot of the UCLA Bruins, and was kept by the Trojan Knights. The dog was known to chase down cars on Trousdale Parkway, which runs through campus. After the original dog died, three others succeeded it. A statue was built in 2006 to honor the unofficial mascot. Marching band USC's marching band, known as The Spirit of Troy, has been featured in at least 10 major movies, and has performed in both the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. They have also performed on television shows and with other musicians. The band performed on the title track of the 1979 Fleetwood Mac album Tusk, which went on to be a multi-platinum record. The band performed during halftime at Super Bowl XXI in 1987 and Super Bowl XXII in 1988. In 1990, the band performed live on America's Funniest Home Videos. Additionally, the band later played on another multi-platinum Fleetwood Mac album, The Dance (1997). The Spirit of Troy is the only collegiate band to have two platinum records.Press Pack – Spring 2009 , TMB SpiritNotes, Accessed May 11, 2009. In recent years, the band has appeared at the 2009 Grammy Awards, accompanying Radiohead; on the 2009 Academy Awards with Beyoncé and Hugh Jackman; and during the finale of American Idol 2008, backing Renaldo Lapuz in instrumentation of his original song "We're Brothers Forever".Adam Rose, Trojans cementing reputation as Hollywood's band, latimes.com, February 26, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2009. In 2009, the band played on the show Dancing with the Stars. The USC band was only one of two American groups invited to march in the Hong Kong Chinese New Year parade in 2003 and 2004. The Trojan Marching Band performed at the 2005 World Expo in Nagoya, Japan. In May 2006, the Trojan Marching Band traveled to Italy, performing once in Florence, and twice in Rome (including in front of the Coliseum). The band has also, for many years, performed the 1812 Overture with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (or occasionally with other orchestras) each year at the Hollywood Bowl "Tchaikovsky Spectacular". Spirit groups Song Girls For over 45 years, the USC Song Girls have been considered the "Crown Jewels of USC Spirit". Founded in 1967, the USC Song Girls appear at football, basketball, and volleyball games as well as other sporting events, rallies, and university and alumni functions. The squad also performs internationally. The squad has traveled to Italy, Austria, France, Hungary, Czech Republic, Japan, China and Australia, most recently having traveled to Milan, Italy to perform at the 2015 World Expo on America's Independence Day. Unlike other college cheer teams, Song Girls are primarily a dance squad and do not perform gymnastics, stunts or lead cheers. The Song Girls perform to the music of and often appear with The Spirit of Troy. Together with the Trojan Marching Band, they are a visible public face of the university and function as the ambassadors of spirit and goodwill for the Trojan Family. Yell Leaders Lindley Bothwell founded the USC Yell Leading Squad in 1919 in his first year as a student at USC. He felt that together, with a few friends, he could aid in "firing up" the crowd during football games. The USC Yell Leaders worked closely with The Spirit of Troy and the Song Girls to lead cheers and perform stunts to rally Trojan fans at football, basketball, and volleyball games. The sweater-clad team consisted of all men for most of its existence, though the squad later opened itself up to applicants from both sexes and did feature one female Yell Leader in 1998. They were disbanded by the university after the 2005–06 season and replaced by the co-ed Spirit Leaders. Spirit Leaders The USC Spirit Leaders are responsible for leading stadium wide chants and increasing crowd participation at all Trojan athletic events, including football and basketball games. Working in proud partnership with the Trojan Marching Band and the USC Song Girls, the USC Spirit Leaders help to create a winning atmosphere for all Trojan athletes. Student media The Daily Trojan has been the student newspaper of USC since 1912 and is a primary source of news and information for the campus. It secured the first interview of President Richard Nixon after his resignation. The publication does not receive financial aid from the university and instead runs entirely on advertisement revenue. Published from Monday to Friday during the fall and spring semesters, the newspaper turns into the Summer Trojan during the summer term and publishes once a week. It is the paper of record on campus. KXSC, previously known as KSCR, is the university's student-run college radio station, which is managed entirely by an unpaid staff of nearly 200 undergraduate and graduate student volunteers. | winners out of any institution in the world by a significant margin. The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the oldest and largest of the USC schools, grants undergraduate degrees in more than 130 majors and minors across the humanities, social sciences, and natural/physical sciences, and offers doctoral and masters programs in more than 20 fields. Dornsife College is responsible for the general education program for all USC undergraduates and houses a full-time faculty of approximately 700, more than 6500 undergraduate majors (roughly half the total USC undergraduate population), and 1200 doctoral students. In addition to 30 academic departments, the college also houses dozens of research centers and institutes. In the 2008–2009 academic year, 4,400 undergraduate degrees and 5,500 advanced degrees were awarded. Formerly called "USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences", the college received a $200 million gift from USC trustees Dana and David Dornsife on March 23, 2011, after which the college was renamed in their honor, following the naming pattern of other professional schools and departments at the university. All Ph.D. degrees awarded at USC and most master's degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. Professional degrees are awarded by each of the respective professional schools. The School of Cinematic Arts, the oldest and largest film school in the country, confers degrees in six different programs. As the university administration considered cinematic skills too valuable to be kept to film industry professionals, the school opened its classes to the university at large in 1998. In 2001, the film school added an Interactive Media & Games Division studying stereoscopic cinema, panoramic cinema, immersive cinema, interactive cinema, video games, virtual reality, and mobile media. In September 2006, George Lucas donated $175 million to expand the film school, which at the time was the largest single donation to USC (and its fifth over $100 million). The donation will be used to build new structures and expand the faculty. The acceptance rate to the School of Cinematic Arts has consistently remained between 4-6% for the past several years. The USC School of Architecture was established in 1916, the first in Southern California. From at least 1972 to 1976, and likely for a number of years prior to 1972, it was called The School of Architecture and Fine Art. The School of Fine Art (known as SOFA for a number of years after Architecture and Fine Art separated) was eventually named the Roski School of Fine Arts in 2006 during a ceremony to open the then-new Masters of Fine Art building, which occupies the previous and completely refurbished Lucky Blue Jean factory. This small department grew rapidly with the help of the Allied Architects of Los Angeles. A separate School of Architecture was organized in September 1925. The school has been home to teachers such as Richard Neutra, Ralph Knowles, James Steele, A. Quincy Jones, William Pereira and Pierre Koenig. The school of architecture also claims notable alumni Frank Gehry, Jon Jerde, Thom Mayne, Raphael Soriano, Gregory Ain, and Pierre Koenig. Two of the alumni have become Pritzker Prize winners. In 2006, Qingyun Ma, a distinguished Shanghai-based architect, was named dean of the school. The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering is headed by Dean Yannis Yortsos. Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, in honor of Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had donated $52 million to the school. Viterbi School of Engineering has been ranked No. 11 and No. 9 in the United States in U.S. News & World Reports engineering rankings for 2018 and 2019 respectively. The Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, founded in 1971, is one of the two communication programs in the country endowed by Walter Annenberg (the other is at the University of Pennsylvania). The School of Journalism, which became part of the School for Communication in 1994, features a core curriculum that requires students to devote themselves equally to print, broadcast and online media for the first year of study. The journalism school consistently ranks among the nation's top undergraduate journalism schools. USC's Annenberg School's endowment rose from $7.5 million to $218 million between 1996 and 2007. In 2015, the new building named for Wallis Annenberg started serving all faculty and students. The Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at the University of Southern California was established in 1897 as The College of Dentistry, and today, awards undergraduate and graduate degrees. Headed by Dean Avishai Sadan, D.M.D., the school traditionally has maintained five Divisions: Academic Affairs & Student Life, Clinical Affairs, Continuing Education, Research, and Community Health Programs and Hospital Affairs. In 2006, the USC Department of Physical Therapy and Biokinesiology, and the USC Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, which both had previously been organized as "Independent Health Professions" programs at the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, were administratively aligned under the School of Dentistry and renamed "Divisions", bringing the total number of Divisions at the School of Dentistry to seven. In 2010, alumnus Herman Ostrow donated $35 million to name the school the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry. In 2013, the school introduced an eighth division, and in 2014, a $20 million gift endowed and named the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. USC collaborated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University to offer the USC (Executive) EMBA program in Shanghai. USC Dornsife also operates two international study centers in Paris and Madrid. The Marshall School of Business has satellite campuses in Orange County and San Diego. In 2012, USC established the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, the university's first new school in 40 years, which was a gift from philanthropist Glorya Kaufman. The USC Kaufman School offers individual classes in technique, performance, choreography, production, theory and history open to all students at USC. In the fall of 2015, the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance began to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree to a select number of undergraduates who wish to pursue dance as their major. This four-year professional degree is housed in the state-of-the-art Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center. In 2015, USC established the Bovard College, which offers graduate-level programs in Human Resource Management, Project Management, and Criminal Justice. The college is named after Emma Bovard, who was one of the first students to enroll at USC in 1880. University library system The USC Libraries are among the oldest private academic research libraries in California. For more than a century USC has been building collections in support of the university's teaching and research interests. Especially noteworthy collections include American literature, Cinema-Television including the Warner Bros. studio archives, European philosophy, gerontology, German exile literature, international relations, Korean studies, studies of Latin America, natural history, Southern California history, and the University Archives. The USC Warner Bros. Archives is the largest single studio collection in the world. Donated in 1977 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts by Warner Communications, the WBA houses departmental records that detail Warner Bros. activities from the studio's first major feature, My Four Years in Germany (1918), to its sale to Seven Arts in 1968. Announced in June 2006, the testimony of 52,000 survivors, rescuers, and others involved in The Holocaust is housed in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences as a part of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. In addition to the Shoah Foundation, the USC Libraries digital collection highlights include photographs from the California Historical Society, Korean American Archives Automobile Club of Southern California, and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California. The USC Digital Library provides a wealth of primary and original source material in a variety of formats. In October 2010, the collections at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, the largest repository for documents from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the world, became a part of the USC Libraries system. The collections at ONE include over two million archival items documenting LGBT history including periodicals; books; film, video and audio recordings; photographs; artworks; ephemera, such clothing, costumes, and buttons; organizational records; and personal paper. USC's 22 libraries and other archives hold nearly 4 million printed volumes, 6 million items in microform, and 3 million photographs and subscribe to more than 30,000 current serial titles, nearly of manuscripts and archives, and subscribe to over 120 electronic databases and more than 14,000 journals in print and electronic formats. Annually, reference transactions number close to 50,000 and approximately 1,100 instructional presentations are made to 16,000 participants. The University of Southern California Library system is among the top 35 largest university library systems in the United States. The Leavey Library is the undergraduate library and is open 24 hours a day. The newly open basement has many discussion tables for students to share thoughts and have group discussions. The Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library is the main research library on campus. Rankings USC was ranked 22nd in U.S. News & World Reports 2020 annual ranking of national universities. In the Niche Best Colleges rankings, USC ranked 19th overall for 2020 based on academics and quality of student life. USC is ranked 32nd among national universities in the U.S. and 55th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 13th (tied with seven other universities) among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. In 2015, USA Today ranked USC 22nd overall for American universities based on data from College Factual. Among top 25 universities, USC was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as having the 4th most economically diverse student body. Reuters ranked USC as the 14th most innovative university in the world in 2015, as measured by the university's global commercial impact and patents granted. USC was ranked 15th overall in the 2016 inaugural Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranking of U.S. colleges. In 2016, USC was ranked as a "Top 10 Dream College" according to The Princeton Review, as conferred from a survey of 10,000 respondents. USC appeared in the top 10 list for both parents and students. On the 2011 "Green Report Card", issued by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, the university received a B-. The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism was ranked 1st in 2014 by USA Today. In its 2020 rankings, U.S. News & World Report rates USC's School of Law as 17th, the Marshall School of Business tied for 17th with the USC Leventhal School of Accounting 7th and the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies 9th; the Keck School of Medicine of USC was ranked tied for 30th in research and tied for 53rd in primary care, the Viterbi School of Engineering 9th, the Rossier School of Education 12th, the Roski School of Fine Arts graduate program 69th, the Sol Price School of Public Policy 3rd, the USC School of Social Work 25th, and the USC School of Pharmacy tied for 9th. USC's graduate programs in occupational therapy and physical therapy are ranked the nation's 1st and 4th best programs, respectively, for 2021 by U.S. News & World Report. The Philosophical Gourmet Report in 2015 ranked USC's graduate philosophy program as 8th nationally. The Hollywood Reporter ranked the School of Cinematic Arts the No. 1 film school in the United States for the third year in a row in 2014. In addition, USA Today ranked the School of Cinematic Arts the No. 1 film school in the United States in 2014. The program's range of classes, facilities, and close proximity to the industry were the primary reasons for this ranking. USA Today ranked the USC Marshall School of Business as the No. 3 school to study undergraduate business in the nation, . In 2015, Forbes ranked the USC Marshall School of Business 3rd in the nation in producing graduates who are most satisfied with their jobs. The Princeton Review ranked USC video game design program as 1st out of 150 schools in North America. The university's video game design programs are interdisciplinary, involving the Interactive Media & Games Division of the School of Cinematic Arts and the CS Games program in the Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2015 ranked USC's combined departments of engineering and computer sciences as 10th in the world, social sciences 31st, and economics and business departments 29th. Student body USC has a total enrollment of roughly 47,500 students, of which 20,000 are at the undergraduate and 27,500 at the graduate and professional levels. Approximately 53% of students are female and 47% are male. For the entering first-year class in 2020, 43% of incoming students are drawn from California, 42% from the rest of the United States, and 15% from abroad. USC's student body encompasses 12,300 international students, the second most out of all universities in the United States. Of the regularly enrolled international students, the most represented countries/regions are China (Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan not included), India, South Korea, and Taiwan, in that order. Like other private universities, the nominal cost of attendance is high; however, the university's large endowment and significant revenue streams allow it to offer generous financial aid packages. USC also offer some very competitive and highly valued merit-based scholarships (the full-tuition, four-year Mork Family, Stamps and Trustee scholarships; the half-tuition Presidential Scholarship; the one-quarter tuition Deans Scholarship), with only 5.5% of scholarship applicants being selected as finalists for the final interview invitation at the USC campus in Spring. This makes USC one of the highest ranked universities to offer half-tuition and full-tuition merit-based scholarships. These factors have propelled USC into being the 4th most economically diverse university in the nation. Twenty percent of admitted and attending students are SCions, or students with familial ties to USC, while 14 percent are the first generation in their family to attend any form of college. Twenty-four percent of undergraduates at USC are Pell Grant-eligible, which is defined by having come from a family household income of less than $50,000. There are over 375,000 living Trojan alumni. The USC-MSA reference is a numbering system developed by the Muslim Students' Association of the University of Southern California to access their database of the six major Hadith collections. Although the project currently parked, the referencing remains widely used throughout the Internet. Admissions USC is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as "Most Selective," and Princeton Review rates its admissions selectivity of 98 out of 99. Over 70,000 students applied for admission to the undergraduate class entering in 2021, with 12% being admitted. Among enrolled freshman for Fall 2019, the interquartile (middle 50%) range of SAT scores was 670-740 for evidence-based reading and writing, 680-790 for math, and 1370-1520 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28-34 for math, 32-35 for English, and 31-34 for the composite. USC was ranked the 10th most applied to university in the nation for fall 2014 by U.S. News & World Report. Faculty and research The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, USC spent $891 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 23rd in the nation. USC employs approximately 4,706 full-time faculty, 1,816 part-time faculty, 16,614 staff members, and |
– 16,415 0.28% – 1,371 0.02% – 2,281 0.04% – 3,028 0.05% – 537 0.01% 5,963,110 FL Georgia 13 1,419,720 54.67% 13 1,116,230 42.98% – 13,432 0.52% – 10,926 0.42% – 36,332 1.40% – 140 0.01% – – – – 24 0.00% – 303,490 11.69% 2,596,804 GA Hawaii 4 137,845 37.46% – 205,286 55.79% 4 21,623 5.88% – 1,071 0.29% – 1,477 0.40% – 343 0.09% – 306 0.08% – – – – −67,441 −18.33% 367,951 HI Idaho 4 336,937 67.17% 4 138,637 27.64% – 12,292 2.45% – 7,615 1.52% – 3,488 0.70% – 1,469 0.29% – 1,177 0.23% – 6 0.00% – 198,300 39.53% 501,621 ID Illinois 22 2,019,421 42.58% – 2,589,026 54.60% 22 103,759 2.19% – 16,106 0.34% – 11,623 0.25% – 57 0.00% – 2,127 0.04% – 4 0.00% – −569,605 −12.01% 4,742,123 IL Indiana 12 1,245,836 56.65% 12 901,980 41.01% – 18,531 0.84% – 16,959 0.77% – 15,530 0.71% – 200 0.01% – 167 0.01% – 99 0.00% – 343,856 15.63% 2,199,302 IN Iowa 7 634,373 48.22% – 638,517 48.54% 7 29,374 2.23% – 5,731 0.44% – 3,209 0.24% – 613 0.05% – 2,281 0.17% – 1,465 0.11% – −4,144 −0.31% 1,315,563 IA Kansas 6 622,332 58.04% 6 399,276 37.24% – 36,086 3.37% – 7,370 0.69% – 4,525 0.42% – 1,254 0.12% – 1,375 0.13% – – – – 223,056 20.80% 1,072,218 KS Kentucky 8 872,492 56.50% 8 638,898 41.37% – 23,192 1.50% – 4,173 0.27% – 2,896 0.19% – 923 0.06% – 1,533 0.10% – 80 0.01% – 233,594 15.13% 1,544,187 KY Louisiana 9 927,871 52.55% 9 792,344 44.88% – 20,473 1.16% – 14,356 0.81% – 2,951 0.17% – 5,483 0.31% – 1,075 0.06% – 1,103 0.06% – 135,527 7.68% 1,765,656 LA Maine† 2 286,616 43.97% – 319,951 49.09% 2 37,127 5.70% – 4,443 0.68% – 3,074 0.47% – 579 0.09% – – – – 27 0.00% – −33,335 −5.11% 651,817 MEMaine-11148,61842.59%–176,29350.52%120,2975.82%–1,9940.57%–1,4790.42%–2530.07%––––170.00%––27,675–7.93%348,951ME1Maine-21137,99845.56%–143,65847.43%116,8305.56%–2,4490.81%–1,5950.53%–3260.11%––––100.00%––5,660–1.87%302,866ME2 Maryland 10 813,797 40.18% – 1,145,782 56.57% 10 53,768 2.65% – 4,248 0.21% – 5,310 0.26% – 919 0.05% – 176 0.01% – 1,480 0.07% – −331,985 −16.39% 2,025,480 MD Massachusetts 12 878,502 32.50% – 1,616,487 59.80% 12 173,564 6.42% – 11,149 0.41% – 16,366 0.61% – – – – 2,884 0.11% – 4,032 0.15% – −737,985 −27.30% 2,702,984 MA Michigan 18 1,953,139 46.15% – 2,170,418 51.28% 18 84,165 1.99% – 1,851 0.04% – 16,711 0.39% – 3,791 0.09% – 2,426 0.06% – – – – −217,279 −5.13% 4,232,501 MI Minnesota 10 1,109,659 45.50% – 1,168,266 47.91% 10 126,696 5.20% – 22,166 0.91% – 5,282 0.22% – 3,272 0.13% – 2,294 0.09% – 1,050 0.04% – −58,607 −2.40% 2,438,685 MN Mississippi 7 572,844 57.62% 7 404,614 40.70% – 8,122 0.82% – 2,265 0.23% – 2,009 0.20% – 3,267 0.33% – 450 0.05% – 613 0.06% – 168,230 16.92% 994,184 MS Missouri 11 1,189,924 50.42% 11 1,111,138 47.08% – 38,515 1.63% – 9,818 0.42% – 7,436 0.32% – 1,957 0.08% – 1,104 0.05% – – – – 78,786 3.34% 2,359,892 MO Montana 3 240,178 58.44% 3 137,126 33.36% – 24,437 5.95% – 5,697 1.39% – 1,718 0.42% – 1,155 0.28% – 675 0.16% – 11 0.00% – 103,052 25.07% 410,997 MT Nebraska† 2 433,862 62.25% 2 231,780 33.25% – 24,540 3.52% – 3,646 0.52% – 2,245 0.32% – 468 0.07% – 478 0.07% – – – – 202,082 28.99% 697,019 NENebraska-11142,56258.90%186,94635.92%–10,0854.17%–1,3240.55%–7540.31%–1670.07%–1850.08%––––55,61622.98%242,023NE1Nebraska-21131,48556.92%188,97538.52%–8,4953.68%–8450.37%–9250.40%–1460.06%–1410.06%––––42,51018.40%231,012NE2Nebraska-31159,81571.35%155,85924.94%–5,9602.66%–1,4770.66%–5660.25%–1550.07%–1520.07%––––103,95646.41%223,984NE3 Nevada 4 301,575 49.52% 4 279,978 45.98% – 15,008 2.46% – 4,747 0.78% – 3,311 0.54% – 621 0.10% – 415 0.07% – 3,315 0.54% – 21,597 3.55% 608,970 NV New Hampshire 4 273,559 48.07% 4 266,348 46.80% – 22,198 3.90% – 2,615 0.46% – 2,757 0.48% – 328 0.06% – 55 0.01% – 1,221 0.21% – 7,211 1.27% 569,081 NH New Jersey 15 1,284,173 40.29% – 1,788,850 56.13% 15 94,554 2.97% – 6,989 0.22% – 6,312 0.20% – 1,409 0.04% – 2,215 0.07% – 2,724 0.09% – −504,677 −15.83% 3,187,226 NJ New Mexico 5 286,417 47.85% – 286,783 47.91% 5 21,251 3.55% – 1,392 0.23% – 2,058 0.34% – 343 0.06% – 361 0.06% – – – – −366 −0.06% 598,605 NM New York 33 2,403,374 35.23% – 4,107,697 60.21% 33 244,030 3.58% – 31,599 0.46% – 7,649 0.11% – 1,498 0.02% – 24,361 0.36% – 1,791 0.03% – −1,704,323 −24.98% 6,821,999 NY North Carolina 14 1,631,163 56.03% 14 1,257,692 43.20% – – – – 8,874 0.30% – 12,307 0.42% – – – – – – – 1,226 0.04% – 373,471 12.83% 2,911,262 NC North Dakota 3 174,852 60.66% 3 95,284 33.06% – 9,486 3.29% – 7,288 2.53% – 660 0.23% – 373 0.13% – 313 0.11% – – – – 79,568 27.60% 288,256 ND Ohio 21 2,351,209 49.97% 21 2,186,190 46.46% – 117,857 2.50% – 26,724 0.57% – 13,475 0.29% – 3,823 0.08% – 6,169 0.13% – 10 0.00% – 165,019 3.51% 4,705,457 OH Oklahoma 8 744,337 60.31% 8 474,276 38.43% – – – – 9,014 0.73% – 6,602 0.53% – – – – – – – – – – 270,061 21.88% 1,234,229 OK Oregon 7 713,577 46.52% – 720,342 46.96% 7 77,357 5.04% – 7,063 0.46% – 7,447 0.49% – 2,189 0.14% – 2,574 0.17% – 3,419 0.22% – −6,765 −0.44% 1,533,968 OR Pennsylvania 23 2,281,127 46.43% – 2,485,967 50.60% 23 103,392 2.10% – 16,023 0.33% – 11,248 0.23% – 14,428 0.29% – – – – 934 0.02% – −204,840 −4.17% 4,913,119 PA Rhode Island 4 130,555 31.91% – 249,508 60.99% 4 25,052 6.12% – 2,273 0.56% – 742 0.18% – 97 0.02% – 271 0.07% – 614 0.15% – −118,953 −29.08% 409,112 RI South Carolina 8 785,937 56.84% 8 565,561 40.90% – 20,200 1.46% – 3,519 0.25% – 4,876 0.35% – 1,682 0.12% – 942 0.07% – – – – 220,376 15.94% 1,382,717 SC South Dakota 3 190,700 60.30% 3 118,804 37.56% – – – – 3,322 1.05% – 1,662 0.53% – 1,781 0.56% – – – – – – – 71,896 22.73% 316,269 SD Tennessee 11 1,061,949 51.15% 11 981,720 47.28% – 19,781 0.95% – 4,250 0.20% – 4,284 0.21% – 1,015 0.05% – 613 0.03% – 2,569 0.12% – 80,229 3.86% 2,076,181 TN Texas 32 3,799,639 59.30% 32 2,433,746 37.98% – 137,994 2.15% – 12,394 0.19% – 23,160 0.36% – 567 0.01% – – – – 137 0.00% – 1,365,893 21.32% 6,407,637 TX Utah 5 515,096 66.83% 5 203,053 26.34% – 35,850 4.65% – 9,319 1.21% – 3,616 0.47% – 2,709 0.35% – 763 0.10% – 348 0.05% – 312,043 40.49% 770,754 UT Vermont 3 119,775 40.70% – 149,022 50.63% 3 20,374 6.92% – 2,192 0.74% – 784 0.27% – 153 0.05% – 219 0.07% – 1,789 0.61% – −29,247 −9.94% 294,308 VT Virginia 13 1,437,490 52.47% 13 1,217,290 44.44% – 59,398 2.17% – 5,455 0.20% – 15,198 0.55% – 1,809 0.07% – 171 0.01% – 2,636 0.10% – 220,200 8.04% 2,739,447 VA Washington 11 1,108,864 44.58% – 1,247,652 50.16% 11 103,002 4.14% – 7,171 0.29% – 13,135 0.53% – 1,989 0.08% – 2,927 0.12% – 2,693 0.11% – −138,788 −5.58% 2,487,433 WA West Virginia 5 336,475 51.92% 5 295,497 45.59% – 10,680 1.65% – 3,169 0.49% – 1,912 0.30% – 23 0.00% – 367 0.06% – 1 0.00% – 40,978 6.32% 648,124 WV Wisconsin 11 1,237,279 47.61% – 1,242,987 47.83% 11 94,070 3.62% – 11,471 0.44% – 6,640 0.26% – 2,042 0.08% – 853 0.03% – 3,265 0.13% – −5,708 −0.22% 2,598,607 WI Wyoming 3 147,947 67.76% 3 60,481 27.70% – 4,625 2.12% – 2,724 1.25% – 1,443 0.66% – 720 0.33% – 411 0.19% – – – – 87,466 40.06% 218,351 WY Totals 538 50,456,002 47.86% 271 50,999,897 48.38% 267 2,882,955 2.74% – 448,895 0.43% – 384,431* 0.36%* – 98,020 0.09% – 83,714 0.08% – 51,186 0.05% – −543,895 −0.52% 105,405,100 US Arizona results *The Libertarian Party of Arizona had ballot access but opted to supplant Browne with L. Neil Smith. In Arizona, Smith received 5,775 votes, or 0.38% of the Arizona vote. Adding Smith's 5,775 votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, the total votes cast for president for the Libertarian Party in 2000 was 390,206, or 0.37% of the national vote. Maine and Nebraska district results †Maine and Nebraska each allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In both states, two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district. Close states States where the margin of victory was less than 1% (55 electoral votes): Florida, 0.009% (537 votes) (tipping point state) New Mexico, 0.061% (366 votes) Wisconsin, 0.22% (5,708 votes) Iowa, 0.31% (4,144 votes) Oregon, 0.44% (6,765 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 1% but less than 5% (84 electoral votes): New Hampshire, 1.27% (7,211 votes) Maine's 2nd Congressional District, 1.87% (5,660 votes) Minnesota, 2.40% (58,607 votes) Missouri, 3.34% (78,786 votes) Ohio, 3.51% (165,019 votes) Nevada, 3.55% (21,597 votes) Tennessee, 3.86% (80,229 votes) Pennsylvania, 4.17% (204,840 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 5% but less than 10% (84 electoral votes): Maine, 5.11% (33,335 votes) Michigan, 5.13% (217,279 votes) Arkansas, 5.44% (50,172 votes) Washington, 5.58% (138,788 votes) Arizona, 6.29% (96,311 votes) West Virginia, 6.32% (40,978 votes) Louisiana, 7.68% (135,527 votes) Maine's 1st Congressional District, 7.93% (27,675 votes) Virginia, 8.04% (220,200 votes) Colorado, 8.36% (145,518 votes) Vermont, 9.94% (29,247 votes) Statistics Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican) Glasscock County, Texas 92.47% Ochiltree County, Texas 90.72% Hansford County, Texas 89.75% Harding County, South Dakota 88.92% Carter County, Montana 88.84% Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic) Macon County, Alabama 86.80% Bronx County, New York 86.28% Shannon County, South Dakota 85.36% Washington, D.C. 85.16% City of Baltimore, Maryland 82.52%Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other) San Miguel County, Colorado 17.20% Missoula County, Montana 15.03% Grand County, Utah 14.94% Mendocino County, California 14.68% Hampshire County, Massachusetts 14.59%Ballot access ★Although the Libertarian Party had ballot access in all fifty United States plus D.C., Browne's name only appeared on the ballot in forty-nine United States plus D.C. The Libertarian Party of Arizona opted to place L. Neil Smith on the ballot in Browne's place. When adding Smith's 5,775 Arizona votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, that brings the total presidential votes cast for the Libertarian Party in 2000 to 390,206. Voter demographicsSource:''' Voter News Service exit poll from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (13,225 surveyed) Aftermath After Florida was decided and Gore conceded, Texas Governor George W. Bush became the president-elect and began forming his transition committee. In a speech on December 13, in the Texas House of Representatives chamber, Bush stated he was reaching across party lines to bridge a divided America, saying, "the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background." Post-recount On January 6, 2001, a joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, rose one by one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. But pursuant to the Electoral Count Act, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator. No senator co-sponsored these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Therefore, Gore, who presided in his capacity as President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order. Subsequently, the joint session of Congress on January 7, 2001, certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. He served for the next eight years. Gore has not, as of 2021, considered another presidential run, endorsing Howard Dean's candidacy during the 2004 Democratic primary and remaining neutral in the Democratic primaries of 2008, 2016 and 2020. The first independent recount of undervotes was conducted by the Miami Herald and USA Today. The commission found that under most scenarios for completion of the initiated recounts, Bush would have won the election, but Gore would have won using the most generous standards for undervotes. Ultimately, a media consortium—comprising The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Tribune Co. (parent of the Los Angeles Times), Associated Press, CNN, The Palm Beach Post and the St. Petersburg Times—hired NORC at the University of Chicago to examine 175,010 ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted; these ballots contained undervotes (ballots with no machine-detected choice made for president) and overvotes (ballots with more than one choice marked). Their goal was to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process. Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over all the ballots in question had been resolved by applying statewide any of five standards that would have met Florida's legal standard for recounts, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes. (Any analysis of NORC data requires, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes to agree or instead, for all three to agree.) For all undervotes and overvotes statewide, these five standards are:Wolter, K.M., Jergovic, D., Moore, W., Murphy, J. and O'Muirheartaigh, C. 2003. "Reliability of the Uncertified Ballots in the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida". American Statistician. 57(1):1–14. Prevailing standard – accepts at least one detached corner of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. County-by-county standard – applies each county's own standards independently. Two-corner standard – accepts at least two detached corners of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. Most restrictive standard – accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent. Most inclusive standard – applies uniform criteria of "dimple or better" on punch marks and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on the 12th) to consider the question of including overvotes as well as undervotes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood of including overvotes in the recount. Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme Court ruling, Gore does, in fact, more than make up the deficit". Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's analysis of the NORC study and media coverage of it supports these interpretations and criticizes the coverage of the study by media outlets such as The New York Times and the other media consortium members. Further, according to sociologists Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza, the 2000 election might have gone to Gore if the disenfranchised population of Florida had voted. Florida law disenfranchises convicted felons, requiring individual applications to regain suffrage. In a 2002 American Sociological Review article, Uggen and Manza found that the released felon vote could have altered the outcome of seven senatorial races between 1978 and 2000, and the 2000 presidential election. Matt Ford noted their study concluded, "if the state's 827,000 disenfranchised felons had voted at the same rate as other Floridians, Democratic candidate Al Gore would have won Florida—and the presidency—by more than 80,000 votes." The effect of Florida's law is such that in 2014, purportedly "[m]ore than one in ten Floridians—and nearly one in four African-American Floridians—are shut out of the polls because of felony convictions." Voting machines Because the 2000 presidential election was so close in Florida, the federal government and state governments pushed for election reform to be prepared by the 2004 presidential election. Many of Florida's 2000 election night problems stemmed from usability and ballot design factors with voting systems, including the potentially confusing "butterfly ballot." Many voters had difficulties with the paper-based punch card voting machines and were either unable to understand the voting process or unable to perform it. This resulted in an unusual number of overvotes (voting for more candidates than is allowed) and undervotes (voting for fewer than the minimum candidates, including none at all). Many undervotes were caused by voter error, unmaintained punch card voting booths, or errors having to do merely with the characteristics of punch card ballots (resulting in hanging, dimpled, or pregnant chads). A proposed solution to these problems was the installation of modern electronic voting machines. The 2000 presidential election spurred the debate about election and voting reform but did not end it. In the aftermath of the election, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was passed to help states upgrade their election technology in the hopes of preventing similar problems in future elections. But the electronic voting systems that many states purchased to comply with HAVA actually caused problems in the 2004 presidential election. Exit polling and declaration of vote winners The Voter News Service's reputation was damaged by its treatment of Florida's presidential vote in 2000. Breaking its own guidelines, VNS called the state as a win for Gore 12 minutes before polls closed in the Florida Panhandle. Although most of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone, counties in the Panhandle, in the Central Time Zone, had not yet closed their polls. Discrepancies between the results of exit polls and the actual vote count caused the VNS to change its call twice, first from Gore to Bush and then to "too close to call." Due in part to this (and other polling inaccuracies) the VNS was disbanded in 2003. According to Bush adviser Karl Rove, exit polls early in the afternoon on election day showed Gore winning by three percentage points, but when the networks called the state for Gore, Bush led by about 75,000 votes in raw tallies from the Florida Secretary of State. Charges of media bias were leveled against the networks by Republicans, who claimed that the networks called states more quickly for Al Gore than for George W. Bush. Congress held hearings on this matter, at which the networks claimed to have no intentional bias in their election night reporting. A study of the calls made on election night 2000 indicated that states carried by Gore were called more quickly than states won by Bush; however, notable states carried by Bush, such as New Hampshire and Florida, were very close, and close states won by Gore, such as Iowa, Oregon, New Mexico and Wisconsin, were called late as well. The early call of Florida | 1,666,272 AL Alaska 3 167,398 58.62% 3 79,004 27.67% – 28,747 10.07% – 5,192 1.82% – 2,636 0.92% – 596 0.21% – 919 0.32% – 1,068 0.37% – 88,394 30.95% 285,560 AK Arizona* 8 781,652 51.02% 8 685,341 44.73% – 45,645 2.98% – 12,373 0.81% – – – – 110 0.01% – 1,120 0.07% – 5,775 0.38% – 96,311 6.29% 1,532,016 AZ Arkansas 6 472,940 51.31% 6 422,768 45.86% – 13,421 1.46% – 7,358 0.80% – 2,781 0.30% – 1,415 0.15% – 1,098 0.12% – – – – 50,172 5.44% 921,781 AR California 54 4,567,429 41.65% – 5,861,203 53.45% 54 418,707 3.82% – 44,987 0.41% – 45,520 0.42% – 17,042 0.16% – 10,934 0.10% – 34 0.00% – −1,293,774 −11.80% 10,965,856 CA Colorado 8 883,748 50.75% 8 738,227 42.39% – 91,434 5.25% – 10,465 0.60% – 12,799 0.73% – 1,319 0.08% – 2,240 0.13% – 1,136 0.07% – 145,521 8.36% 1,741,368 CO Connecticut 8 561,094 38.44% – 816,015 55.91% 8 64,452 4.42% – 4,731 0.32% – 3,484 0.24% – 9,695 0.66% – 40 0.00% – 14 0.00% – −254,921 −17.47% 1,459,525 CT Delaware 3 137,288 41.90% – 180,068 54.96% 3 8,307 2.54% – 777 0.24% – 774 0.24% – 208 0.06% – 107 0.03% – 93 0.03% – −42,780 −13.06% 327,622 DE D.C. 3 18,073 8.95% – 171,923 85.16% 3 10,576 5.24% – – – – 669 0.33% – – – – – – – 653 0.32% 1 −153,850 −76.20% 201,894 DC Florida 25 2,912,790 48.85% 25 2,912,253 48.84% – 97,488 1.63% – 17,484 0.29% – 16,415 0.28% – 1,371 0.02% – 2,281 0.04% – 3,028 0.05% – 537 0.01% 5,963,110 FL Georgia 13 1,419,720 54.67% 13 1,116,230 42.98% – 13,432 0.52% – 10,926 0.42% – 36,332 1.40% – 140 0.01% – – – – 24 0.00% – 303,490 11.69% 2,596,804 GA Hawaii 4 137,845 37.46% – 205,286 55.79% 4 21,623 5.88% – 1,071 0.29% – 1,477 0.40% – 343 0.09% – 306 0.08% – – – – −67,441 −18.33% 367,951 HI Idaho 4 336,937 67.17% 4 138,637 27.64% – 12,292 2.45% – 7,615 1.52% – 3,488 0.70% – 1,469 0.29% – 1,177 0.23% – 6 0.00% – 198,300 39.53% 501,621 ID Illinois 22 2,019,421 42.58% – 2,589,026 54.60% 22 103,759 2.19% – 16,106 0.34% – 11,623 0.25% – 57 0.00% – 2,127 0.04% – 4 0.00% – −569,605 −12.01% 4,742,123 IL Indiana 12 1,245,836 56.65% 12 901,980 41.01% – 18,531 0.84% – 16,959 0.77% – 15,530 0.71% – 200 0.01% – 167 0.01% – 99 0.00% – 343,856 15.63% 2,199,302 IN Iowa 7 634,373 48.22% – 638,517 48.54% 7 29,374 2.23% – 5,731 0.44% – 3,209 0.24% – 613 0.05% – 2,281 0.17% – 1,465 0.11% – −4,144 −0.31% 1,315,563 IA Kansas 6 622,332 58.04% 6 399,276 37.24% – 36,086 3.37% – 7,370 0.69% – 4,525 0.42% – 1,254 0.12% – 1,375 0.13% – – – – 223,056 20.80% 1,072,218 KS Kentucky 8 872,492 56.50% 8 638,898 41.37% – 23,192 1.50% – 4,173 0.27% – 2,896 0.19% – 923 0.06% – 1,533 0.10% – 80 0.01% – 233,594 15.13% 1,544,187 KY Louisiana 9 927,871 52.55% 9 792,344 44.88% – 20,473 1.16% – 14,356 0.81% – 2,951 0.17% – 5,483 0.31% – 1,075 0.06% – 1,103 0.06% – 135,527 7.68% 1,765,656 LA Maine† 2 286,616 43.97% – 319,951 49.09% 2 37,127 5.70% – 4,443 0.68% – 3,074 0.47% – 579 0.09% – – – – 27 0.00% – −33,335 −5.11% 651,817 MEMaine-11148,61842.59%–176,29350.52%120,2975.82%–1,9940.57%–1,4790.42%–2530.07%––––170.00%––27,675–7.93%348,951ME1Maine-21137,99845.56%–143,65847.43%116,8305.56%–2,4490.81%–1,5950.53%–3260.11%––––100.00%––5,660–1.87%302,866ME2 Maryland 10 813,797 40.18% – 1,145,782 56.57% 10 53,768 2.65% – 4,248 0.21% – 5,310 0.26% – 919 0.05% – 176 0.01% – 1,480 0.07% – −331,985 −16.39% 2,025,480 MD Massachusetts 12 878,502 32.50% – 1,616,487 59.80% 12 173,564 6.42% – 11,149 0.41% – 16,366 0.61% – – – – 2,884 0.11% – 4,032 0.15% – −737,985 −27.30% 2,702,984 MA Michigan 18 1,953,139 46.15% – 2,170,418 51.28% 18 84,165 1.99% – 1,851 0.04% – 16,711 0.39% – 3,791 0.09% – 2,426 0.06% – – – – −217,279 −5.13% 4,232,501 MI Minnesota 10 1,109,659 45.50% – 1,168,266 47.91% 10 126,696 5.20% – 22,166 0.91% – 5,282 0.22% – 3,272 0.13% – 2,294 0.09% – 1,050 0.04% – −58,607 −2.40% 2,438,685 MN Mississippi 7 572,844 57.62% 7 404,614 40.70% – 8,122 0.82% – 2,265 0.23% – 2,009 0.20% – 3,267 0.33% – 450 0.05% – 613 0.06% – 168,230 16.92% 994,184 MS Missouri 11 1,189,924 50.42% 11 1,111,138 47.08% – 38,515 1.63% – 9,818 0.42% – 7,436 0.32% – 1,957 0.08% – 1,104 0.05% – – – – 78,786 3.34% 2,359,892 MO Montana 3 240,178 58.44% 3 137,126 33.36% – 24,437 5.95% – 5,697 1.39% – 1,718 0.42% – 1,155 0.28% – 675 0.16% – 11 0.00% – 103,052 25.07% 410,997 MT Nebraska† 2 433,862 62.25% 2 231,780 33.25% – 24,540 3.52% – 3,646 0.52% – 2,245 0.32% – 468 0.07% – 478 0.07% – – – – 202,082 28.99% 697,019 NENebraska-11142,56258.90%186,94635.92%–10,0854.17%–1,3240.55%–7540.31%–1670.07%–1850.08%––––55,61622.98%242,023NE1Nebraska-21131,48556.92%188,97538.52%–8,4953.68%–8450.37%–9250.40%–1460.06%–1410.06%––––42,51018.40%231,012NE2Nebraska-31159,81571.35%155,85924.94%–5,9602.66%–1,4770.66%–5660.25%–1550.07%–1520.07%––––103,95646.41%223,984NE3 Nevada 4 301,575 49.52% 4 279,978 45.98% – 15,008 2.46% – 4,747 0.78% – 3,311 0.54% – 621 0.10% – 415 0.07% – 3,315 0.54% – 21,597 3.55% 608,970 NV New Hampshire 4 273,559 48.07% 4 266,348 46.80% – 22,198 3.90% – 2,615 0.46% – 2,757 0.48% – 328 0.06% – 55 0.01% – 1,221 0.21% – 7,211 1.27% 569,081 NH New Jersey 15 1,284,173 40.29% – 1,788,850 56.13% 15 94,554 2.97% – 6,989 0.22% – 6,312 0.20% – 1,409 0.04% – 2,215 0.07% – 2,724 0.09% – −504,677 −15.83% 3,187,226 NJ New Mexico 5 286,417 47.85% – 286,783 47.91% 5 21,251 3.55% – 1,392 0.23% – 2,058 0.34% – 343 0.06% – 361 0.06% – – – – −366 −0.06% 598,605 NM New York 33 2,403,374 35.23% – 4,107,697 60.21% 33 244,030 3.58% – 31,599 0.46% – 7,649 0.11% – 1,498 0.02% – 24,361 0.36% – 1,791 0.03% – −1,704,323 −24.98% 6,821,999 NY North Carolina 14 1,631,163 56.03% 14 1,257,692 43.20% – – – – 8,874 0.30% – 12,307 0.42% – – – – – – – 1,226 0.04% – 373,471 12.83% 2,911,262 NC North Dakota 3 174,852 60.66% 3 95,284 33.06% – 9,486 3.29% – 7,288 2.53% – 660 0.23% – 373 0.13% – 313 0.11% – – – – 79,568 27.60% 288,256 ND Ohio 21 2,351,209 49.97% 21 2,186,190 46.46% – 117,857 2.50% – 26,724 0.57% – 13,475 0.29% – 3,823 0.08% – 6,169 0.13% – 10 0.00% – 165,019 3.51% 4,705,457 OH Oklahoma 8 744,337 60.31% 8 474,276 38.43% – – – – 9,014 0.73% – 6,602 0.53% – – – – – – – – – – 270,061 21.88% 1,234,229 OK Oregon 7 713,577 46.52% – 720,342 46.96% 7 77,357 5.04% – 7,063 0.46% – 7,447 0.49% – 2,189 0.14% – 2,574 0.17% – 3,419 0.22% – −6,765 −0.44% 1,533,968 OR Pennsylvania 23 2,281,127 46.43% – 2,485,967 50.60% 23 103,392 2.10% – 16,023 0.33% – 11,248 0.23% – 14,428 0.29% – – – – 934 0.02% – −204,840 −4.17% 4,913,119 PA Rhode Island 4 130,555 31.91% – 249,508 60.99% 4 25,052 6.12% – 2,273 0.56% – 742 0.18% – 97 0.02% – 271 0.07% – 614 0.15% – −118,953 −29.08% 409,112 RI South Carolina 8 785,937 56.84% 8 565,561 40.90% – 20,200 1.46% – 3,519 0.25% – 4,876 0.35% – 1,682 0.12% – 942 0.07% – – – – 220,376 15.94% 1,382,717 SC South Dakota 3 190,700 60.30% 3 118,804 37.56% – – – – 3,322 1.05% – 1,662 0.53% – 1,781 0.56% – – – – – – – 71,896 22.73% 316,269 SD Tennessee 11 1,061,949 51.15% 11 981,720 47.28% – 19,781 0.95% – 4,250 0.20% – 4,284 0.21% – 1,015 0.05% – 613 0.03% – 2,569 0.12% – 80,229 3.86% 2,076,181 TN Texas 32 3,799,639 59.30% 32 2,433,746 37.98% – 137,994 2.15% – 12,394 0.19% – 23,160 0.36% – 567 0.01% – – – – 137 0.00% – 1,365,893 21.32% 6,407,637 TX Utah 5 515,096 66.83% 5 203,053 26.34% – 35,850 4.65% – 9,319 1.21% – 3,616 0.47% – 2,709 0.35% – 763 0.10% – 348 0.05% – 312,043 40.49% 770,754 UT Vermont 3 119,775 40.70% – 149,022 50.63% 3 20,374 6.92% – 2,192 0.74% – 784 0.27% – 153 0.05% – 219 0.07% – 1,789 0.61% – −29,247 −9.94% 294,308 VT Virginia 13 1,437,490 52.47% 13 1,217,290 44.44% – 59,398 2.17% – 5,455 0.20% – 15,198 0.55% – 1,809 0.07% – 171 0.01% – 2,636 0.10% – 220,200 8.04% 2,739,447 VA Washington 11 1,108,864 44.58% – 1,247,652 50.16% 11 103,002 4.14% – 7,171 0.29% – 13,135 0.53% – 1,989 0.08% – 2,927 0.12% – 2,693 0.11% – −138,788 −5.58% 2,487,433 WA West Virginia 5 336,475 51.92% 5 295,497 45.59% – 10,680 1.65% – 3,169 0.49% – 1,912 0.30% – 23 0.00% – 367 0.06% – 1 0.00% – 40,978 6.32% 648,124 WV Wisconsin 11 1,237,279 47.61% – 1,242,987 47.83% 11 94,070 3.62% – 11,471 0.44% – 6,640 0.26% – 2,042 0.08% – 853 0.03% – 3,265 0.13% – −5,708 −0.22% 2,598,607 WI Wyoming 3 147,947 67.76% 3 60,481 27.70% – 4,625 2.12% – 2,724 1.25% – 1,443 0.66% – 720 0.33% – 411 0.19% – – – – 87,466 40.06% 218,351 WY Totals 538 50,456,002 47.86% 271 50,999,897 48.38% 267 2,882,955 2.74% – 448,895 0.43% – 384,431* 0.36%* – 98,020 0.09% – 83,714 0.08% – 51,186 0.05% – −543,895 −0.52% 105,405,100 US Arizona results *The Libertarian Party of Arizona had ballot access but opted to supplant Browne with L. Neil Smith. In Arizona, Smith received 5,775 votes, or 0.38% of the Arizona vote. Adding Smith's 5,775 votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, the total votes cast for president for the Libertarian Party in 2000 was 390,206, or 0.37% of the national vote. Maine and Nebraska district results †Maine and Nebraska each allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates. In both states, two electoral votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote is awarded to the winner of each congressional district. Close states States where the margin of victory was less than 1% (55 electoral votes): Florida, 0.009% (537 votes) (tipping point state) New Mexico, 0.061% (366 votes) Wisconsin, 0.22% (5,708 votes) Iowa, 0.31% (4,144 votes) Oregon, 0.44% (6,765 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 1% but less than 5% (84 electoral votes): New Hampshire, 1.27% (7,211 votes) Maine's 2nd Congressional District, 1.87% (5,660 votes) Minnesota, 2.40% (58,607 votes) Missouri, 3.34% (78,786 votes) Ohio, 3.51% (165,019 votes) Nevada, 3.55% (21,597 votes) Tennessee, 3.86% (80,229 votes) Pennsylvania, 4.17% (204,840 votes) States where the margin of victory was more than 5% but less than 10% (84 electoral votes): Maine, 5.11% (33,335 votes) Michigan, 5.13% (217,279 votes) Arkansas, 5.44% (50,172 votes) Washington, 5.58% (138,788 votes) Arizona, 6.29% (96,311 votes) West Virginia, 6.32% (40,978 votes) Louisiana, 7.68% (135,527 votes) Maine's 1st Congressional District, 7.93% (27,675 votes) Virginia, 8.04% (220,200 votes) Colorado, 8.36% (145,518 votes) Vermont, 9.94% (29,247 votes) Statistics Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Republican) Glasscock County, Texas 92.47% Ochiltree County, Texas 90.72% Hansford County, Texas 89.75% Harding County, South Dakota 88.92% Carter County, Montana 88.84% Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Democratic) Macon County, Alabama 86.80% Bronx County, New York 86.28% Shannon County, South Dakota 85.36% Washington, D.C. 85.16% City of Baltimore, Maryland 82.52%Counties with Highest Percent of Vote (Other) San Miguel County, Colorado 17.20% Missoula County, Montana 15.03% Grand County, Utah 14.94% Mendocino County, California 14.68% Hampshire County, Massachusetts 14.59%Ballot access ★Although the Libertarian Party had ballot access in all fifty United States plus D.C., Browne's name only appeared on the ballot in forty-nine United States plus D.C. The Libertarian Party of Arizona opted to place L. Neil Smith on the ballot in Browne's place. When adding Smith's 5,775 Arizona votes to Browne's 384,431 votes nationwide, that brings the total presidential votes cast for the Libertarian Party in 2000 to 390,206. Voter demographicsSource:''' Voter News Service exit poll from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (13,225 surveyed) Aftermath After Florida was decided and Gore conceded, Texas Governor George W. Bush became the president-elect and began forming his transition committee. In a speech on December 13, in the Texas House of Representatives chamber, Bush stated he was reaching across party lines to bridge a divided America, saying, "the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background." Post-recount On January 6, 2001, a joint session of Congress met to certify the electoral vote. Twenty members of the House of Representatives, most of them members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, rose one by one to file objections to the electoral votes of Florida. But pursuant to the Electoral Count Act, any such objection had to be sponsored by both a representative and a senator. No senator co-sponsored these objections, deferring to the Supreme Court's ruling. Therefore, Gore, who presided in his capacity as President of the Senate, ruled each of these objections out of order. Subsequently, the joint session of Congress on January 7, 2001, certified the electoral votes from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001. He served for the next eight years. Gore has not, as of 2021, considered another presidential run, endorsing Howard Dean's candidacy during the 2004 Democratic primary and remaining neutral in the Democratic primaries of 2008, 2016 and 2020. The first independent recount of undervotes was conducted by the Miami Herald and USA Today. The commission found that under most scenarios for completion of the initiated recounts, Bush would have won the election, but Gore would have won using the most generous standards for undervotes. Ultimately, a media consortium—comprising The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Tribune Co. (parent of the Los Angeles Times), Associated Press, CNN, The Palm Beach Post and the St. Petersburg Times—hired NORC at the University of Chicago to examine 175,010 ballots collected from the entire state, not just the disputed counties that were recounted; these ballots contained undervotes (ballots with no machine-detected choice made for president) and overvotes (ballots with more than one choice marked). Their goal was to determine the reliability and accuracy of the systems used for the voting process. Based on the NORC review, the media group concluded that if the disputes over all the ballots in question had been resolved by applying statewide any of five standards that would have met Florida's legal standard for recounts, the electoral result would have been reversed and Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes. (Any analysis of NORC data requires, for each punch ballot, at least two of the three ballot reviewers' codes to agree or instead, for all three to agree.) For all undervotes and overvotes statewide, these five standards are:Wolter, K.M., Jergovic, D., Moore, W., Murphy, J. and O'Muirheartaigh, C. 2003. "Reliability of the Uncertified Ballots in the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida". American Statistician. 57(1):1–14. Prevailing standard – accepts at least one detached corner of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. County-by-county standard – applies each county's own standards independently. Two-corner standard – accepts at least two detached corners of a chad and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. Most restrictive standard – accepts only so-called perfect ballots that machines somehow missed and did not count, or ballots with unambiguous expressions of voter intent. Most inclusive standard – applies uniform criteria of "dimple or better" on punch marks and all affirmative marks on optical scan ballots. Such a statewide review including all uncounted votes was a tangible possibility, as Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, whom the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to oversee the statewide recount, had scheduled a hearing for December 13 (mooted by the U.S. Supreme Court's final ruling on the 12th) to consider the question of including overvotes as well as undervotes. Subsequent statements by Lewis and internal court documents support the likelihood of including overvotes in the recount. Florida State University professor of public policy Lance deHaven-Smith observed that, even considering only undervotes, "under any of the five most reasonable interpretations of the Florida Supreme |
At the Utah press conference announcing that the NLP had qualified for the ballot, only a single reporter attended. NLP candidates, including Hagelin, said they did not expect to win but were using the campaigns to spread their message. During the 1996 election, the party ran hundreds of candidates for seats in the United States House of Representatives, against both Democratic and Republican incumbents. The successful candidates were mostly in California, where many of them received about 3% of the vote, and Ohio, where some candidates received 4% or 5% of the vote. The candidate running against Democrat James Traficant, a conservative Democrat with no Republican opposition that year, received 9%. In South Carolina, the party received 10% of the vote against Republican Floyd Spence who had no other opposition. In California, psychiatrist Harold H. Bloomfield ran as candidate for governor in 1998. 2000 In 2000, Hagelin created an independent coalition between the Natural Law and the Reform Party, The coalition failed when Patrick Buchanan took control of the Reform Party. On March 31, 2000 the FEC certified primary season matching funds for John Hagelin, who was seeking the nomination of the Natural Law and Reform Parties. Hagelin was the second minor party presidential candidate to qualify; the first was Pat Buchanan. Ralph Nader eventually qualified as well. According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the NLP spent $2.3 million on its presidential campaign in the 1999–2000 election cycle. Following Hagelin's and the Natural Law Party's failed attempt at a coalition with the Reform Party in 2000, the Natural Law Party ran its own ticket of Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber. The pair appeared on 38 ballots and received 83,702 votes or 0.1% of the total. This poor finish led Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to stop endorsing the Party and very few members renewed their membership in 2001. Between 2000 and 2004, the Natural Law Party sought to create an independent coalition of voters interested in election law reform. In 2002, the party endorsed Independence Party of Minnesota candidate for Minnesota Governor, Tim Penny. 2003 In 2003, 2 candidates ran in the California governor recall election under the Natural Law Party. They were Iris Adam and Darin Price, who received 1,297 and 1,152 votes respectively, both of which are less than 0.1% of the total votes for the replacement governor. 2004 By 2003, the Natural Law Party had so weakened that it endorsed Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, for President, rather than trying to achieve ballot status for a candidate of its own, having lost all but 10 ballot lines. The Socialist Party presidential ticket of Walt Brown and Mary Alice Herbert secured the NLP ballot lines in Delaware and Michigan. Hagelin went on to create an organization called the US Peace Government. According to the Natural Law Party official web site, the national headquarters of the Natural Law Party closed effective on April 30, 2004 and the US Peace Government is now carrying forward the programs, policies, and ideals of the Natural Law Party. Entities using the name are still active in some states. The South Carolina branch of the party was taken over by the South Carolina Green Party. However, several candidates were on the ballot in 2004 under the Natural Law Party banner, including Socialist Party Presidential Candidate Walt Brown. In 2006 the Idaho Natural Law Party merged with the new United Party, with the United Party taking over the ballot line via a name change. Only the Michigan and Mississippi Natural Law parties remained as ballot-qualified parties. 2006 The party lost its ballot status in California. The Idaho Natural Law Party remained active, and was prepared to have three candidates on the ballot for state and federal office in 2006 by entering into a coalition with the new United Party, and thus remained the only Natural Law Party still active in the United States of America. However, on June 16 the Idaho Natural Law Party changed its name to the United Party. 2008 On July 30, 2008, the Michigan Natural Law Party nominated Ralph Nader for president, ensuring the appearance of the Nader/Gonzalez campaign on the Michigan ballot. Nader received 33,085 votes in Michigan, helping the Natural Law Party maintain ballot status in Michigan. The Mississippi Natural Law Party nominated the Socialist Party presidential ticket of Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander, though they were ultimately barred from appearing on the Mississippi ballot because of a legal controversy surrounding the deadline hour for filing their presidential electors. 2012 The Natural | subsidized group of 7,000 advanced meditators known as Yogic Flyers would lower nationwide stress, reduce unemployment, raise the gross national product, improve health, reduce crime, and make the country invincible to foreign attack. Hagelin called it a "practical, field-tested, scientifically proven" solution. TM would be taught to the military, to students, in prisons, and to ordinary citizens. Hagelin predicted that implementation of the program would result in $1 trillion in savings from reduced costs for medical care, criminal prosecutions and prisons, national defense, and other government expenses. It recommended adoption of The Grace Commission reforms. The party supported a flat tax. Election-related proposals included replacing the Electoral College with popular vote, automatic voter registration, public funding of campaigns, reducing the campaign season, and the elimination of political action committees. Civil rights planks included equal rights for women and homosexuals, replacing bans on abortion with prevention programs, and a national referendum on capital punishment. It opposed the legalization of drugs. In 1992, it suggested the appointment of former Secretary of State George Shultz as drug czar. It endorsed organic, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and conservation. Slogans included: "Only a new seed will yield a new crop", and "bring the light of science into politics". Catchphrases included: "prevention-oriented solutions" and "conflict-free politics". Founding Bevan Morris, president of Maharishi University of Management (then called "Maharishi International University"), was the founding chairman of the party, which he created on 22 April 1992 in Fairfield, Iowa. The party said it had no direct connection to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or to TM. Hagelin said, "It's not a transcendental meditation party", and denied any connection between the Maharishi University of Management and his campaign. Tompkins said that more than half of its founders were connected to the TM movement. One critic said that it was "just another front group for the TM movement". By one report, almost all of the 92 candidates who ran on the NLP slate in California in 1996 were TM practitioners. The Natural Law Party had to qualify separately in each state to nominate a presidential candidate. It used 300 signature gatherers, both paid and volunteer, in California alone. The party submitted 5,724 signatures in Iowa, as the party announced at a press conference attended by Mike Love, a member of The Beach Boys and a TM supporter. Nevada required 9,392 signatures. The NLP joined another small party in suing the state over their early deadline, and they succeeded in getting a court to order a second chance to qualify. The NLP qualified after submitting 11,000 valid signatures. The party submitted the required 250,000 signatures in California too late to qualify for the ballot there. By the time of the election, Hagelin was on the ballot in 31 states plus the District of Columbia. It was certified as a national party by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in September 1992, making it eligible for federal campaign funds. Elections campaigns 1992 John Hagelin, a 37-year-old physics professor at Maharishi University of Management (MUM), was the NLP candidate for president of the United States in 1992. He said that he had been uninterested in politics and a Republican "by default" before the campaign. Mike Tompkins, also on the MUM staff, was his running mate. They were formally chosen at the party's 400-person convention in Washington D.C. on 5 October 1992, although they had been campaigning already. Both of them took six-month leaves of absence from the university to campaign. Hagelin proposed that all candidates should have their brain waves recorded by EEG and the resulting "mental profiles" should be publicly disclosed, so that the voters could see which candidates had the best "brain-wave stability". He said that the test would "allow us to avoid the possibility of a brain-dead candidate". The proposal was dropped because of a poor reception. Hagelin was excluded from the presidential debates and he asked the FEC to take over the process. He did participate in the Alternative Candidates' National Debate along with the candidates or representatives of three other parties. Hagelin's campaign cost several million dollars. The NLP had nine candidates for U.S. Congress in California. The sole congressional candidate in Massachusetts was a movement employee. Two people tried to get on the ballot for congress in Missouri, but only one succeeded in getting enough petition signatures. The party said it had 100 candidates running in state and local offices. The NLP ran a candidate in Illinois for Senate. There were reported to be between 80 and 175 candidates on the NLP slate. The Beach Boys raised funds for the NLP during a summer concert tour. Mike Love said he was switching his support from George H. W. Bush to Hagelin. In addition to its own slate, the NLP also endorsed candidates in other races, including Republicans and New Alliance Party members. 1994 The NLP ran slates of candidates in the 1994 mid-term election. Four candidates ran in Nevada. It hired professional petition gatherers to support 12 candidates for the ballot in Missouri. 1995 The party started collecting petitions in 1995 for the 1996 election. It submitted 110,000 signatures in California with 35,000 coming from the county of San Diego. It spent up to $250,000 on signature gatherers, in addition to its volunteer efforts. Party officials said that 70% of the signatures came from students and the party qualified for the ballot in 1995. It submitted 55,000 signatures to qualify in Ohio, half of which were collected by volunteers. |
pay cuts of 17% or 20% were instituted. Also in 2020, the University of Arizona announced it had purchased Ashford University from Zovio and renamed it The University of Arizona Global Campus. Academics The University of Arizona offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and professional degrees. Grades are given on a strict 4-point scale with "A" worth 4, "B" worth 3, "C" worth 2, "D" worth 1 and "E" worth zero points. Rankings The Center for World University Rankings in 2017 ranked Arizona No. 52 in the world and 34 in the U.S. The 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings rated University of Arizona 161st in the world and the 2017/18 QS World University Rankings ranked it 230th. In 2015, Design Intelligence ranked the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture's (CALA) undergraduate program in architecture 10th in the nation for all universities, public and private. The same publication ranked UA ranked 20th in overall undergraduate architecture programs. Admissions The UA is considered a "selective" university by U.S. News & World Report. In the 2014–2015 academic year, 68 freshman students were National Merit Scholars. UA students hail from all states in the U.S. While nearly 69% of students are from Arizona, nearly 11% are from California, and 8% are international, followed by a significant student presence from Texas, Illinois, Washington, Colorado and New York (fall 2013). Tuition Tuition for both fall and spring semesters at the University of Arizona is $12,700 for full-time undergraduate residents and $37,200 for non-residents. As in other states, the cost of tuition has been rising due to the reduction in government support and large increase in administrative staff over teaching staff. Undergraduate students who enrolled in the UA's optional tuition guarantee program in 2014 will remain at $11,591 for residents and $30,745 for non-residents through the 2018–19 academic year. Incoming students enrolled in a bachelor's degree program are automatically eligible for the Guaranteed Tuition Program and will not be subject to tuition increases for 8 continuous semesters (four years). The Guaranteed Tuition Program does not apply to rates for summer and winter sessions. Honors College The University of Arizona W.A. Franke Honors College provides a program for over 4,500 students that creates a smaller community feel like that of a liberal arts college within a large research institution. It started in 1962 with an acceptance of seventy-five students and has grown to 5,508 in the academic year 2016–2017. The main offices for the University of Arizona Honors College are at N Fremont Ave and E Mabel St, inside the newly constructed Honors Village. It was renamed from the Honors College to the W.A. Franke Honors College in recognition of a $25 million gift commitment made by William A. "Bill" Franke, his wife, Carolyn, and the Franke family. Research Arizona is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". The university's research expenditure in fiscal year 2018 was $687.1 million. Arizona is the fourth most awarded public university by NASA for research. The UA was awarded over $325 million for its Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) to lead NASA's 2007–08 mission to Mars to explore the Martian Arctic, and $800 million for its OSIRIS-REx mission, the first in U.S. history to sample an asteroid. The LPL's work in the Cassini spacecraft orbit around Saturn is larger than any other university globally. The U of A laboratory designed and operated the atmospheric radiation investigations and imaging on the probe. The UA operates the HiRISE camera, a part of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. While using the HiRISE camera in 2011, UA alumnus Lujendra Ojha and his team discovered proof of liquid water on the surface of Mars—a discovery confirmed by NASA in 2015. UA receives more NASA grants annually than the next nine top NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory-funded universities combined. , the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is actively involved in ten spacecraft missions: Cassini VIMS; Grail; the HiRISE camera orbiting Mars; the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter; Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO); Maven, which will explore Mars' upper atmosphere and interactions with the sun; Solar Probe Plus, a historic mission into the Sun's atmosphere for the first time; Rosetta's VIRTIS; WISE; and OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. sample-return mission to a near-earth asteroid, which launched on September 8, 2016. UA students have been selected as Truman, Rhodes, Goldwater, and Fulbright Scholars. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, UA is among the top 25 producers of Fulbright awards in the U.S. UA is a member of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, a consortium of institutions pursuing research in astronomy. The association operates observatories and telescopes, notably Kitt Peak National Observatory just outside Tucson. UA is a member of the Association of American Universities, and the sole representative from Arizona to this group. Led by Roger Angel, researchers in the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab at UA are working in concert to build the world's most advanced telescope. Known as the Giant Magellan Telescope, it will produce images 10 times sharper than those from the Earth-orbiting Hubble Telescope. The telescope is set to be completed in 2021. GMT will ultimately cost $1 billion. Researchers from at least nine institutions are working to secure the funding for the project. The telescope will include seven 18-ton mirrors capable of providing clear images of volcanoes and riverbeds on Mars and mountains on the moon at a rate 40 times faster than the world's current large telescopes. The mirrors of the Giant Magellan Telescope will be built at the U of A and transported to a permanent mountaintop site in the Chilean Andes where the telescope will be constructed. Reaching Mars in March 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter contained the HiRISE camera, with Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen as the lead on the project. This NASA mission to Mars carrying the UA-designed camera is capturing the highest-resolution images of the planet ever seen. The journey of the orbiter was 300 million miles. In August 2007, the UA, under the charge of Peter Smith, led the Phoenix Mars Mission, the first mission completely controlled by a university. Reaching the planet's surface in May 2008, the mission's purpose was to improve knowledge of the Martian Arctic. The Arizona Radio Observatory, a part of Steward Observatory, operates the Submillimeter Telescope on Mount Graham. The National Science Foundation funded the iPlant Collaborative in 2008 with a $50 million grant. In 2013, iPlant Collaborative received a $50 million renewal grant. Rebranded in late 2015 as "CyVerse", the collaborative cloud-based data management platform is moving beyond life sciences to provide cloud-computing access across all scientific disciplines. In June 2011, the university announced it would assume full ownership of the Biosphere 2 scientific research facility in Oracle, Arizona. Biosphere 2 was constructed by private developers (funded mainly by Texas businessman and philanthropist Ed Bass) with its first closed system experiment commencing in 1991. The university had been the official management partner of the facility for research purposes since 2007. In 2018 UA received funding from the Pioneer Fund, a non-profit institute which promotes scientific racism and eugenics. The funds were applied for by Aurelio Jose Figueredo, who directs the graduate program on human behavior and evolutionary psychology. Funds from the grant were used by Figueredo to attend the 2016 London Conference on Intelligence, where presentations on eugenics are given. Figueredo has also reviewed papers for Mankind Quarterly, a journal which has advocated for racial hierarchy. Figueredo has disavowed eugenics and racial inferiority. Publications Since 1945 the university has published Arizona Quarterly, an academic literary journal. Global teaching and research Arizona partnership with Universidad de Sonora was renewed in August 2017, focusing on a partnership in geology and physics. Arizona has been part of both theoretical and experimental research in particle and nuclear physics in the framework of the CERN program since 1987. The collaboration was initiated by the theoretician Peter A. Carruthers, head of the physics department, and Johann Rafelski who initiated the quark-gluon-plasma program at CERN. Arizona officially joined the CERN-LHC ATLAS Collaboration in 1994. Arizona has a strategic program to attract foreign scholars, in particular from China. Libraries According to the 2015-2016 Association of Research Libraries' "Spending by University Research Libraries" report, UA libraries are ranked as the 37th overall university library in North America (out of 114) for university investment. , the UA's library system contains over six million print volumes, 1.1 million electronic books, and 74,000 electronic journals. The Main Library, opened in 1976, serves as the library system's reference, periodical, and administrative center; most of the main collections are housed here. The Main Library is on the southeast quadrant of campus near McKale Center and Arizona Stadium. In 2002, the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) was completed as a $20 million, computer facility intended for use by incoming students. The ILC features classrooms, auditoriums, a courtyard with vending machines, and an expanded computer lab with several dozen workstations and 3D printing. Computers and 3D printing are available for use by the general public (with some restrictions) as well as by UA students, faculty and staff. Much of the ILC was constructed underground, underneath the east end of the Mall. The ILC connects to the basement floor of the Main Library. As part of the project, additional new office space for the Library was constructed on the existing fifth floor. The Special Collections Library is adjacent to the Main Library. It was established in 1958, and it houses materials primarily concerned with Arizona and Southwestern history, borderlands studies, and literature. The Weaver Science and Engineering Library is in a nearby building from the 1960s that houses volumes and periodicals from those fields. The Music Building (on the northwest quadrant of campus where many of the fine arts disciplines are clustered) houses the Fine Arts Library, including reference collections for architecture, music (including sheet music, recordings and listening stations), and photography. There is a small library at the Center for Creative Photography, also in the fine arts complex, devoted to the art and science of photography. The Law Library is in the law building (James E. Rogers College of Law) at the intersection of Speedway Boulevard and Mountain Avenue. The Arizona Health Sciences Library, built in 1996, is on the Health Sciences Center on the north end of campus and in Phoenix on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, in the Health Sciences Education Building (HSEB). The library serves the Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, and Veterinary Medicine, the University of Arizona Health Network, and is a resource for health professionals and citizens across the state. Academic organizations and centers The University of Arizona Poetry Center houses an extensive collection of contemporary poetry. It is a large "open shelf" collection. Campus The main campus' 179 buildings sit on in central Tucson, about one mile (1.6 km) northeast of downtown. Roy Place, a prominent Tucson architect, designed many of the early buildings, including the Arizona State Museum buildings (one of them the 1927 main library) and Centennial Hall. Place's use of red brick set the tone for the red brick facades that are a basic part of nearly all UA buildings: almost every UA building has red brick as a major component of the design, or at the very least, a stylistic accent to harmonize it with the other campus buildings. In the early 1930s, Place updated the campus master plan, conceived by his architectural partner John Lyman in 1919 and modeled after the University of Virginia. The campus is roughly divided into quadrants. The north and south sides of campus are delineated by a grassy expanse called the Mall, which stretches from Old Main eastward to the campus' eastern border at Campbell Avenue (a major north–south arterial street). The west and east sides of campus are separated roughly by Highland Avenue and the Student Union Memorial Center (see below). The science and mathematics buildings tend to be clustered in the southwest quadrant; the intercollegiate athletics facilities to the southeast; the arts and humanities buildings to the northwest (with the dance department being a major exception as its main facilities are far to the east end of campus), with the engineering buildings in the north central area. The optical and space sciences buildings are clustered on the east side of campus near the sports stadiums and the (1976) main library. Speedway Boulevard, one of Tucson's primary east–west arterial streets, traditionally defined the northern boundary of campus but since the 1980s, several university buildings have been constructed directly on, and north of, this street, expanding into a neighborhood traditionally filled with apartment complexes and single-family homes. The university has purchased a handful of these apartment complexes for student housing in recent years. Sixth Street typically defines the southern boundary, with single-family homes (many of which are rented out to students) south of this street. Park Avenue has traditionally defined the western boundary of campus, and there is a stone wall which runs along a large portion of the east side of the street, leading to the old Main Gate, and into the driveway leading to Old Main. Along or adjacent to all of these major streets are a wide variety of retail facilities serving the student, faculty and staff population (as is the case in other similar university neighborhoods throughout the United States): shops, bookstores, bars, banks, credit unions, coffeehouses and major chain fast-food restaurants such as Chipotle, Panera Bread and Pei Wei. The area near University Boulevard and Park Avenue, near the Main Gate, has been a major center of such retail activity going back to the university's early decades; many shops dating from the 1920s have been renovated since the late 1990s, other new retail shops have been built in recent years, and a nine-story Marriott hotel was built in this immediate district in 1996. The Stevie Eller Dance Theater, opened in 2003 (across the Mall from | date. During her tenure, Hart led the university's first integrated strategic academic and business plan and agreement with Banner Health to support the UA's biosciences research and medical education initiatives. Notable past presidents of the university include: Hart (formerly president of Temple University); interim president Eugene Sander, who retired from the university after 25 years of service as an educator and administrator, including nearly one year in the interim president role; Robert N. Shelton, who began his tenure in 2006 and resigned in the summer of 2011 to accept the presidency of the Fiesta Bowl, (a BCS college football tournament played annually in the Phoenix area). Shelton's predecessor, Peter Likins, vacated his post at the conclusion of the 2005–06 academic term. Other past UA presidents include Manuel Pacheco (Likins' primary predecessor; the first person of Hispanic descent to lead the university and for whom the Integrated Learning Center is named), Henry Koffler (Pacheco's predecessor and the first UA alumnus to lead the university), John Schaefer, Richard Harvill (who presided over a period of dramatic growth for the UA in the 1950s and 1960s), Homer L. Shantz, Kendric C. Babcock, and Rufus B. von KleinSmid. Athletics Like many large public universities in the U.S., sports are a major activity on campus, and receive a large operating budget. Arizona's athletic teams are nicknamed the Wildcats, a name derived from a 1914 football game with then California champions Occidental College, where the L.A. Times asserted, "the Arizona men showed the fight of wildcats." The University of Arizona participates in the NCAA's Division I-A in the Pac-12 Conference, which it was admitted in 1978. Teams Men's basketball The men's basketball team has been one of the nation's most successful programs since Lute Olson was hired as head coach in 1983, and is still known as a national powerhouse in Division I men's basketball. Between 1985 and 2009, the team reached the NCAA Tournament 25 consecutive years, which is the third-longest streak in NCAA history, after Kansas, with appearances from 1990–present, North Carolina, with 27 consecutive appearances from 1975 to 2001. The Wildcats have reached the Final Four of the NCAA tournament in 1988, 1994, 1997, and 2001. In 1997, Arizona defeated the University of Kentucky, the then defending national champions, to win the NCAA National Championship (NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship) by a score of 84–79 in overtime; Arizona's first national championship victory. The 1997 championship team became the first and only in NCAA history to defeat three number-one seeds en route to a national title (Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky—the North Carolina game being the final game for longtime UNC head coach Dean Smith). Point guard Miles Simon was chosen as 1997 Final Four MVP (Simon was also an assistant coach under Olson from 2005 to 2008). The Cats also boast the third highest winning percentage in the nation over the last twenty years. Arizona has won a total of 28 regular season conference championships in its programs history, and 6 PAC-12 tournaments. Since 2005, Arizona has produced 17 NBA draft picks. The Wildcats play their home games at the McKale Center in Tucson. A number of former Wildcats have gone on to pursue successful professional NBA careers (especially during the Lute Olson era), including Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, Sean Elliott, Damon Stoudamire, Khalid Reeves, Luke Walton, Hassan Adams, Salim Stoudamire, Andre Iguodala, Channing Frye, Brian Williams (later known as Bison Dele), Sean Rooks, Jud Buechler, Michael Dickerson, Chase Budinger, Jordan Hill, Jerryd Bayless, Derrick Williams, Kadeem Allen, Aaron Gordon, Solomon Hill, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Stanley Johnson, T.J McConnell, Lauri Elias Markkanen, Kobi Simmons, Steve Kerr, Deandre Ayton, Rawle Alkins, and Allonzo Trier. Kenny Lofton, now best known as a former Major League Baseball star, was a four-year letter winner as a Wildcat basketball player (and was on the 1988 Final Four team), before one year on the Arizona baseball team. Another notable former Wildcat basketball player is Eugene Edgerson, who played on the 1997 and 2001 Final Four squads, and spent some of his professional career as one of the Harlem Globetrotters as "Wildkat" Edgerson. Before Lute Olson's hire in 1983, Arizona was the first major Division I school to hire an African American head coach in Fred Snowden, in 1972. After a 25-year tenure as Arizona head coach, Olson announced his retirement from the Arizona basketball program in October 2008. After two seasons of using interim coaches, Arizona named Sean Miller, head coach at Xavier University, as its new head basketball coach in April 2009. During his tenure, Miller led the Wildcats to five regular-season conference championships, three conference tournament championships and seven appearances in the NCAA tournament. Miller served as head coach for four of the seven seasons in Arizona history in which the Wildcats have won 30 or more games. In the aftermath of the basketball program receiving five Level I violations from the NCAA in March 2021 (the culmination of a major NCAA investigation going back to 2017), Miller was relieved of his duties in April 2021 after twelve seasons. After a national search and much media speculation, Arizona announced soon afterward that Gonzaga assistant Tommy Lloyd would become the 18th head coach of Arizona men's basketball. Football The football team began at The University of Arizona in 1899 under the nickname "Varsity" (a name kept until the 1914 season when the team was deemed the "Wildcats"). The football team was notably successful in the 1990s, under head coach Dick Tomey; his "Desert Swarm" defense was characterized by tough, hard-nosed tactics. In 1993, the team had its first 10-win season and beat the University of Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl by a score of 29–0. It was the bowl game's only shutout in its then 23-year history. In 1998, the team posted a school-record 12–1 season and made the Holiday Bowl in which it defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Arizona ended the season ranked 4th nationally in the coaches and API poll. The 1998 Holiday Bowl was televised on ESPN and set the now-surpassed record of being the most watched of any bowl game in the network's history. From November 2003 until October 2011, the program was led by Mike Stoops, brother of Bob Stoops, the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma (the 2000 BCS national champions); Stoops was fired on October 10, 2011. Former Michigan and West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez was hired on November 21, 2011, to lead the Wildcats. The announcement was made by UA athletic director Greg Byrne via Twitter. In his first season, Rodriguez took the Wildcats to the 2012 New Mexico Bowl, where they defeated the University of Nevada Wolf Pack. In his third season, the Wildcats won the Pac-12 South and played in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl. In 2015, the Wildcats played in their fourth consecutive bowl game, defeating the University of New Mexico in the New Mexico Bowl. In 2017, they lost to the Purdue Boilermakers in the Foster Farms Bowl, the Wildcats 21st bowl game.Only victory in Foster Farms Bowl would ensure Arizona Wildcats’ glass is half full Dave Heeke was named Arizona's 13th Director of Athletics in February 2017 and officially started in that role on April 1, 2017. Heeke served as Athletics Director at Central Michigan University for 11 years and as a staff member in the University of Oregon athletics department for 18 years. (Greg Byrne resigned the post in January to accept the same role at the University of Alabama.) Rodriguez was relieved of his duties on January 2, 2018, in the wake of an internal university investigation of sexual harassment claims made by Rodriguez' former administrative assistant. After a nationwide search and much media speculation, Kevin Sumlin was hired on January 14, 2018, as the new Wildcats head football coach. Sumlin was head coach at Texas A&M University and the University of Houston. After a disappointing three-season tenure, with the Wildcats posting a 5–7 (4–5 in Pac-12) record in 2018 and a 4–8 record (2–7 in Pac-12) record in 2019, Sumlin was fired at the conclusion of the 2020 season (a truncated schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic). After a nationwide search and much media speculation, former college and NFL coach Jedd Fisch (most recently the QB coach for the New England Patriots and a previous assistant at UCLA, Michigan, Miami and Minnesota) was chosen as the Wildcats’ 32nd head football coach, as announced in December 2020. Baseball The baseball team had its first season in 1904. The baseball team has captured four national championship titles in 1976, 1980, 1986 and 2012, with the first three coached by Jerry Kindall and the most recent by Andy Lopez. Arizona baseball teams have appeared in the NCAA National Championship title series a total of 34 times, including 1956, 1959, 1963, 1976, 1980, 1986, 2004, 2012, and 2016. Arizona baseball has appeared in the College World Series 18 times. Arizona is 7th all-time in games won in the regular season with 2,347 wins. Home games are played at Hi Corbett Field. Jay Johnson, previously head coach of the University of Nevada baseball program, succeeded Andy Lopez who retired after the 2015 season. In his first season as head coach, Johnson guided his team to the programs 17th College World Series appearance and 8th championship series appearance. Johnson resigned from the Wildcat program in June 2021 to accept the head coaching job at LSU. This was after leading the Wildcats to a Pac-12 conference championship and the 18th College World Series appearance in program history; they were eliminated in Omaha by Stanford. In July 2021, Chip Hale was named the new head coach of Arizona baseball. Hale played for the Wildcats under Jerry Kindall and was on the 1986 College World Series championship team; he went on to play, coach and manage in the major leagues for several years, serving as manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2015 and 2016, and most recently serving as the third base coach of the Detroit Tigers. Arizona baseball also has a student section named The Hot Corner. Seventy-five former Arizona baseball players have played in the Major Leagues. Famous alums include Terry Francona, Kenny Lofton, Shelley Duncan, Trevor Hoffman, Mark Melancon, Chip Hale, Craig Lefferts, J. T. Snow, Don Lee, Carl Thomas, Jack Howell, Mike Paul, Dan Schneider, Rich Hinton, Ed Vosberg, Hank Leiber, Ron Hassey, Brad Mills, Joe Magrane, Alex Mejia, Dave Baldwin, Brian Anderson, Jack Daugherty, Scott Erickson, Gil Heredia, Casey Candaele, George Arias, and Scott Kingery. Soccer The University of Arizona women's soccer team wrapped up their 2017 season on Nov. 17 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, finishing with an 11-5-4 record, and seven Pac-12 wins, the most in program history. Led by coach Tony Amato, Arizona's seniors became the first group in program history to make three NCAA Tournament appearances, winning at least one match in each Tournament. The program had only two appearances in its history prior to the last four years. Ten members received PAC-12 academic honors for their performance in the classroom. Softball The Arizona softball team is among the top programs in the country. The softball team has won eight NCAA Women's College World Series titles, in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2007 under head coach Mike Candrea (NCAA Softball Championship). The team has appeared in the NCAA National Championship in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 1998, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2010 (a feat second only to UCLA), and has reached the College World Series 19 times. The Arizona Wildcats softball team won their first Pac-12 Championship in ten years after defeating the No. 12 UCLA Bruins 7–2, and qualified for its 31st consecutive NCAA tournament, creating a new NCAA softball record. Coach Candrea, along with former Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch, led the 2004 U.S. Olympic softball team to a gold medal in Athens, Greece. The Wildcat softball team plays at Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium. Golf The university's golf teams have also been notably successful. The men's team won a national championship in 1992 (NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships), and has produced a number of successful professionals, most notably Jim Furyk. The women's team won national championships in 1996, 2000 and 2018 (NCAA Women's Golf Championship). The women's golf program has produced professionals Annika Sörenstam, Lorena Ochoa, and Erica Blasberg. Men's lacrosse The lacrosse club team was founded in the mid-1960s. In the 1960s, Arizona was a Division I varsity program, coached by Carl Runk, an Arizona graduate and football player. In 1998, Runk retired after twenty-eight years at Towson University in Maryland. Other Many other Wildcats have met with success at the university. Alix Creek and Michelle Oldham won the NCAA Women's Doubles Tennis title in 1993, defeating Texas in the Final. Although surprising to some, the University of Arizona has a noteworthy history in ice hockey. The school's club hockey team, formerly known as the Icecats, won over 800 games between its inception in 1979 and 2011. The Icecats defeated Penn State for the National Collegiate Club Hockey National Championship in 1985. They also appeared in eight Final Fours (’84, ’86, ’87, ’88, ’91, ’93, ’94, ’97) and ten Elite Eights. , they are part of ACHA Division I, and are known formally as the Arizona Wildcats hockey team. Robert M. Tanita was a nationally ranked collegiate wrestler who reached the NCAA finals tournament as WAC champion in 1963. Three national championships for synchronized swimming were won in 1980, 1981, and 1984, though these championships were in the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, and not the NCAA. Along with winning three national championships in the pool for synchronized swimming, the Wildcats have also won their first NCAA Championship in men and women's swimming and diving for the seasons of 2007–2008. Topping off these weekends Frank Busch, the men and women's head coach, was named NCAA Swimming Coach of the Year. Arizona men became the first team to claim a first-time title since UCLA's win in 1982. Also, the men ended Texas and Auburn's winning streak since 1998. At the end of the meet, the Texas Longhorns took second while 2007's champion, the Auburn Tigers, took fifth. For the women, Arizona worked on the disappointment of 2007's defeat. The women were winning until the last day when Auburn grasped the title. Unlike 2007, Arizona's women did not let anyone come close. The Wildcats won with 484 team points while the Auburn Tigers came in second with 348 and the Stanford Cardinal in third with 343. Student-athletes from the women's swimming and diving team have been particularly heralded by the NCAA. The NCAA Woman of the Year Award was won by |
American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, along with a number of uninhabited island territories. Some of the territories acquired were a part of United States imperialism, or to gain access to the east. Nearly all of the United States is in the northern hemisphere — the exceptions are American Samoa and Jarvis Island, which are in the southern hemisphere. Physiographic divisions The eastern United States has a varied topography. A broad, flat coastal plain lines the Atlantic and Gulf shores from the Texas-Mexico border to New York City, and includes the Florida peninsula. This broad coastal plain and barrier islands make up the widest and longest beaches in the United States, much of it composed of soft, white sands. The Florida Keys are a string of coral islands that reach the southernmost city on the United States mainland (Key West). Areas further inland feature rolling hills, mountains, and a diverse collection of temperate and subtropical moist and wet forests. Parts of interior Florida and South Carolina are also home to sand-hill communities. The Appalachian Mountains form a line of low mountains separating the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin. New England features rocky seacoasts and rugged mountains with peaks up to 6200 feet and valleys dotted with rivers and streams. Offshore Islands dot the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 6,622 km² of tidal flats in the United States, making it the 4th ranked country in terms of tidal flat area. The five Great Lakes are located in the north-central portion of the country, four of them forming part of the border with Canada, only Lake Michigan situated entirely within United States. The southeast United States, generally stretching from the Ohio River on south, includes a variety of warm temperate and subtropical moist and wet forests, as well as warm temperate and subtropical dry forests nearer the Great Plains in the west of the region. West of the Appalachians lies the lush Mississippi River basin and two large eastern tributaries, the Ohio River and the Tennessee River. The Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and the Midwest consist largely of rolling hills, interior highlands and small mountains, jungly marsh and swampland near the Ohio River, and productive farmland, stretching south to the Gulf Coast. The Midwest also has a vast amount of cave systems. The Great Plains lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. A large portion of the country's agricultural products are grown in the Great Plains. Before their general conversion to farmland, the Great Plains were noted for their extensive grasslands, from tallgrass prairie in the eastern plains to shortgrass steppe in the western High Plains. Elevation rises gradually from less than a few hundred feet near the Mississippi River to more than a mile high in the High Plains. The generally low relief of the plains is broken in several places, most notably in the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which form the U.S. Interior Highlands, the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains. The Great Plains come to an abrupt end at the Rocky Mountains. The Rocky Mountains form a large portion of the Western U.S., entering from Canada and stretching nearly to Mexico. The Rocky Mountain region is the highest region of the United States by average elevation. The Rocky Mountains generally contain fairly mild slopes and wider peaks compared to some of the other great mountain ranges, with a few exceptions (such as the Teton Mountains in Wyoming and the Sawatch Range in Colorado). The highest peaks of the Rockies are found in Colorado, the tallest peak being Mount Elbert at . In addition, instead of being one generally continuous and solid mountain range, it is broken up into a number of smaller, intermittent mountain ranges, forming a large series of basins and valleys. West of the Rocky Mountains lies the Intermontane Plateaus (also known as the Intermountain West), a large, arid desert lying between the Rockies and the Cascades and Sierra Nevada ranges. The large southern portion, known as the Great Basin, consists of salt flats, drainage basins, and many small north–south mountain ranges. The Southwest is predominantly a low-lying desert region. A portion known as the Colorado Plateau, centered around the Four Corners region, is considered to have some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. It is accentuated in such national parks as Grand Canyon, Arches, Mesa Verde and Bryce Canyon, among others. Other smaller Intermontane areas include the Columbia Plateau covering eastern Washington, western Idaho and northeast Oregon and the Snake River Plain in Southern Idaho. The Intermontane Plateaus come to an end at the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada. The Cascades consist of largely intermittent, volcanic mountains, many rising prominently from the surrounding landscape. The Sierra Nevada, further south, is a high, rugged, and dense mountain range. It contains the highest point in the contiguous 48 states, Mount Whitney (). It is located at the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties, just west-northwest of the lowest point in North America at the Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park at below sea level. These areas contain some spectacular scenery as well, as evidenced by such national parks as Yosemite and Mount Rainier. West of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada is a series of valleys, such as the Central Valley in California and the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Along the coast is a series of low mountain ranges known as the Pacific Coast Ranges. Alaska contains some of the most dramatic scenery in the country. Tall, prominent mountain ranges rise up sharply from broad, flat tundra plains. On the islands off the south and southwest coast are many volcanoes. Hawaii, far to the south of Alaska in the Pacific Ocean, is a chain of tropical, volcanic islands, popular as a tourist destination for many from East Asia and the mainland United States. The territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands encompass a number of tropical isles in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. In the Pacific Ocean the territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands occupy the limestone and volcanic isles of the Mariana archipelago, and American Samoa (the only populated US territory in the southern hemisphere) encompasses volcanic peaks and coral atolls in the eastern part of the Samoan Islands chain. Physiographic regions The geography of the United States varies across its immense area. Within the continental U.S., eight distinct physiographic divisions exist, though each is composed of several smaller physiographic subdivisions. These major divisions are: Laurentian Upland – part of the Canadian Shield that extends into the northern United States Great Lakes area. Atlantic Plain – the coastal regions of the eastern and southern parts includes the continental shelf, the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast. Appalachian Highlands – lying on the eastern side of the United States, it includes the Appalachian Mountains, the Watchung Mountains, the Adirondacks and New England province originally containing the Great Eastern Forest, a stretch of mixed temperature and subtropical montane forests, some of which are rainforests. Interior Plains – part of the interior continental United States, it includes the Great Plains, as well as a number of highland and mountainous regions, like the Black Hills, dense cave systems, painted hills and badland features. Interior Highlands – also part of the interior continental United States, this division includes the Ozark Plateau, the Ouachita Mountains, and other smaller mountain systems. This region is located largely in the warm temperate/subtropical moist and dry forest biomes. Rocky Mountain System – one branch of the Cordilleran system lying far inland in the western states. Intermontane Plateaus – also divided into the Columbia Plateau, the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Province, it is a system of plateaus, basins, ranges and gorges between the Rocky and Pacific Mountain Systems. It is the setting for the Grand Canyon, the Great Basin and Death Valley. Pacific Mountain System – the coastal mountain ranges and features in the west coast of the United States. The Atlantic coast of the United States is low, with minor exceptions. The Appalachian Highland owes its oblique northeast–southwest trend to crustal deformations which in very early geological time gave a beginning to what later came to be the Appalachian mountain system. This system had its climax of deformation so long ago (probably in Permian time) that it has since then been very generally reduced to moderate or low relief. It owes its present-day altitude either to renewed elevations along the earlier lines or to the survival of the most resistant rocks as residual mountains. The oblique trend of this coast would be even more pronounced but for a comparatively modern crustal movement, causing a depression in the northeast resulting in an encroachment of the sea upon the land. Additionally, the southeastern section has undergone an elevation resulting in the advance of the land upon the sea. While the Atlantic coast is relatively low, the Pacific coast is, with few exceptions, hilly or mountainous. This coast has been defined chiefly by geologically recent crustal deformations, and hence still preserves a greater relief than that of the Atlantic. The low Atlantic coast and the hilly or mountainous Pacific coast foreshadow the leading features in the distribution of mountains within the United States. The east coast Appalachian system, originally forest covered, is relatively low and narrow and is bordered on the southeast and south by an important coastal plain. The Cordilleran system on the western side of the continent is lofty, broad and complicated having two branches, the Rocky Mountain System and the Pacific Mountain System. In between these mountain systems lie the Intermontaine Plateaus. Both the Columbia River and Colorado River rise far inland near the easternmost members of the Cordilleran system, and flow through plateaus and intermontaine basins to the ocean. Heavy forests cover the northwest coast, but elsewhere trees are found only on the higher ranges below the Alpine region. The intermontane valleys, plateaus and basins range from treeless to desert with the most arid region being in the southwest. The Laurentian Highlands, the Interior Plains and the Interior Highlands lie between the two coasts, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico northward, far beyond the national boundary, to the Arctic Ocean. The central plains are divided by a hardly perceptible height of land | system as they move up the East Coast and into the Atlantic Ocean, where they intensify rapidly. These storms are known as Nor'easters and often bring widespread, heavy rain, wind, and snowfall to New England. The uninterrupted grasslands of the Great Plains also lead to some of the most extreme climate swings in the world. Temperatures can rise or drop rapidly and winds can be extreme, and the flow of heat waves or Arctic air masses often advance uninterrupted through the plains. The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau (the Intermontane Plateaus) are arid or semiarid regions that lie in the rain shadow of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada. Precipitation averages less than . The Southwest is a hot desert, with temperatures exceeding for several weeks at a time in summer. The Southwest and the Great Basin are also affected by the monsoon from the Gulf of California from July to September, which brings localized but often severe thunderstorms to the region. Much of California consists of a Mediterranean climate, with sometimes excessive rainfall from October–April and nearly no rain the rest of the year. In the Pacific Northwest rain falls year-round, but is much heavier during winter and spring. The mountains of the west receive abundant precipitation and very heavy snowfall. The Cascades are one of the snowiest places in the world, with some places averaging over of snow annually, but the lower elevations closer to the coast receive very little snow. Florida has a subtropical climate in the northern part of the state and a tropical climate in the southern part of the state. Summers are wet and winters are dry in Florida. Annually much of Florida, as well as the deep southern states, are frost-free. The mild winters of Florida allow a massive tropical fruit industry to thrive in the central part of the state, making the US second to only Brazil in citrus production in the world. Another significant (but localized) weather effect is lake-effect snow that falls south and east of the Great Lakes, especially in the hilly portions of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and on the Tug Hill Plateau in New York. The lake effect dumped well over of snow in the area of Buffalo, New York throughout the 2006-2007 winter. The Wasatch Front and Wasatch Range in Utah can also receive significant lake effect accumulations from the Great Salt Lake. Extremes In northern Alaska, tundra and arctic conditions predominate, where the temperature has fallen as low as . On the other end of the spectrum, Death Valley, California once reached , the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth. On average, the mountains of the western states receive the highest levels of snowfall on Earth. The greatest annual snowfall level is at Mount Rainier in Washington, at ; the record there was in the winter of 1971–72. This record was broken by the Mt. Baker Ski Area in northwestern Washington which reported of snowfall for the 1998-99 snowfall season. Other places with significant snowfall outside the Cascade Range are the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, and the Sierra Nevada in California. In the east, the region near the Great Lakes and the mountains of the Northeast receive the most snowfall, although such snowfall levels do not near snowfall levels in the western United States. Along the northwestern Pacific coast, rainfall is greater than anywhere else in the continental U.S., with Quinault Rainforest in Washington having an average of . Hawaii receives even more, with measured annually in the Big Bog, in Maui. Pago Pago Harbor in American Samoa is the rainiest harbor in the world (because of the 523 meter Rainmaker Mountain). The Mojave Desert, in the southwest, is home to the driest locale in the U.S. Yuma, Arizona, has an average of of precipitation each year. In central portions of the U.S., tornadoes are more common than anywhere else on Earth and touch down most commonly in the spring and summer. Deadly and destructive hurricanes occur almost every year along the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. The Appalachian region and the Midwest experience the worst floods, though virtually no area in the U.S. is immune to flooding. The Southwest has the worst droughts; one is thought to have lasted over 500 years and to have hurt Ancestral Pueblo peoples. The West is affected by large wildfires each year. Natural disasters The United States is affected by a variety of natural disasters yearly. Although drought is rare, it has occasionally caused major disruption, such as during the Dust Bowl (1931–1942). Farmland failed throughout the Plains, entire regions were virtually depopulated, and dust storms ravaged the land. Tornadoes and hurricanes The Great Plains and Midwest, due to the contrasting air masses, see frequent severe thunderstorms and tornado outbreaks during spring and summer with around 1,000 tornadoes occurring each year. The strip of land from north Texas north to Kansas and Nebraska and east into Tennessee is known as Tornado Alley, where many houses have tornado shelters and many towns have tornado sirens due to the very frequent tornado formations in the region. Hurricanes are another natural disaster found in the US, which can hit anywhere along the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Coast as well as Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. Particularly at risk are the central and southern Texas coasts, the area from southeastern Louisiana east to the Florida Panhandle, peninsular Florida, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina, although any portion of the coast could be struck. The U.S. territories and possessions in the Caribbean, such as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are also vulnerable to hurricanes due to their location in the Caribbean Sea. Hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30, with a peak from mid-August through early October. Some of the more devastating hurricanes have included the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Maria in 2017. Hurricanes (known as cyclones in the Pacific Ocean) fail to landfall on the Pacific Coast of the United States due to water temperatures being too cool to sustain them. However, the remnants of tropical cyclones from the Eastern Pacific occasionally impact the western United States, bringing moderate to heavy rainfall. Flooding Occasional severe flooding is experienced. There was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Great Flood of 1993, and widespread flooding and mudslides caused by the 1982–83 El Niño event in the western United States. Flooding is still prevalent, mostly on the Eastern Coast, during hurricanes or other inclement weather, for example in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy devastated the region. Localized flooding can, however, occur anywhere, and mudslides from heavy rain can cause problems in any mountainous area, particularly the Southwest. Large stretches of desert shrub in the west can fuel the spread of wildfires. The narrow canyons of many mountain areas in the west and severe thunderstorm activity during the summer lead to sometimes devastating flash floods as well, while nor'easter snowstorms can bring activity to a halt throughout the Northeast (although heavy snowstorms can occur almost anywhere). Geologic The West Coast of the continental United States makes up part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of heavy tectonic and volcanic activity that is the source of 90% of the world's earthquakes. The American Northwest sees the highest concentration of active volcanoes in the United States, in Washington, Oregon and northern California along the Cascade Mountains. There are several active volcanoes located in the islands of Hawaii, including Kilauea in ongoing eruption since 1983, but they do not typically adversely affect the inhabitants of the islands. There has not been a major life-threatening eruption on the Hawaiian islands since the 17th century. Volcanic eruptions can occasionally be devastating, such as in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. The Ring of Fire makes California and southern Alaska particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. Earthquakes can cause extensive damage, such as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake or the 1964 Good Friday earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska. California is well known for seismic activity, and requires large structures to be earthquake resistant to minimize loss of life and property. Outside of devastating earthquakes, California experiences minor earthquakes on a regular basis. There have been about 100 significant earthquakes annually from 2010 to 2012. Past averages were 21 a year. This is believed to be due to the deep disposal of wastewater from fracking. None has exceeded a magnitude of 5.6, and no one has |
relief, taverns, and schools. Americans spent a great deal of time in court, as private lawsuits were very common. Legal affairs were overseen by local judges and juries, with a central role for trained lawyers. This promoted the rapid expansion of the legal profession, and the dominant role of lawyers in politics was apparent by the 1770s, with notable individuals including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, among many others. The American colonies were unique in world context because of the growth of representation of different interest groups. Unlike Europe, where the royal court, aristocratic families and the established church were in control, the American political culture was open to merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, and many other identifiable groups. Over 90% of the representatives elected to the legislature lived in their districts, unlike England where it was common to have a member of Parliament and absentee member of Parliament. Finally, and most dramatically, the Americans were fascinated by and increasingly adopted the political values of Republicanism, which stressed equal rights, the need for virtuous citizens, and the evils of corruption, luxury, and aristocracy. None of the colonies had political parties of the sort that formed in the 1790s, but each had shifting factions that vied for power. American ideology Republicanism, along with a form of classical liberalism remains the dominant ideology. Central documents include the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers (1787-1790s), the Bill of Rights (1791), and Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (1863), among others. Among the core tenets of this ideology are the following: Civic duty: citizens have the responsibility to understand and support the government, participate in elections, pay taxes, and perform military service. Opposition to Political corruption. Democracy: The government is answerable to citizens, who may change the representatives through elections. Equality before the law: The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen. Government officials are subject to the law just as others are. Freedom of religion: The government can neither support nor suppress any or all religion. Freedom of speech: The government cannot restrict through law or action the personal, non-violent speech of a citizen; a marketplace of ideas. At the time of the United States' founding, the economy was predominantly one of agriculture and small private businesses, and state governments left welfare issues to private or local initiative. As in the UK and other industrialized countries, laissez-faire ideology was largely discredited during the Great Depression. Between the 1930s and 1970s, fiscal policy was characterized by the Keynesian consensus, a time during which modern American liberalism dominated economic policy virtually unchallenged. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, laissez-faire ideology has once more become a powerful force in American politics. While the American welfare state expanded more than threefold after WWII, it has been at 20% of GDP since the late 1970s. Today, modern American liberalism, and modern American conservatism are engaged in a continuous political battle, characterized by what The Economist describes as "greater divisiveness [and] close, but bitterly fought elections." Since 2016, the United States has been recognized as a flawed democracy in the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, partially due to increased political polarization. Before World War II, the United States pursued a noninterventionist policy of in foreign affairs by not taking sides in conflicts between foreign powers. The country abandoned this policy when it became a superpower, and the country mostly supports internationalism. Researchers have looked at authoritarian values. The main argument of this paper is that long-run economic changes from globalization have a negative impact on the social identity of historically dominant groups. This leads to an increase in authoritarian values because of an increased incentive to force minority groups to conform to social norms. Political parties and elections The United States Constitution has never formally addressed the issue of political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president, and remains to this day the only independent to have held the office. Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation. Nevertheless, the beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from his immediate circle of advisers, including Hamilton and Madison. In partisan elections, candidates are nominated by a political party or seek public office as an independent. Each state has significant discretion in deciding how candidates are nominated, and thus eligible to appear on the election ballot. Typically, major party candidates are formally chosen in a party primary or convention, whereas minor party and Independents are required to complete a petitioning process. Political parties The modern political party system in the United States is a two-party system dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and have controlled the United States Congress since at least 1856. From time to time, several other third parties have achieved relatively minor representation at the national and state levels. Among the two major parties, the Democratic Party generally positions itself as center-left in American politics and supports an American liberalism platform, while the Republican Party generally positions itself as center-right and supports an American conservatism platform. Elections As in the United Kingdom and in other similar parliamentary systems, in the U.S. eligible Americans vote for a specific candidate. With a federal government, officials are elected at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the president is elected indirectly by the people, but instead elected through the Electoral College. In modern times, the electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state, however in rare occurrences they may vote against the popular vote of their state, becoming what is known as a faithless elector. All members of Congress, and the offices at the state and local levels are directly elected. Both federal and state laws regulate elections. The United States Constitution defines (to a basic extent) how federal elections are held, in Article One and Article Two and various amendments. State law regulates most aspects of electoral law, including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state's electoral college, and the running of state and local elections. Gerrymandering Gerrymandering is a process frequently used to adjust the boundaries of electoral districts in order to advantage one political party over the other, representing a confluence of elections and political parties. In addition to primarily favoring the voters of only one party, gerrymandering has also been criticized for its impact on minority voters in the United States. Minority voters are often concentrated into single districts which can reduce their potential to otherwise influence elections in other districts—though this process can also help ensure the election of a representative of the same race. However, some racial groups, such as Asian Americans, that do not form a majority in a district's population can miss out on this potential benefit. Similarly, women are rarely concentrated in a way where they compose a significant majority of district's population, meaning that gerrymandering does not provide any counter-benefits to the dilution of the value of their votes. While gerrymandering can cause people to doubt the value of their votes in certain elections, the process has provided some benefits to minorities and marginalized groups. The majority of studies on descriptive representation have suggested that districts where at least 50% of the voter base is composed of minority voters have a higher likelihood of minority representation. Additionally, the minority representatives elected from these districts are frequently reelected, which can increase their ability to gain seniority in a legislature or their party. Organization of American political parties American political parties are more loosely organized than those in other countries. The two major parties, in particular, have no formal organization at the national level that controls membership. Thus, for an American to say that they are a member of the Democratic or Republican parties is quite different from a Briton's stating that they are a member of the Conservative or Labour parties. In most U.S. states, a voter can register as a member of one or another party and/or vote in the primary election for one or another party. A person may choose to attend meetings of one local party committee one day and another party committee the next day. Party identification becomes somewhat formalized when a person runs for partisan office. In most states, this means declaring oneself a candidate for the nomination of a particular party and intent to enter that party's primary election for an office. A party committee may choose to endorse one or another of those who is seeking the nomination, but in the end the choice is up to those who choose to vote in the primary, and it is often difficult to tell who is going to do the voting. The result is that American political parties have weak central organizations and little central ideology, except by consensus. A party really cannot prevent a person who disagrees with the majority of positions of the party or actively works against the party's aims from claiming party membership, so long as the voters who choose to vote in the primary elections elect that person. Once in office, an elected official may change parties simply by declaring such intent. At the federal level, each of the two major parties has a national committee (See, Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee) that acts as the hub for much fund-raising and campaign activities, particularly in presidential campaigns. The exact composition of these committees is different for each party, but they are made up primarily of representatives from state parties and affiliated organizations, and others important to the party. However, the national committees do not have the power to direct the activities of members of the party. Both parties also have separate campaign committees which work to elect candidates at a specific level. The most significant of these are the Hill committees, which work to elect candidates to each house of Congress. State parties exist in all fifty states, though their structures differ according to state law, as well as party rules at both the national and the state level. Despite these weak organizations, elections are still usually portrayed as national races between the political parties. In what is known as "presidential coattails", candidates in presidential elections become the de facto leader of their respective party, and thus usually bring out supporters who in turn then vote for his party's candidates for other offices. On the other hand, federal midterm elections (where only Congress and not the president is up for election) are usually regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's performance, with voters either voting in or out the president's party's candidates, which in turn helps the next session of Congress to either pass or block the president's agenda, respectively. Political pressure groups Special interest groups advocate the cause of their specific constituency. Business organizations will favor low corporate taxes and restrictions of the right to strike, whereas labor unions will support minimum wage legislation and protection for collective bargaining. Other private interest groups, such as churches and ethnic groups, are more concerned about broader issues of policy that can affect their organizations or their beliefs. One type of private interest group that has grown in number and influence in recent years is the political action committee or PAC. These are independent groups, organized around a single issue or set of issues, which contribute money to political campaigns for United States Congress or the presidency. PACs are limited in the amounts they can contribute directly to candidates in federal elections. There are no restrictions, however, on the amounts PACs can spend independently to advocate a point of view or to urge the election of candidates to office. PACs today number in the thousands. "The number of interest groups has mushroomed, with more and more of them operating offices in Washington, D.C., and representing themselves directly to Congress and federal agencies," says Michael Schudson in his 1998 book The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life. "Many organizations that keep an eye on Washington seek financial and moral support from ordinary citizens. Since many of them focus on a narrow set of concerns or even on a single issue, and often a single issue of enormous emotional weight, they compete with the parties for citizens' dollars, time, and passion." The amount of money spent by these special interests continues to grow, as campaigns become increasingly expensive. Many Americans have the feeling that these wealthy interests, whether corporations, unions or PACs, are so powerful that ordinary citizens can do little to counteract their influences. A survey of members of the American Economic Association find the vast majority regardless of political affiliation to be discontent with the current state of democracy in America. The primary concern relates to the prevalence and influence of special interest groups within the political process, which tends to lead to policy consequences that only benefit such special interest groups and politicians. Some conjecture that maintenance of the policy status quo and hesitance to stray from it perpetuates a political environment that fails to advance society's welfare. General developments Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties. They were sure quarreling factions would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted citizens to vote for candidates without the interference of organized groups, but this was not to be. By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together. The followers of Alexander Hamilton, the Hamiltonian faction, took up the name "Federalist"; they favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry. The followers of Thomas Jefferson, the Jeffersonians and then the "Anti-Federalists," took up the name "Democratic-Republicans"; they preferred a decentralized agrarian republic in which the federal government had limited power. By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization, replaced by the Whigs, brought to life in opposition to the election that year of President Andrew Jackson. Jackson's presidency split the Democratic-Republican Party: Jacksonians became the Democratic Party and those following the leadership of John Quincy Adams became the "National Republicans." The two-party system, still in existence today, was born. (Note: The National Republicans of John Quincy Adams is not the same party as today's Republican Party.) In the 1850s, the issue of slavery took center stage, with disagreement in particular over the question of whether slavery should be permitted in the country's new territories in the West. The Whig Party straddled the issue and sank to its death after the overwhelming electoral defeat by Franklin Pierce in the 1852 presidential election. Ex-Whigs joined the Know Nothings or the newly formed Republican Party. While the Know Nothing party was short-lived, Republicans would survive the intense politics leading up to the Civil War. The primary Republican policy was that slavery be excluded from all the territories. Just six years later, this new party captured the presidency when Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860. By then, parties were well established as the country's dominant political organizations, and party allegiance had become an important part of most people's consciousness. Party loyalty was passed from fathers to sons, and party activities, including spectacular campaign events, complete with uniformed marching groups and torchlight parades, were a part of the social life of many communities. By the 1920s, however, this boisterous folksiness had diminished. Municipal reforms, civil service reform, corrupt practices acts, and presidential primaries to replace the power of politicians at national conventions had all helped to clean up politics. Development of the two-party system in the United States Since the 1790s, the country has been run by two major parties. They try to defeat the other party, but not to destroy it. Occasional minor (or "third") political parties appear from time to time; they seldom last more than a decade. At various times the Socialist Party, the Farmer-Labor Party and the Populist Party for a few years had considerable local strength, and then faded away. A few merged into the mainstream. For example, in Minnesota, the Farmer–Labor Party merged into the state's Democratic Party, which is now officially known as the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. At present, the small Libertarian Party has lasted for years and is usually the largest in national elections, but rarely elects anyone. New York State has a number of additional third parties, who sometimes run their own candidates for office and sometimes nominate the nominees of the two main parties. In the District of Columbia, the D.C. Statehood Party has served as a third party with one issue. Almost all public officials in America are elected from single-member districts and win office by beating out their opponents in a system for determining winners called first-past-the-post; the one who gets the plurality wins, (which is not the same thing as actually getting a majority of votes). This encourages the two-party system; see Duverger's law. In the absence of multi-seat congressional districts, proportional representation is impossible and third parties cannot thrive. Senators were originally selected by state legislatures, but have been elected by popular vote since 1913. Although elections to the Senate elect two senators per constituency (state), staggered terms effectively result in single-seat constituencies for elections to the Senate. Another critical factor has been ballot access law. Originally, voters went to the polls and publicly stated which candidate they supported. Later on, this developed into a process whereby each political party would create its own ballot and thus the voter would put the party's ballot into the voting box. In the late nineteenth century, states began to adopt the Australian Secret Ballot Method, and it eventually became the national standard. The secret ballot method ensured that the privacy of voters would be protected (hence government jobs could no longer be awarded to loyal voters) and each state would be responsible for creating one official ballot. The fact that state legislatures were dominated by Democrats and Republicans provided these parties an opportunity to pass discriminatory laws against minor political parties, yet such laws did not start to arise until the first Red Scare that hit America after World War I. State legislatures began to enact tough laws that made it harder for minor political parties to run candidates for office by requiring a high number of petition signatures from citizens and decreasing the length of time that such a petition could legally be circulated. Although party members will usually "toe the line" and support their party's policies, they are free to vote against their own party and vote with the opposition ("cross the aisle") when they please. "In America the same political labels (Democratic and Republican) cover virtually all public officeholders, and therefore most voters are everywhere mobilized in the name of these two parties," says Nelson W. Polsby, professor of political science, in the book New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution. "Yet Democrats and Republicans are not everywhere the same. Variations (sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant) in the 50 political cultures of the states yield considerable differences overall in what it means to be, or to vote, Democratic or Republican. These differences suggest that one may be justified in referring to the American two-party system as masking something more like a hundred-party system." Political spectrum of the two major parties During the 20th century, the overall political philosophy of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party underwent a dramatic shift from their earlier philosophies. From the 1860s to the 1950s, the Republican Party was considered to be the more classically liberal of the two major parties and the Democratic Party the more classically conservative/populist of the two. This changed a great deal with the presidency of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal included the founding of Social Security as well as a variety of other federal services and public works projects. Roosevelt's performance in the twin crises of the Depression and World War II led to a sort of polarization in national politics, centered around him; this combined with his increasingly liberal policies to turn FDR's Democrats to the left and the Republican Party further to the right. During the 1950s and the early 1960s, both parties essentially expressed a more centrist approach to politics on the national level and had their liberal, moderate, and conservative wings influential within both parties. From the early 1960s, the conservative wing became more dominant in the Republican Party, and the liberal wing became more dominant in the Democratic Party. The 1964 presidential election heralded the rise of the conservative wing among Republicans. The liberal and conservative wings within the Democratic Party were competitive until 1972, when George McGovern's candidacy marked the triumph of the liberal wing. This similarly happened in the Republican Party with the candidacy and later landslide election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which marked the triumph of the conservative wing. By the 1980 election, each major party had largely become identified by its dominant political orientation. Strong showings in the 1990s by reformist independent Ross Perot pushed the major parties to put forth more centrist presidential candidates, like Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Polarization in Congress was said by some to have been cemented by the Republican takeover of 1994. Others say that this polarization had existed since the late 1980s when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Liberals within the Republican Party and conservatives within the Democratic Party and the Democratic Leadership Council neoliberals have typically fulfilled the roles of so-called political mavericks, radical centrists, or brokers of compromise between the two major parties. They have also helped their respective parties gain in certain regions that might not ordinarily elect a member of that party; the Republican Party has used this approach with centrist Republicans such as Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Richard Riordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 2006 elections sent many centrist or conservative Democrats to state and federal legislatures including several, notably in Kansas and Montana, who switched parties. Religious groups Religious groups and churches often become political pressure groups and parts of political coalitions, despite the Establishment Clause in the US Constitution. In recent decades, one of the most notable coalitions has been composed of conservative evangelical Protestants and the broader Republican Party. However, some scholars have argued that this coalition may be starting to split, as non-conservative and moderate evangelical Protestants supported then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Even if political coalitions between religious groups and political parties split or change, relative to other religions, Christianity has been noted as having a continual dominant impact on politics in the United States. This dominance has translated to pressuring policymakers to pass laws influenced by religious views, such as laws related to morality and personal conduct. A study focusing on this type of political pressure used the alcohol and gambling laws of states as case studies for measuring the impact of religious groups, and it found that large conservative Protestant populations and strong religious pressures had a greater association with more restrictive initial laws than economic development—demonstrating how the presence of religious groups can potentially influence policy. Concerns about oligarchy Some views suggest that the political structure of the United States is in many respects an oligarchy, where a small economic elite overwhelmingly dominate policy and law. Some academic researchers suggest a drift toward oligarchy has been occurring by way of the influence of corporations, wealthy, and other special interest groups, leaving individual citizens with less impact than economic elites and organized interest groups in the political process. A study by political scientists Martin Gilens (Princeton University) and Benjamin Page (Northwestern University) released in April 2014, concluded that the U.S. government doesn't represent the interests of the majority of its citizens but instead is | a wide range of public and private business was decided by elected bodies, especially the assemblies and county governments. Topics of public concern and debate included land grants, commercial subsidies, and taxation, as well as the oversight of roads, poor relief, taverns, and schools. Americans spent a great deal of time in court, as private lawsuits were very common. Legal affairs were overseen by local judges and juries, with a central role for trained lawyers. This promoted the rapid expansion of the legal profession, and the dominant role of lawyers in politics was apparent by the 1770s, with notable individuals including John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, among many others. The American colonies were unique in world context because of the growth of representation of different interest groups. Unlike Europe, where the royal court, aristocratic families and the established church were in control, the American political culture was open to merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, and many other identifiable groups. Over 90% of the representatives elected to the legislature lived in their districts, unlike England where it was common to have a member of Parliament and absentee member of Parliament. Finally, and most dramatically, the Americans were fascinated by and increasingly adopted the political values of Republicanism, which stressed equal rights, the need for virtuous citizens, and the evils of corruption, luxury, and aristocracy. None of the colonies had political parties of the sort that formed in the 1790s, but each had shifting factions that vied for power. American ideology Republicanism, along with a form of classical liberalism remains the dominant ideology. Central documents include the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Constitution (1787), the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers (1787-1790s), the Bill of Rights (1791), and Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" (1863), among others. Among the core tenets of this ideology are the following: Civic duty: citizens have the responsibility to understand and support the government, participate in elections, pay taxes, and perform military service. Opposition to Political corruption. Democracy: The government is answerable to citizens, who may change the representatives through elections. Equality before the law: The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen. Government officials are subject to the law just as others are. Freedom of religion: The government can neither support nor suppress any or all religion. Freedom of speech: The government cannot restrict through law or action the personal, non-violent speech of a citizen; a marketplace of ideas. At the time of the United States' founding, the economy was predominantly one of agriculture and small private businesses, and state governments left welfare issues to private or local initiative. As in the UK and other industrialized countries, laissez-faire ideology was largely discredited during the Great Depression. Between the 1930s and 1970s, fiscal policy was characterized by the Keynesian consensus, a time during which modern American liberalism dominated economic policy virtually unchallenged. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, laissez-faire ideology has once more become a powerful force in American politics. While the American welfare state expanded more than threefold after WWII, it has been at 20% of GDP since the late 1970s. Today, modern American liberalism, and modern American conservatism are engaged in a continuous political battle, characterized by what The Economist describes as "greater divisiveness [and] close, but bitterly fought elections." Since 2016, the United States has been recognized as a flawed democracy in the Democracy Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, partially due to increased political polarization. Before World War II, the United States pursued a noninterventionist policy of in foreign affairs by not taking sides in conflicts between foreign powers. The country abandoned this policy when it became a superpower, and the country mostly supports internationalism. Researchers have looked at authoritarian values. The main argument of this paper is that long-run economic changes from globalization have a negative impact on the social identity of historically dominant groups. This leads to an increase in authoritarian values because of an increased incentive to force minority groups to conform to social norms. Political parties and elections The United States Constitution has never formally addressed the issue of political parties, primarily because the Founding Fathers did not originally intend for American politics to be partisan. In Federalist Papers No. 9 and No. 10, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, respectively, wrote specifically about the dangers of domestic political factions. In addition, the first president of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election or throughout his tenure as president, and remains to this day the only independent to have held the office. Furthermore, he hoped that political parties would not be formed, fearing conflict and stagnation. Nevertheless, the beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from his immediate circle of advisers, including Hamilton and Madison. In partisan elections, candidates are nominated by a political party or seek public office as an independent. Each state has significant discretion in deciding how candidates are nominated, and thus eligible to appear on the election ballot. Typically, major party candidates are formally chosen in a party primary or convention, whereas minor party and Independents are required to complete a petitioning process. Political parties The modern political party system in the United States is a two-party system dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. These two parties have won every United States presidential election since 1852 and have controlled the United States Congress since at least 1856. From time to time, several other third parties have achieved relatively minor representation at the national and state levels. Among the two major parties, the Democratic Party generally positions itself as center-left in American politics and supports an American liberalism platform, while the Republican Party generally positions itself as center-right and supports an American conservatism platform. Elections As in the United Kingdom and in other similar parliamentary systems, in the U.S. eligible Americans vote for a specific candidate. With a federal government, officials are elected at the federal (national), state and local levels. On a national level, the president is elected indirectly by the people, but instead elected through the Electoral College. In modern times, the electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state, however in rare occurrences they may vote against the popular vote of their state, becoming what is known as a faithless elector. All members of Congress, and the offices at the state and local levels are directly elected. Both federal and state laws regulate elections. The United States Constitution defines (to a basic extent) how federal elections are held, in Article One and Article Two and various amendments. State law regulates most aspects of electoral law, including primaries, the eligibility of voters (beyond the basic constitutional definition), the running of each state's electoral college, and the running of state and local elections. Gerrymandering Gerrymandering is a process frequently used to adjust the boundaries of electoral districts in order to advantage one political party over the other, representing a confluence of elections and political parties. In addition to primarily favoring the voters of only one party, gerrymandering has also been criticized for its impact on minority voters in the United States. Minority voters are often concentrated into single districts which can reduce their potential to otherwise influence elections in other districts—though this process can also help ensure the election of a representative of the same race. However, some racial groups, such as Asian Americans, that do not form a majority in a district's population can miss out on this potential benefit. Similarly, women are rarely concentrated in a way where they compose a significant majority of district's population, meaning that gerrymandering does not provide any counter-benefits to the dilution of the value of their votes. While gerrymandering can cause people to doubt the value of their votes in certain elections, the process has provided some benefits to minorities and marginalized groups. The majority of studies on descriptive representation have suggested that districts where at least 50% of the voter base is composed of minority voters have a higher likelihood of minority representation. Additionally, the minority representatives elected from these districts are frequently reelected, which can increase their ability to gain seniority in a legislature or their party. Organization of American political parties American political parties are more loosely organized than those in other countries. The two major parties, in particular, have no formal organization at the national level that controls membership. Thus, for an American to say that they are a member of the Democratic or Republican parties is quite different from a Briton's stating that they are a member of the Conservative or Labour parties. In most U.S. states, a voter can register as a member of one or another party and/or vote in the primary election for one or another party. A person may choose to attend meetings of one local party committee one day and another party committee the next day. Party identification becomes somewhat formalized when a person runs for partisan office. In most states, this means declaring oneself a candidate for the nomination of a particular party and intent to enter that party's primary election for an office. A party committee may choose to endorse one or another of those who is seeking the nomination, but in the end the choice is up to those who choose to vote in the primary, and it is often difficult to tell who is going to do the voting. The result is that American political parties have weak central organizations and little central ideology, except by consensus. A party really cannot prevent a person who disagrees with the majority of positions of the party or actively works against the party's aims from claiming party membership, so long as the voters who choose to vote in the primary elections elect that person. Once in office, an elected official may change parties simply by declaring such intent. At the federal level, each of the two major parties has a national committee (See, Democratic National Committee, Republican National Committee) that acts as the hub for much fund-raising and campaign activities, particularly in presidential campaigns. The exact composition of these committees is different for each party, but they are made up primarily of representatives from state parties and affiliated organizations, and others important to the party. However, the national committees do not have the power to direct the activities of members of the party. Both parties also have separate campaign committees which work to elect candidates at a specific level. The most significant of these are the Hill committees, which work to elect candidates to each house of Congress. State parties exist in all fifty states, though their structures differ according to state law, as well as party rules at both the national and the state level. Despite these weak organizations, elections are still usually portrayed as national races between the political parties. In what is known as "presidential coattails", candidates in presidential elections become the de facto leader of their respective party, and thus usually bring out supporters who in turn then vote for his party's candidates for other offices. On the other hand, federal midterm elections (where only Congress and not the president is up for election) are usually regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's performance, with voters either voting in or out the president's party's candidates, which in turn helps the next session of Congress to either pass or block the president's agenda, respectively. Political pressure groups Special interest groups advocate the cause of their specific constituency. Business organizations will favor low corporate taxes and restrictions of the right to strike, whereas labor unions will support minimum wage legislation and protection for collective bargaining. Other private interest groups, such as churches and ethnic groups, are more concerned about broader issues of policy that can affect their organizations or their beliefs. One type of private interest group that has grown in number and influence in recent years is the political action committee or PAC. These are independent groups, organized around a single issue or set of issues, which contribute money to political campaigns for United States Congress or the presidency. PACs are limited in the amounts they can contribute directly to candidates in federal elections. There are no restrictions, however, on the amounts PACs can spend independently to advocate a point of view or to urge the election of candidates to office. PACs today number in the thousands. "The number of interest groups has mushroomed, with more and more of them operating offices in Washington, D.C., and representing themselves directly to Congress and federal agencies," says Michael Schudson in his 1998 book The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life. "Many organizations that keep an eye on Washington seek financial and moral support from ordinary citizens. Since many of them focus on a narrow set of concerns or even on a single issue, and often a single issue of enormous emotional weight, they compete with the parties for citizens' dollars, time, and passion." The amount of money spent by these special interests continues to grow, as campaigns become increasingly expensive. Many Americans have the feeling that these wealthy interests, whether corporations, unions or PACs, are so powerful that ordinary citizens can do little to counteract their influences. A survey of members of the American Economic Association find the vast majority regardless of political affiliation to be discontent with the current state of democracy in America. The primary concern relates to the prevalence and influence of special interest groups within the political process, which tends to lead to policy consequences that only benefit such special interest groups and politicians. Some conjecture that maintenance of the policy status quo and hesitance to stray from it perpetuates a political environment that fails to advance society's welfare. General developments Many of America's Founding Fathers hated the thought of political parties. They were sure quarreling factions would be more interested in contending with each other than in working for the common good. They wanted citizens to vote for candidates without the interference of organized groups, but this was not to be. By the 1790s, different views of the new country's proper course had already developed, and those who held these opposing views tried to win support for their cause by banding together. The followers of Alexander Hamilton, the Hamiltonian faction, took up the name "Federalist"; they favored a strong central government that would support the interests of commerce and industry. The followers of Thomas Jefferson, the Jeffersonians and then the "Anti-Federalists," took up the name "Democratic-Republicans"; they preferred a decentralized agrarian republic in which the federal government had limited power. By 1828, the Federalists had disappeared as an organization, replaced by the Whigs, brought to life in opposition to the election that year of President Andrew |
had overtaken the British Empire as the world's most productive economy. It is the world's largest producer of petroleum and natural gas. In 2016, it was the world's largest trading country as well as its third-largest manufacturer, representing a fifth of the global manufacturing output. The U.S. not only has the largest internal market for goods, but also dominates the services trade. U.S. total trade amounted to $4.2trillion in 2018. Of the world's 500 largest companies, 121 are headquartered in the U.S. The U.S. has the world's highest number of billionaires, with a total wealth of $3.0trillion. US commercial banks had $20trillion in assets as of August 2020. US Global assets under management had more than $30trillion in assets. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq are the world's largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume. Foreign investments made in the U.S. total almost $4.0trillion, while American investments in foreign countries total over $5.6trillion. The U.S. economy is ranked first in international ranking on venture capital and Global Research and Development funding. Consumer spending comprised 68% of the U.S. economy in 2018, while its labor share of income was 43% in 2017. The U.S. has the world's largest consumer market. The nation's labor market has attracted immigrants from all over the world and its net migration rate is among the highest in the world. The U.S. is one of the top-performing economies in studies such as the Ease of Doing Business Index, the Global Competitiveness Report, and others. The U.S. economy experienced a serious economic downturn during the Great Recession, defined as lasting from December 2007 to June 2009. However, real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011, household net worth by Q2 2012, non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014, and the unemployment rate by September 2015. The United States ranked the 41st highest in income inequality among 156 countries in 2017, and the highest compared to the rest of the Western world. Each of these variables continued into post-recession record territory following those dates, with the U.S. recovery becoming the second-longest on record by April 2018. History Colonial era and 18th century The economic history of the United States began with British settlements along the Eastern seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries. These 13 colonies gained independence from the British Empire in the late 18th century and quickly grew from colonial economies towards an economy focused on agriculture. 19th century In 180 years, the U.S. grew to a huge, integrated, industrialized economy that made up around one-fifth of the world economy. As a result, the U.S. GDP per capita converged on and eventually surpassed that of the British Empire, as well as other countries that it previously trailed economically. The economy maintained high wages, attracting immigrants by the millions from all over the world. In the early 1800s, the United States was largely agricultural with more than 80 percent of the population in farming. Most of the manufacturing centered on the first stages of transformation of raw materials with lumber and sawmills, textiles, and boots and shoes leading the way. The rich resource endowments contributed to the rapid economic expansion during the nineteenth century. Ample land availability allowed the number of farmers to keep growing, but activity in manufacturing, services, transportation, and other sectors grew at a much faster pace. Thus, by 1860 the share of the rural population in the U.S. had fallen from over 80 percent to roughly 50 percent. In the 19th century, recessions frequently coincided with financial crises. The Panic of 1837 was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and then-record-high unemployment levels. Because of the great changes in the economy over the centuries, it is difficult to compare the severity of modern recessions to early recessions. Recessions after World War II appear to have been less severe than earlier recessions, but the reasons for this are unclear. 20th century At the beginning of the century new innovations and improvements in existing innovations opened the door for improvements in the standard of living among American consumers. Many firms grew large by taking advantage of economies of scale and better communication to run nationwide operations. Concentration in these industries raised fears of monopoly that would drive prices higher and output lower, but many of these firms were cutting costs so fast that trends were towards lower price and more output in these industries. Many workers shared the success of these large firms, which typically offered the highest wages in the world. The United States has been the world's largest national economy in terms of GDP since at least the 1920s. For many years following the Great Depression of the 1930s, when danger of recession appeared most serious, the government strengthened the economy by spending heavily itself or cutting taxes so that consumers would spend more, and by fostering rapid growth in the money supply, which also encouraged more spending. Ideas about the best tools for stabilizing the economy changed substantially between the 1930s and the 1980s. From the New Deal era that began in 1933, to the Great Society initiatives of the 1960s, national policy makers relied principally on fiscal policy to influence the economy. During the world wars of the twentieth century, the United States fared better than the rest of the combatants because none of the First World War and relatively little of the Second World War was fought on American territory (and none on the then 48 states). Yet, even in the United States, the wars meant sacrifice. During the peak of Second World War activity, nearly 40 percent of U.S. GDP was devoted to war production. Decisions about large swaths of the economy were largely made for military purposes and nearly all relevant inputs were allocated to the war effort. Many goods were rationed, prices and wages controlled and many durable consumer goods were no longer produced. Large segments of the workforce were inducted into the military, paid half wages, and roughly half of those were sent into harm's way. The approach, advanced by British economist John Maynard Keynes, gave elected officials a leading role in directing the economy since spending and taxes are controlled by the U.S. President and the Congress. The "Baby Boom" saw a dramatic increase in fertility in the period 1942–1957; it was caused by delayed marriages and childbearing during depression years, a surge in prosperity, a demand for suburban single-family homes (as opposed to inner city apartments) and new optimism about the future. The boom crested about 1957, then slowly declined. A period of high inflation, interest rates and unemployment after 1973 weakened confidence in fiscal policy as a tool for regulating the overall pace of economic activity. The U.S. economy grew by an average of 3.8% from 1946 to 1973, while real median household income surged 74% (or 2.1% a year). The worst recession in recent decades, in terms of lost output, occurred during the financial crisis of 2007–08, when GDP fell by 5.0% from the spring of 2008 to the spring of 2009. Other significant recessions took place in 1957–58, when GDP fell 3.7%, following the 1973 oil crisis, with a 3.1% fall from late 1973 to early 1975, and in the 1981–82 recession, when GDP dropped by 2.9%. Recent, mild recessions have included the 1990–91 downturn, when output fell by 1.3%, and the 2001 recession, in which GDP slid by 0.3%; the 2001 downturn lasted just eight months. The most vigorous, sustained periods of growth, on the other hand, took place from early 1961 to mid-1969, with an expansion of 53% (5.1% a year), from mid-1991 to late in 2000, at 43% (3.8% a year), and from late 1982 to mid-1990, at 37% (4% a year). In the 1970s and 1980s, it was popular in the U.S. to believe that Japan's economy would surpass that of the U.S., but this did not happen. Since the 1970s, several emerging countries have begun to close the economic gap with the United States. In most cases, this has been due to moving the manufacture of goods formerly made in the U.S. to countries where they could be made for sufficiently less money to cover the cost of shipping plus a higher profit. In other cases, some countries have gradually learned to produce the same products and services that previously only the U.S. and a few other countries could produce. Real income growth in the U.S. has slowed. 21st century The United States economy experienced a recession in 2001 with an unusually slow jobs recovery, with the number of jobs not regaining the February 2001 level until January 2005. This "jobless recovery" overlapped with the building of a housing bubble and arguably a wider debt bubble, as the ratio of household debt to GDP rose from a record level of 70% in Q1 2001 to 99% in Q1 2008. Homeowners were borrowing against their bubble-priced homes to fuel consumption, driving up their debt levels while providing an unsustainable boost to GDP. When housing prices began falling in 2006, the value of securities backed by mortgages fell dramatically, causing the equivalent of a bank run in the essentially unregulated non-depository banking system, which had outgrown the traditional, regulated depository banking system. Many mortgage companies and other non-depository banks (e.g., investment banks) faced a worsening crisis in 2007–2008, with the banking crisis peaking in September 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and bailouts of several other financial institutions. The Bush administration (2001–2009) and Obama administrations (2009–2017) applied banking bailout programs and Keynesian stimulus via high government deficits, while the Federal Reserve maintained near-zero interest rates. These measures helped the economy recover, as households paid down debts in 2009–2012, the only years since 1947 where this occurred, presenting a significant barrier to recovery. Real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011, household net worth by Q2 2012, non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014, and the unemployment rate by September 2015. Each of these variables continued into post-recession record territory following those dates, with the U.S. recovery becoming the second longest on record in April 2018. Debt held by the public a measure of national debt, has risen throughout the 21st century, rising from 31% in 2000 to 52% in 2009 and 77% of GDP in 2017, which was ranked 43rd highest out of 207 countries. Income inequality peaked in 2007 and fell during the Great Recession, yet still ranked 41st highest among 156 countries in 2017 (i.e., 74% of countries had a more equal income distribution). In the first two quarters of 2020 amid the admission of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the U.S. economy suffered major setbacks beginning in March 2020, due to the novel coronavirus and having to "shut-down" major sectors of the American economy. As of March 2020, US exports of automobiles and industrial machines had plummeted as a result of the worldwide pandemic. Social distancing measures which took effect in March 2020, and which negatively impacted the demand for goods and services, resulted in the US GDP declining at a 4.8% annualized rate in the first quarter, the steepest pace of contraction in output since the fourth quarter of 2008. US retails sales dropped a record 8.7% in March alone. The US airline industry had also been hit hard, seeing a sharp decline in its revenues. Although the COVID-19 recession has been widely described as the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression, and "far worse" than the Great Recession. In May 2020, CNN gave an analysis based on unemployment data that the US economy was perhaps the worst that it had been since the 1930s. By May 8, the US had reached a record 14.7 percent unemployment, with 20.5 million jobs lost in April. The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, warned that it may take "an extended time" before the US economy fully recovers from weak economic growth, due to the pandemic, and that in the foreseeable future the US can expect "low productivity growth and stagnant incomes". By 31 May 2020, more than forty million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits. By June 2020, the slump in US continental flights due to the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in the US government temporarily halting service of fifteen US airlines to 75 domestic airports. The New York Times reported on June 10, 2020, that "the United States budget deficit grew to a record $1.88trillion for the first eight months of this fiscal year." The U.S. economy increase 5.7% in 2021. It's best performance since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. (1981-1989) Data The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2020 (with IMF staff estimtates in 2021–2026). Inflation below 3% is in green. GDP U.S. nominal GDP was $19.5trillion in 2017. Annualized, nominal GDP reached $20.1trillion in Q1 2018, the first time it exceeded $20trillion. About 70% of U.S. GDP is personal consumption, with business investment 18%, government 17% (federal, state and local but excluding transfer payments such as Social Security, which is in consumption) and net exports a negative 3% due to the U.S. trade deficit. Real gross domestic product, a measure of both production and income, grew by 2.3% in 2017, vs. 1.5% in 2016 and 2.9% in 2015. Real GDP grew at a quarterly annualized rate of 2.2% in Q1 2018, 4.2% in Q2 2018, 3.4% in Q3 2018 and 2.2% in Q4 2018; the Q2 rate was the best growth rate since Q3 2014, and the overall yearly GDP growth of 2.9% in 2018 was the best performance of the economy in a decade. In 2020, the growth rate of the GDP has started to drop as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the GDP shrinking at a quarterized annual growth rate of −5.0% in Q1 2020 and −32.9% in Q2 2020, respectively. As of 2014, China passed the U.S. as the largest economy in GDP terms, measured at purchasing power parity conversion rates. The U.S. was the largest economy for more than a century prior to that milestone; China has more than tripled the U.S. growth rate for each of the past 40 years. As of 2017, the European Union as an aggregate had a GDP roughly 5% larger than the U.S. Real GDP per capita (measured in 2009 dollars) was $52,444 in 2017 and has been growing each year since 2010. It grew 3.0% per year on average in the 1960s, 2.1% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s, 0.7% in the 2000s, and 0.9% from 2010 to 2017. Reasons for slower growth since 2000 are debated by economists and may include aging demographics, slower population and growth in labor force, slower productivity growth, reduced corporate investment, greater income inequality reducing demand, lack of major innovations, and reduced labor power. The U.S. ranked 20th out of 220 countries in GDP per capita in 2017. Among the modern U.S. Presidents, Bill Clinton had the highest cumulative percent real GDP increase during his two terms, Reagan second and Obama third. The development of the nation's GDP according to World Bank: U.S. real GDP grew by an average of 1.7% from 2000 to the first half of 2014, a rate around half the historical average up to 2000. By economic sector Nominal GDP sector composition Nominal GDP sector composition, 2015 (in millions of dollars) at 2005 constant prices Nominal GDP Sector Composition, 2016 (in millions of dollars) at current prices. Employment There were approximately 160.4 million people in the U.S. labor force in 2017, the fourth largest labor force in the world behind China, India, and the European Union. The government (federal, state and local) employed 22 million in 2010. Small businesses are the nation's largest employer, representing 37% of American workers. The second-largest share of employment belongs to large businesses employing 36% of the U.S. workforce. The nation's private sector employs 85% of working Americans. Government accounts for 14% of all U.S. workers. Over 99% of all private employing organizations in the U.S. are small businesses. The 30 million small businesses in the U.S. account for 64% of newly created jobs (those created minus those lost). Jobs in small businesses accounted for 70% of those created in the last decade. The proportion of Americans employed by small business versus large business has remained relatively the same year by year as some small businesses become large businesses and just over half of small businesses survive for more than five years. Amongst large businesses, several of the largest companies and employers in the world are American companies. Amongst them are Walmart, which is both the largest company and the largest private sector employer in the world. Walmart employs 2.1 million people worldwide and 1.4 million in the U.S. alone. There are nearly thirty million small businesses in the U.S.. Minorities such as Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans (35% of the country's population), own 4.1 million of the nation's businesses. Minority-owned businesses generate almost $700billion in revenue, and they employ almost five million workers in the U.S. Americans have the highest average employee income among OECD nations. The median household income in the U.S. as of 2008 is $52,029. About 284,000 working people in the U.S. have two full-time jobs and 7.6 million have part-time ones in addition to their full-time employments. Out of all working individuals in the U.S., 12% belong to a labor union and most union members work for the government. The decline of union membership in the U.S. over the last several decades parallels that of labor's share of the economy. The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers. The United States is the only advanced economy that does not legally guarantee its workers paid vacation or paid sick days, and is one of just a few countries in the world without paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Liberia. In 2014 and again in 2020, the International Trade Union Confederation graded the U.S. a 4out of5+, its third-lowest score, on the subject of powers and rights granted to labor unions. Some scholars, including business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer and political scientist Daniel Kinderman, posit that contemporary employment practices in the United States relating to the increased performance pressure from management, and the hardships imposed on employees such as toxic working environments, precarity, and long hours, could be responsible for 120,000 excess deaths annually, making the workplace the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Unemployment As of December 2017, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 4.1% or 6.6 million people. The government's broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the part-time underemployed, was 8.1% or 8.2 million people. These figures were calculated with a civilian labor force of approximately 160.6 million people, relative to a U.S. population of approximately 327 million people. Between 2009 and 2010, following the Great Recession, the emerging problem of jobless recoveries resulted in record levels of long-term unemployment with more than six million workers looking for work for more than six months as of January 2010. This particularly affected older workers. A year after the recession ended in June 2009, immigrants gained 656,000 jobs in the U.S., while U.S.-born workers lost more than a million jobs, due in part to an aging country (relatively more white retirees) and demographic shifts. In April 2010, the official unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%. Between February 2008 and February 2010, the number of people working part-time for economic reasons (i.e., would prefer to work full-time) increased by 4.0 million to 8.8 million, an 83% increase in part-time workers during the two-year period. By 2013, although the unemployment rate had fallen below 8%, the record proportion of long term unemployed and continued decreasing household income remained indicative of a jobless recovery. However, the number of payroll jobs returned to its pre-recession (November 2007) level by May 2014 as the economy recovered. After being higher in the post-war period, the U.S. unemployment rate fell below the rising eurozone unemployment rate in the mid-1980s and has remained significantly lower almost continuously since. In 1955, 55% of Americans worked in services, between 30% and 35% in industry, and between 10% and 15% in agriculture. By 1980, over 65% were employed in services, between 25% and 30% in industry, and less than 5% in agriculture. Male unemployment continued to be significantly higher than those of females (at 9.8% vs. 7.5% in 2009). The unemployment among Caucasians continues being much lower than those for African-Americans (at 8.5% vs. 15.8% also in 2009). The youth unemployment rate was 18.5% in July 2009, the highest rate in that month since 1948. The unemployment rate of young African Americans was 28.2% in May 2013. The unemployment rate reached an all-time high of 14.7% in April 2020 before falling back to 11.1% in June 2020. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Q2 GDP in the US fell 32.9% in 2020. Employment by sector U.S. employment, as estimated in 2012, is divided into 79.7% in the service sector, 19.2% in the manufacturing sector, and 1.1% in the agriculture sector. United States non-farm employment by industry sector February 2013. Income and wealth Income measures Real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) median household income, a good measure of middle-class income, was $59,039 in 2016, a record level. However, it was just above the previous record set in 1998, indicating the purchasing power of middle-class family income has been stagnant or down for much of the past twenty years. During 2013, employee compensation was $8.969trillion, while gross private investment totals $2.781trillion. Americans have the highest average household income among OECD nations, and in 2010 had the fourth-highest median household income, down from second-highest in 2007. According to one analysis middle-class incomes in the United States fell into a tie with those in Canada in 2010, and may have fallen behind by 2014, while several other advanced economies have closed the gap in recent years. Income inequality Income inequality has become a hotly debated topic globally. According to the CIA World Factbook, U.S. income inequality ranked 41st highest among 156 countries in 2017 (i.e., 74% of countries have a more equal income distribution). According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1% of income households earned about a 9% share of the pre-tax income in 1979, versus 19% in 2007 and 17% in 2014. For after-tax income, these figures were 7%, 17%, and 13%, respectively. These figures indicate the share of income earned by top earners more than doubled between 1979 and 2007, then fell somewhat following the Great Recession, and the higher tax rates and re-distributive policies applied by President Barack Obama in 2013 (i.e., expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 1% and subsidies for lower income persons via the Affordable Care Act). Recasting the 2012 income using the 1979 income distribution (representing the more egalitarian 1950–1980 period), the bottom 99% of families would have averaged about $7,100 more income. Income inequality in the United States has grown from 2005 to 2012 in more than two out of three metropolitan areas. The top 1 percent of income-earners accounted for 52 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2015, where income is defined as market income excluding government transfers, while their share of total income has more than doubled from nine percent in 1976 to twenty percent in 2011. According to a 2014 OECD report, 80% of total pre-tax market income growth went to the top 10% from 1975 to 2007. A number of economists and others have expressed growing concern about income inequality, calling it "deeply worrying", unjust, a danger to democracy/social stability, or a sign of national decline. Yale professor Robert Shiller has said, "The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world." Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics argues that the post-1980 increase in inequality played a role in the 2008 crisis by contributing to the nation's financial instability. In 2016, the economists Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson claimed that inequality is the highest it has been since the nation's founding. In 2018, income inequality was at the highest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau, with a Gini index of 0.485. Others disagree, saying that the inequality issue is a political distraction from what they consider real problems like chronic unemployment and sluggish growth. George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen has called inequality a "red herring", saying that factors driving its increase within a nation can simultaneously be driving its reduction globally, and arguing that redistributive policies intended to reduce inequality can do more harm than good regarding the real problem of stagnant wages. Robert Lucas Jr. has argued that the salient problem American living standards face is a government that has grown too much, and that recent policy shifts in the direction of European-style taxation, welfare spending, and regulation may be indefinitely putting the U.S. on a significantly lower, European level income trajectory. Some researchers have disputed the accuracy of the underlying data regarding claims about inequality trends, and economists Michael Bordo and Christopher M. Meissner have argued that inequality cannot be blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, decreased progressiveness in capital gains taxes was the largest contributor to the increase in overall income inequality in the U.S. from 1996 to 2006. As of 2010 The U.S. had the fourth-widest income distribution among OECD nations, behind Turkey, Mexico, and Chile. The Brookings Institution said in March 2013 that income inequality was increasing and becoming permanent, sharply reducing social mobility in the US. The OECD ranks the U.S. 10th in social mobility, behind the Nordic countries, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, and France. Of the major developed nations, only Italy and Great Britain have lower mobility. This has been partly attributed to the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children economically disadvantaged, though others have observed that a relative rise in the U.S. is mathematically harder due to its higher and more widely distributed income range than in nations with artificial income compression, even if one enjoys more absolute mobility in the U.S., and have questioned how meaningful such international comparisons are. There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s. The primary cause for the gap between productivity and income growth is the decline in per capita hours worked. Other causes include the rise in non-cash benefits as a share of worker compensation (which aren't counted in CPS income data), immigrants entering the labor force, statistical distortions including the use of different inflation adjusters by the BLS and CPS, productivity gains being skewed toward less labor-intensive sectors, income shifting from labor to capital, a skill gap-driven wage disparity, productivity being falsely inflated by hidden technology-driven depreciation increases and import price measurement problems, and/or a natural period of adjustment following an income surge during aberrational post-war circumstances. According to a 2018 study by the OECD, given that the unemployed and at-risk workers get almost no government support and are further set back by a very weak collective bargaining system, the U.S. has much higher income inequality and a larger percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed nation. According to a 2020 study by the RAND Corporation, the top 1% of U.S. income earners have taken $50trillion from the bottom 90% between 1975 and 2018. Household net worth and wealth inequality As of Q4 2017, total household net worth in the United States was a record $99trillion, an increase of $5.2trillion from 2016. This increase reflects both stock market and housing price gains. This measure has been setting records since Q4 2012. If divided evenly, the $99trillion represents an average of $782,000 per household (for about 126.2 million households) or $302,000 per person. However, median household net worth (i.e., half of the families above and below this level) was $97,300 in 2016. The bottom 25% of families had a median net worth of zero, while the 25th to 50th percentile had a median net worth of $40,000. Wealth inequality is more unequal than income inequality, with the top 1% households owning approximately 42% of the net worth in 2012, versus 24% in 1979. According to a September 2017 report by the Federal Reserve, wealth inequality is at record highs; the top 1% controlled 38.6% of the country's wealth in 2016. The Boston Consulting Group posited in June 2017 report that 1% of the Americans will control 70% of country's wealth by 2021. The top 10% wealthiest possess 80% of all financial assets. Wealth inequality in the U.S. is greater than in most developed countries other than Switzerland and Denmark. Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a "substantial head start". In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, "over 60 percent" of the Forbes richest 400 Americans "grew up in substantial privilege". Median household wealth fell 35% in the U.S., from $106,591 to $68,839 between 2005 and 2011, due to the Great Recession, but has since recovered as indicated above. About 30% of the entire world's millionaire population resides in the United States (). The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in 2008 that there were 16,600,000 millionaires in the U.S. Furthermore, 34% of the world's billionaires are American (in 2011). Home ownership The U.S. home ownership rate in Q1 2018 was 64.2%, well below the all-time peak of 69.2% set in Q4 2004 during a housing bubble. Millions of homes were lost to foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, bringing the ownership rate to a trough of 62.9% in Q2 2016. The average ownership rate from 1965 to 2017 was 65.3%. The average home in the United States has more than 700 square feet per person (65 square meters), which is 50%–100% more than the average in other high-income countries. Similarly, ownership rates of gadgets and amenities are relatively high compared to other countries. It was reported by Pew Research Center in 2016 that, for the first time in 130 years, Americans aged 18 to 34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other housing situation. In one study by ATTOM Data Solutions, in 70% of the counties surveyed, homes are increasingly unaffordable for the average U.S. worker. As of 2018, the number of U.S. citizens residing in their vehicles because they can't find affordable housing has "exploded", particularly in cities with steep increases in the cost of housing such as Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco. Profits and wages In 1970, wages represented more than 51% of the U.S. GDP and profits were less than 5%. But by 2013, wages had fallen to 44% of the economy, while profits had more than doubled to 11%. Inflation-adjusted ("real") per capita disposable personal income rose steadily in the U.S. from 1945 to 2008, but has since remained generally level. In 2005, median personal income for those over the age of 18 ranged from $3,317 for an unemployed, married Asian American female to $55,935 for a full-time, year-round employed Asian American male. According to the U.S. Census men tended to have higher income than women while Asians and Whites earned more than African Americans and Hispanics. The overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $24,062 ($32,140 for those age 25 or above) in the year 2005. As a reference point, the minimum wage rate in 2009 and 2017 was $7.25 per hour or $15,080 for the 2080 hours in a typical work year. The minimum wage is a little more than the poverty level for a single person unit and about 50% of the poverty level for a family of four. According to an October 2014 report by the Pew Research Center, real wages have been flat or falling for the last five decades for most U.S. workers, regardless of job growth. Bloomberg reported in July 2018 that real GDP per capita has grown substantially since the Great Recession, but real compensation per hour, including benefits, hasn't increased at all. An August | apartments) and new optimism about the future. The boom crested about 1957, then slowly declined. A period of high inflation, interest rates and unemployment after 1973 weakened confidence in fiscal policy as a tool for regulating the overall pace of economic activity. The U.S. economy grew by an average of 3.8% from 1946 to 1973, while real median household income surged 74% (or 2.1% a year). The worst recession in recent decades, in terms of lost output, occurred during the financial crisis of 2007–08, when GDP fell by 5.0% from the spring of 2008 to the spring of 2009. Other significant recessions took place in 1957–58, when GDP fell 3.7%, following the 1973 oil crisis, with a 3.1% fall from late 1973 to early 1975, and in the 1981–82 recession, when GDP dropped by 2.9%. Recent, mild recessions have included the 1990–91 downturn, when output fell by 1.3%, and the 2001 recession, in which GDP slid by 0.3%; the 2001 downturn lasted just eight months. The most vigorous, sustained periods of growth, on the other hand, took place from early 1961 to mid-1969, with an expansion of 53% (5.1% a year), from mid-1991 to late in 2000, at 43% (3.8% a year), and from late 1982 to mid-1990, at 37% (4% a year). In the 1970s and 1980s, it was popular in the U.S. to believe that Japan's economy would surpass that of the U.S., but this did not happen. Since the 1970s, several emerging countries have begun to close the economic gap with the United States. In most cases, this has been due to moving the manufacture of goods formerly made in the U.S. to countries where they could be made for sufficiently less money to cover the cost of shipping plus a higher profit. In other cases, some countries have gradually learned to produce the same products and services that previously only the U.S. and a few other countries could produce. Real income growth in the U.S. has slowed. 21st century The United States economy experienced a recession in 2001 with an unusually slow jobs recovery, with the number of jobs not regaining the February 2001 level until January 2005. This "jobless recovery" overlapped with the building of a housing bubble and arguably a wider debt bubble, as the ratio of household debt to GDP rose from a record level of 70% in Q1 2001 to 99% in Q1 2008. Homeowners were borrowing against their bubble-priced homes to fuel consumption, driving up their debt levels while providing an unsustainable boost to GDP. When housing prices began falling in 2006, the value of securities backed by mortgages fell dramatically, causing the equivalent of a bank run in the essentially unregulated non-depository banking system, which had outgrown the traditional, regulated depository banking system. Many mortgage companies and other non-depository banks (e.g., investment banks) faced a worsening crisis in 2007–2008, with the banking crisis peaking in September 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and bailouts of several other financial institutions. The Bush administration (2001–2009) and Obama administrations (2009–2017) applied banking bailout programs and Keynesian stimulus via high government deficits, while the Federal Reserve maintained near-zero interest rates. These measures helped the economy recover, as households paid down debts in 2009–2012, the only years since 1947 where this occurred, presenting a significant barrier to recovery. Real GDP regained its pre-crisis (late 2007) peak by 2011, household net worth by Q2 2012, non-farm payroll jobs by May 2014, and the unemployment rate by September 2015. Each of these variables continued into post-recession record territory following those dates, with the U.S. recovery becoming the second longest on record in April 2018. Debt held by the public a measure of national debt, has risen throughout the 21st century, rising from 31% in 2000 to 52% in 2009 and 77% of GDP in 2017, which was ranked 43rd highest out of 207 countries. Income inequality peaked in 2007 and fell during the Great Recession, yet still ranked 41st highest among 156 countries in 2017 (i.e., 74% of countries had a more equal income distribution). In the first two quarters of 2020 amid the admission of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, the U.S. economy suffered major setbacks beginning in March 2020, due to the novel coronavirus and having to "shut-down" major sectors of the American economy. As of March 2020, US exports of automobiles and industrial machines had plummeted as a result of the worldwide pandemic. Social distancing measures which took effect in March 2020, and which negatively impacted the demand for goods and services, resulted in the US GDP declining at a 4.8% annualized rate in the first quarter, the steepest pace of contraction in output since the fourth quarter of 2008. US retails sales dropped a record 8.7% in March alone. The US airline industry had also been hit hard, seeing a sharp decline in its revenues. Although the COVID-19 recession has been widely described as the most severe global economic downturn since the Great Depression, and "far worse" than the Great Recession. In May 2020, CNN gave an analysis based on unemployment data that the US economy was perhaps the worst that it had been since the 1930s. By May 8, the US had reached a record 14.7 percent unemployment, with 20.5 million jobs lost in April. The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, warned that it may take "an extended time" before the US economy fully recovers from weak economic growth, due to the pandemic, and that in the foreseeable future the US can expect "low productivity growth and stagnant incomes". By 31 May 2020, more than forty million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits. By June 2020, the slump in US continental flights due to the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in the US government temporarily halting service of fifteen US airlines to 75 domestic airports. The New York Times reported on June 10, 2020, that "the United States budget deficit grew to a record $1.88trillion for the first eight months of this fiscal year." The U.S. economy increase 5.7% in 2021. It's best performance since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. (1981-1989) Data The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2020 (with IMF staff estimtates in 2021–2026). Inflation below 3% is in green. GDP U.S. nominal GDP was $19.5trillion in 2017. Annualized, nominal GDP reached $20.1trillion in Q1 2018, the first time it exceeded $20trillion. About 70% of U.S. GDP is personal consumption, with business investment 18%, government 17% (federal, state and local but excluding transfer payments such as Social Security, which is in consumption) and net exports a negative 3% due to the U.S. trade deficit. Real gross domestic product, a measure of both production and income, grew by 2.3% in 2017, vs. 1.5% in 2016 and 2.9% in 2015. Real GDP grew at a quarterly annualized rate of 2.2% in Q1 2018, 4.2% in Q2 2018, 3.4% in Q3 2018 and 2.2% in Q4 2018; the Q2 rate was the best growth rate since Q3 2014, and the overall yearly GDP growth of 2.9% in 2018 was the best performance of the economy in a decade. In 2020, the growth rate of the GDP has started to drop as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the GDP shrinking at a quarterized annual growth rate of −5.0% in Q1 2020 and −32.9% in Q2 2020, respectively. As of 2014, China passed the U.S. as the largest economy in GDP terms, measured at purchasing power parity conversion rates. The U.S. was the largest economy for more than a century prior to that milestone; China has more than tripled the U.S. growth rate for each of the past 40 years. As of 2017, the European Union as an aggregate had a GDP roughly 5% larger than the U.S. Real GDP per capita (measured in 2009 dollars) was $52,444 in 2017 and has been growing each year since 2010. It grew 3.0% per year on average in the 1960s, 2.1% in the 1970s, 2.4% in the 1980s, 2.2% in the 1990s, 0.7% in the 2000s, and 0.9% from 2010 to 2017. Reasons for slower growth since 2000 are debated by economists and may include aging demographics, slower population and growth in labor force, slower productivity growth, reduced corporate investment, greater income inequality reducing demand, lack of major innovations, and reduced labor power. The U.S. ranked 20th out of 220 countries in GDP per capita in 2017. Among the modern U.S. Presidents, Bill Clinton had the highest cumulative percent real GDP increase during his two terms, Reagan second and Obama third. The development of the nation's GDP according to World Bank: U.S. real GDP grew by an average of 1.7% from 2000 to the first half of 2014, a rate around half the historical average up to 2000. By economic sector Nominal GDP sector composition Nominal GDP sector composition, 2015 (in millions of dollars) at 2005 constant prices Nominal GDP Sector Composition, 2016 (in millions of dollars) at current prices. Employment There were approximately 160.4 million people in the U.S. labor force in 2017, the fourth largest labor force in the world behind China, India, and the European Union. The government (federal, state and local) employed 22 million in 2010. Small businesses are the nation's largest employer, representing 37% of American workers. The second-largest share of employment belongs to large businesses employing 36% of the U.S. workforce. The nation's private sector employs 85% of working Americans. Government accounts for 14% of all U.S. workers. Over 99% of all private employing organizations in the U.S. are small businesses. The 30 million small businesses in the U.S. account for 64% of newly created jobs (those created minus those lost). Jobs in small businesses accounted for 70% of those created in the last decade. The proportion of Americans employed by small business versus large business has remained relatively the same year by year as some small businesses become large businesses and just over half of small businesses survive for more than five years. Amongst large businesses, several of the largest companies and employers in the world are American companies. Amongst them are Walmart, which is both the largest company and the largest private sector employer in the world. Walmart employs 2.1 million people worldwide and 1.4 million in the U.S. alone. There are nearly thirty million small businesses in the U.S.. Minorities such as Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans (35% of the country's population), own 4.1 million of the nation's businesses. Minority-owned businesses generate almost $700billion in revenue, and they employ almost five million workers in the U.S. Americans have the highest average employee income among OECD nations. The median household income in the U.S. as of 2008 is $52,029. About 284,000 working people in the U.S. have two full-time jobs and 7.6 million have part-time ones in addition to their full-time employments. Out of all working individuals in the U.S., 12% belong to a labor union and most union members work for the government. The decline of union membership in the U.S. over the last several decades parallels that of labor's share of the economy. The World Bank ranks the United States first in the ease of hiring and firing workers. The United States is the only advanced economy that does not legally guarantee its workers paid vacation or paid sick days, and is one of just a few countries in the world without paid family leave as a legal right, with the others being Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Liberia. In 2014 and again in 2020, the International Trade Union Confederation graded the U.S. a 4out of5+, its third-lowest score, on the subject of powers and rights granted to labor unions. Some scholars, including business theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer and political scientist Daniel Kinderman, posit that contemporary employment practices in the United States relating to the increased performance pressure from management, and the hardships imposed on employees such as toxic working environments, precarity, and long hours, could be responsible for 120,000 excess deaths annually, making the workplace the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Unemployment As of December 2017, the unemployment rate in the U.S. was 4.1% or 6.6 million people. The government's broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes the part-time underemployed, was 8.1% or 8.2 million people. These figures were calculated with a civilian labor force of approximately 160.6 million people, relative to a U.S. population of approximately 327 million people. Between 2009 and 2010, following the Great Recession, the emerging problem of jobless recoveries resulted in record levels of long-term unemployment with more than six million workers looking for work for more than six months as of January 2010. This particularly affected older workers. A year after the recession ended in June 2009, immigrants gained 656,000 jobs in the U.S., while U.S.-born workers lost more than a million jobs, due in part to an aging country (relatively more white retirees) and demographic shifts. In April 2010, the official unemployment rate was 9.9%, but the government's broader U-6 unemployment rate was 17.1%. Between February 2008 and February 2010, the number of people working part-time for economic reasons (i.e., would prefer to work full-time) increased by 4.0 million to 8.8 million, an 83% increase in part-time workers during the two-year period. By 2013, although the unemployment rate had fallen below 8%, the record proportion of long term unemployed and continued decreasing household income remained indicative of a jobless recovery. However, the number of payroll jobs returned to its pre-recession (November 2007) level by May 2014 as the economy recovered. After being higher in the post-war period, the U.S. unemployment rate fell below the rising eurozone unemployment rate in the mid-1980s and has remained significantly lower almost continuously since. In 1955, 55% of Americans worked in services, between 30% and 35% in industry, and between 10% and 15% in agriculture. By 1980, over 65% were employed in services, between 25% and 30% in industry, and less than 5% in agriculture. Male unemployment continued to be significantly higher than those of females (at 9.8% vs. 7.5% in 2009). The unemployment among Caucasians continues being much lower than those for African-Americans (at 8.5% vs. 15.8% also in 2009). The youth unemployment rate was 18.5% in July 2009, the highest rate in that month since 1948. The unemployment rate of young African Americans was 28.2% in May 2013. The unemployment rate reached an all-time high of 14.7% in April 2020 before falling back to 11.1% in June 2020. Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Q2 GDP in the US fell 32.9% in 2020. Employment by sector U.S. employment, as estimated in 2012, is divided into 79.7% in the service sector, 19.2% in the manufacturing sector, and 1.1% in the agriculture sector. United States non-farm employment by industry sector February 2013. Income and wealth Income measures Real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) median household income, a good measure of middle-class income, was $59,039 in 2016, a record level. However, it was just above the previous record set in 1998, indicating the purchasing power of middle-class family income has been stagnant or down for much of the past twenty years. During 2013, employee compensation was $8.969trillion, while gross private investment totals $2.781trillion. Americans have the highest average household income among OECD nations, and in 2010 had the fourth-highest median household income, down from second-highest in 2007. According to one analysis middle-class incomes in the United States fell into a tie with those in Canada in 2010, and may have fallen behind by 2014, while several other advanced economies have closed the gap in recent years. Income inequality Income inequality has become a hotly debated topic globally. According to the CIA World Factbook, U.S. income inequality ranked 41st highest among 156 countries in 2017 (i.e., 74% of countries have a more equal income distribution). According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 1% of income households earned about a 9% share of the pre-tax income in 1979, versus 19% in 2007 and 17% in 2014. For after-tax income, these figures were 7%, 17%, and 13%, respectively. These figures indicate the share of income earned by top earners more than doubled between 1979 and 2007, then fell somewhat following the Great Recession, and the higher tax rates and re-distributive policies applied by President Barack Obama in 2013 (i.e., expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 1% and subsidies for lower income persons via the Affordable Care Act). Recasting the 2012 income using the 1979 income distribution (representing the more egalitarian 1950–1980 period), the bottom 99% of families would have averaged about $7,100 more income. Income inequality in the United States has grown from 2005 to 2012 in more than two out of three metropolitan areas. The top 1 percent of income-earners accounted for 52 percent of the income gains from 2009 to 2015, where income is defined as market income excluding government transfers, while their share of total income has more than doubled from nine percent in 1976 to twenty percent in 2011. According to a 2014 OECD report, 80% of total pre-tax market income growth went to the top 10% from 1975 to 2007. A number of economists and others have expressed growing concern about income inequality, calling it "deeply worrying", unjust, a danger to democracy/social stability, or a sign of national decline. Yale professor Robert Shiller has said, "The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world." Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics argues that the post-1980 increase in inequality played a role in the 2008 crisis by contributing to the nation's financial instability. In 2016, the economists Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson claimed that inequality is the highest it has been since the nation's founding. In 2018, income inequality was at the highest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau, with a Gini index of 0.485. Others disagree, saying that the inequality issue is a political distraction from what they consider real problems like chronic unemployment and sluggish growth. George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen has called inequality a "red herring", saying that factors driving its increase within a nation can simultaneously be driving its reduction globally, and arguing that redistributive policies intended to reduce inequality can do more harm than good regarding the real problem of stagnant wages. Robert Lucas Jr. has argued that the salient problem American living standards face is a government that has grown too much, and that recent policy shifts in the direction of European-style taxation, welfare spending, and regulation may be indefinitely putting the U.S. on a significantly lower, European level income trajectory. Some researchers have disputed the accuracy of the underlying data regarding claims about inequality trends, and economists Michael Bordo and Christopher M. Meissner have argued that inequality cannot be blamed for the 2008 financial crisis. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, decreased progressiveness in capital gains taxes was the largest contributor to the increase in overall income inequality in the U.S. from 1996 to 2006. As of 2010 The U.S. had the fourth-widest income distribution among OECD nations, behind Turkey, Mexico, and Chile. The Brookings Institution said in March 2013 that income inequality was increasing and becoming permanent, sharply reducing social mobility in the US. The OECD ranks the U.S. 10th in social mobility, behind the Nordic countries, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, and France. Of the major developed nations, only Italy and Great Britain have lower mobility. This has been partly attributed to the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children economically disadvantaged, though others have observed that a relative rise in the U.S. is mathematically harder due to its higher and more widely distributed income range than in nations with artificial income compression, even if one enjoys more absolute mobility in the U.S., and have questioned how meaningful such international comparisons are. There has been a widening gap between productivity and median incomes since the 1970s. The primary cause for the gap between productivity and income growth is the decline in per capita hours worked. Other causes include the rise in non-cash benefits as a share of worker compensation (which aren't counted in CPS income data), immigrants entering the labor force, statistical distortions including the use of different inflation adjusters by the BLS and CPS, productivity gains being skewed toward less labor-intensive sectors, income shifting from labor to capital, a skill gap-driven wage disparity, productivity being falsely inflated by hidden technology-driven depreciation increases and import price measurement problems, and/or a natural period of adjustment following an income surge during aberrational post-war circumstances. According to a 2018 study by the OECD, given that the unemployed and at-risk workers get almost no government support and are further set back by a very weak collective bargaining system, the U.S. has much higher income inequality and a larger percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed nation. According to a 2020 study by the RAND Corporation, the top 1% of U.S. income earners have taken $50trillion from the bottom 90% between 1975 and 2018. Household net worth and wealth inequality As of Q4 2017, total household net worth in the United States was a record $99trillion, an increase of $5.2trillion from 2016. This increase reflects both stock market and housing price gains. This measure has been setting records since Q4 2012. If divided evenly, the $99trillion represents an average of $782,000 per household (for about 126.2 million households) or $302,000 per person. However, median household net worth (i.e., half of the families above and below this level) was $97,300 in 2016. The bottom 25% of families had a median net worth of zero, while the 25th to 50th percentile had a median net worth of $40,000. Wealth inequality is more unequal than income inequality, with the top 1% households owning approximately 42% of the net worth in 2012, versus 24% in 1979. According to a September 2017 report by the Federal Reserve, wealth inequality is at record highs; the top 1% controlled 38.6% of the country's wealth in 2016. The Boston Consulting Group posited in June 2017 report that 1% of the Americans will control 70% of country's wealth by 2021. The top 10% wealthiest possess 80% of all financial assets. Wealth inequality in the U.S. is greater than in most developed countries other than Switzerland and Denmark. Inherited wealth may help explain why many Americans who have become rich may have had a "substantial head start". In September 2012, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, "over 60 percent" of the Forbes richest 400 Americans "grew up in substantial privilege". Median household wealth fell 35% in the U.S., from $106,591 to $68,839 between 2005 and 2011, due to the Great Recession, but has since recovered as indicated above. About 30% of the entire world's millionaire population resides in the United States (). The Economist Intelligence Unit estimated in 2008 that there were 16,600,000 millionaires in the U.S. Furthermore, 34% of the world's billionaires are American (in 2011). Home ownership The U.S. home ownership rate in Q1 2018 was 64.2%, well below the all-time peak of 69.2% set in Q4 2004 during a housing bubble. Millions of homes were lost to foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, bringing the ownership rate to a trough of 62.9% in Q2 2016. The average ownership rate from 1965 to 2017 was 65.3%. The average home in the United States has more than 700 square feet per person (65 square meters), which is 50%–100% |
stopped growing and in some markets began to decline. Cellular/Wireless communication Telephones - mobile cellular: 286 million (2009) Most states have several competing cellular phone networks. The major cellphone companies in the U.S. are Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile US. Radio Radio broadcast stations: AM: 4,669; FM commercial stations: 6,746; FM educational stations: 4,101; FM translators & boosters: 7,253; low-power FM stations: 1,678 (as of December 31, 2016, according to the Federal Communications Commission) Most broadcast stations are controlled by large media conglomerates like iHeartMedia. There are also many small independent local stations. National Public Radio (NPR) is the public radio network. Radios: 575 million (1997) Television Television broadcast stations: 7,533 (of which 1,778 are full-power TV stations; 417 are class-A TV stations; 3,789 are TV translators; and 1,966 are other low-power TV stations) (as of December 31, 2016, according to the Federal Communications Commission); in addition, there are about 12,000 cable TV systems. Most local commercial television stations are owned-and-operated by or affiliated with the large national broadcast networks such as the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), CBS, the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and The CW Television Network. Some television networks are aimed at ethnic minorities, including Spanish-language networks Univisión and Telemundo. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the country's main public broadcasting network, with over 300 non-profit affiliated stations across the United States. Besides the large broadcast networks (which are free for anyone with a TV and an antenna), there are also many networks available only with a subscription to cable or satellite television, like CNN. Televisions: 219 million (1997) Internet Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 7,600 (1999 est.) Because of aggressive lobbying and the United States' strong libertarian traditions, the Internet service provider industry remains relatively unregulated in comparison to other communications industries. Country code (Top level domain): US For various historical reasons, the .us domain was never widely used outside of a small number of government agencies and school districts. Most companies signed up for top level domains like .com instead. NeuStar Inc. now has control over the .us registry and is trying to promote the domain as an option for American-oriented Web sites. See also Big Three television networks Cable television in the United States Communications in the United States Fourth television network High-definition television in the United States List of television stations in the United States List of United States cable and satellite television networks List of United States over-the-air television networks List of United States television markets Satellite television in the United States Television in the United States Television news in | (1997) Television Television broadcast stations: 7,533 (of which 1,778 are full-power TV stations; 417 are class-A TV stations; 3,789 are TV translators; and 1,966 are other low-power TV stations) (as of December 31, 2016, according to the Federal Communications Commission); in addition, there are about 12,000 cable TV systems. Most local commercial television stations are owned-and-operated by or affiliated with the large national broadcast networks such as the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), CBS, the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and The CW Television Network. Some television networks are aimed at ethnic minorities, including Spanish-language networks Univisión and Telemundo. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the country's main public broadcasting network, with over 300 non-profit affiliated stations across the United States. Besides the large broadcast networks (which are free for anyone with a TV and an antenna), there are also many networks available only with a subscription to cable or satellite television, like CNN. Televisions: 219 million (1997) Internet Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 7,600 (1999 est.) Because of aggressive lobbying and the United States' strong libertarian traditions, the Internet service provider industry remains relatively unregulated in comparison to other communications industries. Country code (Top level domain): US For various historical reasons, the .us domain was never widely used outside of a small number of government agencies and school districts. Most companies signed up for top level domains like .com instead. NeuStar Inc. now has control over the .us registry and is trying to promote the domain as an option for American-oriented Web sites. See also Big Three television networks Cable television in the United States Communications in the United States Fourth television network High-definition television in the United States List of television stations in the United States List of United States cable and satellite television networks List of United |
generated by low traffic, as long as railroads provided the only efficient economical way to move goods and people across the United States. In addition to the intercity passenger network running on Class I and II railroads, a large network of interurban (trolley or "street running") rail lines extended out from the cities and interchanged passenger and freight traffic with the railroads and also provided competition. 20th century The advent of the automobile signaled the end of railroads as the predominant transportation for people and began an era of mobility in the United States that added greatly to its economic output. The early 20th century Lincoln Highway and other auto trails gave way in the 1920s to an early national highway system making the automobile the preferred mode of travel for most Americans. Interurban rail service declined, followed by trolley cars due in part to the advent of motorized buses and the lack of dedicated rights-of-way but also by deliberate efforts to dismantle urban rail infrastructure (see Great American streetcar scandal). The scarcity of industrial materials during World War II slowed the growth of the automobile, briefly reemphasizing much of the nation's declining rail network. In the 1950s, the United States renewed building a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways to link its vast territory. The most important element is the Interstate Highway system, first commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the Italian autostrada and the German Autobahn system. Postwar By 1945, nearly every city in America had at least one electric tram company providing intra-city transportation. There were an estimated 36,377 light rail vehicles in operation. Increased automobile ownership cut this number by 1/3 by 1965. The airline industry began to successfully compete with intercity rail as a result of government investment, which suffered a loss of ridership. As the civil air transportation network of airports and other infrastructure expanded, air travel became more accessible to the general population. Technological advances ushered in the jet age, which increased airline capacity, while decreasing travel times and the cost of flights. The costs of flying rapidly decreased intercity rail ridership by the late 1960s to a point where railroads could no longer profitably operate networks of passenger trains. By the early 1970s almost all passenger rail operation and ownership had been transferred to various federal, municipal and state agencies. Freight railroads continued to decline as motor freight captured a significant portion of the less-than-carload business. This loss of business, when combined with the highly regulated operating environment and constrained pricing power, forced many railroads into receivership and the nationalization of several critical eastern carriers into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). Deregulation of the railroads by the Staggers Act in 1980 created a regulatory environment more favorable to the economics of the railroad industry. In the 1990s, the increase in foreign trade and intermodal container shipping led to a revival of the freight railroads, which have effectively consolidated into two eastern and two western private transportation networks: Union Pacific and BNSF in the west, and CSX and Norfolk Southern in the east. Canadian National Railway took over the Illinois Central route down the Mississippi River valley. In 2014, freight transportation establishments serving for-hire transportation and warehousing operations employed nearly 4.6 million workers and comprised 9.5 percent of the Nation's economic activity as measured by GDP. Truck driving is by far the largest freight transportation occupation, with approximately 2.83 million truck drivers. About 57.5 percent of these professional truck drivers operate heavy or Tractor-trailer trucks and 28.2 percent drive light or delivery service trucks. The Freight Facts and Figures 2015 indicates that the U.S. freight transportation system handled a record amount of freight in 2014. A daily average of approximately 55 million tons of freight valued at $49.3 billion moved across the transportation system in 2014 to meet the needs of the Nation's 122.5 million households, 7.5 million business establishments, and 90,056 Government units. Wartime expediency encouraged long distance pipeline transport of petroleum and natural gas, which was greatly expanded in the middle 20th century to take over most of the domestic long-haul market. Road transportation Infrastructure and private automobile use In comparison to some parts of the Western world, both the United States and Canada rely more heavily on motorized transit over walking and bicycling with 86% of American workers commuting to work via private vehicle, costing an estimated additional $1500 per year commuting compared to Western European counterparts. Car ownership is on the decline but still 91% nationally. Car ownership is universal, except in the largest cities where extensive mass transit and railroad systems have been built, with lowest car ownership rates in New York City (44%), Washington, D.C. (62%), Boston (63%), Philadelphia (67%), San Francisco (69%), and Baltimore (69%). With the development of the extensive Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, both long-distance trips and daily the commute were mostly by private automobile. This network was designed to exacting federal standards in order to receive federal funding. The system, , has a total length of , making it the world's second longest after China's, and the largest public works project in US history. The Interstate system joined an existing National Highway System (a designation created for the legacy highway network in 1995), comprising 160,000 miles (256,000 kilometers) of roadway, a fraction of the total mileage of roads. The Interstate system serves nearly all major U.S. cities, often through the downtown areas (a point which triggered freeway and expressway revolts in the 1960s and 1970s). The distribution of many goods and services involves Interstate highways at some point. Residents of American cities commonly use urban Interstates to travel to their places of work. The vast majority of long-distance travel, whether for vacation or business, is by the national road network; of these trips, about one-third (by the total number of miles driven in the country in 2003) utilize the Interstate system. In addition to the routes of the Interstate system, there are those of the U.S. highway system, not to be confused with the above-mentioned National Highway System. These networks are further supplemented by State Highways, and the local roads of counties, municipal streets, and federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The five inhabited U.S. territories also have their own road networks. There are approximately of roads in the United States, paved and unpaved. State highways are constructed by each state, but frequently maintained by county governments aided by funding from the state, where such counties exist as governing entities (mostly every state except the Northeastern). Counties construct and maintain all remaining roads outside cities, except in private communities. Local, unnumbered roads are often constructed by private contractors to local standards, then maintenance is assumed by the local government. All federal highways are maintained by state governments, although they receive federal aid to build and maintain freeways signed as part of the 46,000 mile (75,000 km) nationwide Interstate highway network. Changes by state initiative may be made with federal approval. A large number of expressways are actually government or privately operated toll roads in many East Coast and Midwestern states. West Coast freeways are generally free to users ("freeways", no toll charged per use), although since the 1990s there have been some small experiments with toll roads operated by private companies. After the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minnesota in August 2007, the backlog of road and bridge maintenance across the country became an issue in transportation funding. The collapse prompted a tax increase in Minnesota to speed up bridge repairs, and action in other states, such as the Accelerated Bridge Program in Massachusetts, but after some debate no increase in federal funding. The 2013 I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapse, caused by a collision with an over-height truck, highlighted "fracture critical" bridges in which the failure of only one structural member will lead to complete collapse. According to the National Bridge Inventory, there are at least 600,000 bridges of 20 feet or more in length in the United States, all subject to deterioration in the absence of preventative maintenance. In December 2008, 72,868 bridges in the United States (12.1%) were categorized as "structurally deficient", representing an estimated $48 billion in repairs. President Barack Obama proposed $50 billion of spending on road and bridge repair, plus a national infrastructure bank, but Congress did not act on these proposals. President Donald Trump also failed to get infrastructure funding approved. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan infrastructure bill with about $110 billion for roads and bridges. As of 2010, seat belt use is mandatory in all states except New Hampshire. Seat belt use is also mandatory in the District of Columbia and the five inhabited U.S. territories. Intercity bus Greyhound Lines is the largest intercity bus company in the United States, with routes in all parts of the contiguous U.S. There are also many smaller regional bus companies, many of which use the terminal and booking facilities provided by Greyhound. Intercity bus is, in most cases, the least expensive way to travel long distances in the United States. Congestion Traffic congestion, especially at rush hour, is a problem in many of the country's larger cities. A 2009 study claimed that traffic congestion costs the United States almost $87.2 billion. The economic costs of traffic congestion have increased 63% over the past decade, and despite the declining traffic volumes caused by the economic downturn, Americans still waste more than of fuel each year as a result of traffic congestion. Motorists also waste 4.2 billion hours annually, or one full workweek per traveler. Moreover, it is estimated that drivers are wasting 6.9 billion hours per year or about 42 hours per driver in traffic congestion as a result of aging infrastructure and poor road conditions. Cargo The trucking industry (also referred to as the transportation or logistics industry) involves the transport and distribution of commercial and industrial goods using commercial motor vehicles (CMV). In this case, CMVs are most often trucks; usually semi trucks, box trucks, or dump trucks. A truck driver (commonly referred to as a "trucker") is a person who earns a living as the driver of a CMV. The trucking industry provides an essential service to the American economy by transporting large quantities of raw materials, works in process, and finished goods over land—typically from manufacturing plants to retail distribution centers. Trucks are also important to the construction industry, as dump trucks and portable concrete mixers are necessary to move the large amounts of rocks, dirt, concrete, and other construction material. Trucks in America are responsible for the majority of freight movement over land, and are vital tools in the manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing industries. Large trucks and buses require a commercial driver's license (CDL) to operate. Obtaining a CDL requires extra education and training dealing with the special knowledge requirements and handling characteristics of such a large vehicle. Drivers of CMVs must adhere to the hours of service, which are regulations governing the driving hours of commercial drivers. These, and all other rules regarding the safety of interstate commercial driving, are issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The FMCSA is also a division of the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), which governs all transportation-related industries such as trucking, shipping, railroads, and airlines. Some other issues are handled by another branch of the USDOT, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Developments in technology, such as computers, satellite communication, and the internet, have contributed to many improvements within the industry. These developments have increased the productivity of company operations, saved the time and effort of drivers, and provided new, more accessible forms of entertainment to men and women who often spend long periods of time away from home. In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency implemented revised emission standards for diesel trucks (reducing airborne pollutants emitted by diesel engines) which promises to improve air quality and public health. Roadway links with adjacent countries and non-contiguous parts of the United States Within the United States: Alaska – Yes, via Canada and the Alaska Marine Highway in Washington Hawaii – No. American Samoa – No. Guam – No. Northern Mariana Islands – No. Puerto Rico – No. U.S. Virgin Islands – No. With adjacent countries: Canada – Yes. Mexico – Yes. Russia – No, but proposed via Bering Strait crossing Cuba – No. Since the American embargo against Cuba, car ferry service from Florida and New Orleans to Havana ceased in 1962. Bahamas – No, but ferries travel to the Bahamas Traffic codes Each state has its own traffic code, although most of the rules of the road are similar for the purpose of uniformity, given that all states grant reciprocal driving privileges (and penalties) to each other's licensed drivers. Air transportation The United States has advanced air transportation infrastructure which utilizes approximately 5,000 paved runways. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the United States, including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the United States, including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. Private aircraft are also used for medical emergencies, government agencies, large businesses, and individuals, see general aviation. There is no single national flag airline; passenger airlines in the United States have always been privately owned. There are over 200 domestic passenger and cargo airlines and a number of international carriers. The major international carriers of the United States are Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines. Low-cost carrier Southwest Airlines operates few international routes, but has grown its domestic operations to a size comparable to the major international carriers. There is currently no government regulation of ticket pricing, although the federal government retains jurisdiction over aircraft safety, pilot training, and accident investigations (through the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board). The Transportation Security Administration provides security at airports. Rail Passenger Passenger trains were the dominant mode of transportation until the mid-twentieth century. The introduction of jet airplanes on major U.S. routes and the completion of the Interstate Highway system accelerated a decline in intercity rail passenger demand during the 1960s, resulting in the sharp curtailment of passenger service by private railroads. This led to the creation of National Railroad Passenger Corporation (branded as Amtrak) by the federal government in 1971 to maintain limited intercity rail passenger service in most parts of the country. Amtrak serves most major cities but, outside of the Northeast, California, and Illinois, often by only a few trains per day. Amtrak does not serve several major destinations, including Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. Frequent service is available in regional corridors between certain major cities, particularly the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, between New York City and Albany, around Chicago, and in parts of California and the Pacific Northwest. Private intercity rail ended in the United States in 1983 with the discontinuation of the Rio Grande Zephyr, until Brightline started in South Florida in 2018. The state-owned Alaska Railroad is the only other intercity passenger railroad still operating. It has only rail ferry connections with other railroads. Rapid transit There are 15 heavy rail rapid transit systems in the United States. The New York City Subway is the largest rapid transit system in the world by number of stations. Cargo The United States makes extensive use of its rail system for freight. According to the Association of American Railroads: "U.S. freight railroads are the world's busiest, moving more freight than any rail system in any other country. In fact, U.S. railroads move more than four times as much freight as do all of Western Europe's freight railroads combined." Nearly all railroad corridors (not including local transit rail systems) are owned by private companies that provide freight service. Amtrak pays these companies for the right to use the tracks for passenger service. There are approximately 150,000 mi (240,000 km) of mainline track in the United States—the world's longest national railroad network. See List of United States railroads Rail freight has a major national bottleneck in Chicago and the Midwest (about one-third of the nation's freight trains pass through the region), which is the subject of an ongoing $4.6 billion infrastructure improvement project which started in 2003. Railway links with adjacent countries Canada – Amtrak connections run daily between New York City and Montreal, Quebec, New York City and Toronto, Ontario, and Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Alaska is currently rail-accessible by train ferry from Bellingham, Washington and narrow gauge railroad from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory to Skagway. A proposed link to the contiguous United States would link Alaska and Canada via the Yukon and British Columbia. The Canadian National Railway system includes the former Illinois Central route from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans. Mexico – Several private firms run touristic trains from near El Paso, Texas, through Chihuahua, Chihuahua and the Copper Canyon to El Fuerte, Sinaloa. Such trains also run from Nogales, Sonora, but no U.S. passenger trains run near Nogales, Arizona, on the other side of the border. Another touristic train runs occasional trains between Campo, California, and Tecate, Baja California. With few exceptions, the rail gauge is standard gauge . The White Pass and Yukon Route from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon by way of Bennett, British Columbia is gauge. Mass transit The miles traveled by passenger vehicles in the United States fell by 3.6% in 2008, while the number of trips taken on mass transit increased by 4.0%. At least part of the drop in urban driving can be explained by the 4% increase in the use of public transportation. Most medium-sized cities have some sort of local public transportation, usually a network of fixed bus routes. Among larger cities many of the older cities also have metro rail systems (also known as heavy rail in the United States) and/or extensive light rail systems, while the newer cities found in the Sun Belt either have modest light rail systems or have no intracity rail at all. Legislation On June 26, 2008, the House passed the Saving Energy Through Public Transportation Act (H.R. 6052), which gives grants to mass transit authorities to lower fares for commuters pinched at the pump and expand | and maintains state highways, and depending upon the state, may either directly operate or supervise other modes of transportation. Aviation law is almost entirely a federal matter, while automobile traffic laws are enacted and enforced by state and local authorities (except on federal property and in unorganized territory). Economic jurisdiction over tidelands is shared between the state and federal governments, while the United States Coast Guard is the primary enforcer of law and security on U.S. waterways. Mode share Passenger Passenger transportation is dominated by a network of over 3.9 million miles of highways which is pervasive and highly developed by global standards. Passenger transportation is dominated by passenger vehicles (including cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles), which account for 86% of passenger-miles traveled. The remaining 14% was handled by planes, trains, and buses. Public transit use is highly concentrated in large older cities, with only six above 25% and only New York City above 50% of trips on transit. Airlines carry almost all non-commuter intercity traffic, except the Northeast Corridor where Amtrak carries more than all airlines combined. The world's second largest automobile market, the United States has the highest rate of per-capita vehicle ownership in the world, with 865 vehicles per 1,000 Americans. Bicycle usage is minimal with the American Community Survey reporting that bicycle commuting had a 0.61% mode share in 2012 (representing 856,000 American workers nationwide). Cargo Freight transportation is carried by a variety of networks. The largest percentage of US freight is carried by trucks (60%), followed by pipelines (18%), rail (10%), ship (8%), and air (0.01%). Other modes of transportation, such as parcels and intermodal freight accounted for about 3% of the remainder. Air freight is commonly used only for perishables and premium express shipments. The difference in percentage of rail's share by ton-miles and by weight (10% vs 38%) is accounted for by the extreme efficiency of trains. A single railroad locomotive may pull fifty boxcars full of freight while a truck only pulls one. Trucks surpass trains in the weight category due their greater numbers, while trains surpass trucks in the ton-miles category due to the vast distances they travel carrying large amounts of freight. Usually cargo, apart from petroleum and other bulk commodities, is imported in containers through seaports, then distributed by road and rail. The quasi-governmental United States Postal Service has a monopoly on letter delivery (except for express services) but several large private companies such as FedEx and UPS compete in the package and cargo delivery market. Safety The U.S. government's National Center for Health Statistics reported 33,736 motor vehicle traffic deaths in 2014. This exceeded the number of firearm deaths, which was 33,599 in 2014. In 2020 there was % more road fatalities in the US than in the European Union, or % less in the EU than in the US, with nearly 38,680 in the US, and nearly 18,800 in the EU. History 18th century In the late 18th century overland transportation was by horse, while water and river transportation was primarily by sailing vessel. The United States population was centered on its Atlantic coast, with all major population centers located on a natural harbor or navigable waterway. Low population density between these centers resulted in a heavy reliance on coastwise and riverboat shipping. The first government expenditures on highway transportation were funded to speed the delivery of overland mail, such as the Boston Post Road between New York City and Boston. Due to the distances between these population centers and the cost to maintain the roads, many highways in the late 18th century and early 19th century were private turnpikes. Other highways were mainly unimproved and impassable by wagon at least some of the year. Economic expansion in the late 18th century to early 19th century spurred the building of canals to speed goods to market, of which the most prominently successful example was the Erie Canal. 19th century In the transportation revolution, 1815–1860, there were numerous competing forms of transportation, and indeed each new improved mode quickly challenged and usually replaced the last favorite. For example, turnpikes stagecoaches and wagon roads quickly gave way to Canals, on which mules or horses hauled passengers and freight. The canals were soon replaced by site-Wheeler riverboats, and then finally by railway locomotives. Access to water transportation shaped the geography of early settlements and boundaries. For example, the Erie Canal escalated the boundary dispute called the Toledo War between Ohio and Michigan in the 1830s. The disputed Erie Triangle was awarded to Pennsylvania, giving that state access to Lake Erie. Most of West Florida was given to Mississippi and Alabama to guarantee their access to the Gulf of Mexico. Development of the mid-western and southern states drained by the Mississippi River system (Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri Rivers) was accelerated by the introduction of steamboats on these rivers in the early 19th Century. These three rivers (among others) also form the borders of several states. Prior to the introduction of steamboats, transit upstream was impractical because of strong currents on parts of these waterways. Steamboats provided both passenger and freight transportation until the development of railroads later in the 19th Century gradually reduced their presence. The rapid expansion of Railroads brought the canal boom to a sudden end, providing a quick, scheduled and year-round mode of transportation that quickly spread to interconnect the states by the mid-19th century. During the industrialization of the United States after the Civil War, railroads, led by the transcontinental rail system in the 1860s, expanded quickly across the United States to serve industries and the growing cities. During the late 19th century, railroads often had built redundant routes to a competitor's road or built through sparsely populated regions that generated little traffic. These marginal rail routes survived the pricing pressures of competition, or the lack of revenue generated by low traffic, as long as railroads provided the only efficient economical way to move goods and people across the United States. In addition to the intercity passenger network running on Class I and II railroads, a large network of interurban (trolley or "street running") rail lines extended out from the cities and interchanged passenger and freight traffic with the railroads and also provided competition. 20th century The advent of the automobile signaled the end of railroads as the predominant transportation for people and began an era of mobility in the United States that added greatly to its economic output. The early 20th century Lincoln Highway and other auto trails gave way in the 1920s to an early national highway system making the automobile the preferred mode of travel for most Americans. Interurban rail service declined, followed by trolley cars due in part to the advent of motorized buses and the lack of dedicated rights-of-way but also by deliberate efforts to dismantle urban rail infrastructure (see Great American streetcar scandal). The scarcity of industrial materials during World War II slowed the growth of the automobile, briefly reemphasizing much of the nation's declining rail network. In the 1950s, the United States renewed building a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways to link its vast territory. The most important element is the Interstate Highway system, first commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the Italian autostrada and the German Autobahn system. Postwar By 1945, nearly every city in America had at least one electric tram company providing intra-city transportation. There were an estimated 36,377 light rail vehicles in operation. Increased automobile ownership cut this number by 1/3 by 1965. The airline industry began to successfully compete with intercity rail as a result of government investment, which suffered a loss of ridership. As the civil air transportation network of airports and other infrastructure expanded, air travel became more accessible to the general population. Technological advances ushered in the jet age, which increased airline capacity, while decreasing travel times and the cost of flights. The costs of flying rapidly decreased intercity rail ridership by the late 1960s to a point where railroads could no longer profitably operate networks of passenger trains. By the early 1970s almost all passenger rail operation and ownership had been transferred to various federal, municipal and state agencies. Freight railroads continued to decline as motor freight captured a significant portion of the less-than-carload business. This loss of business, when combined with the highly regulated operating environment and constrained pricing power, forced many railroads into receivership and the nationalization of several critical eastern carriers into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). Deregulation of the railroads by the Staggers Act in 1980 created a regulatory environment more favorable to the economics of the railroad industry. In the 1990s, the increase in foreign trade and intermodal container shipping led to a revival of the freight railroads, which have effectively consolidated into two eastern and two western private transportation networks: Union Pacific and BNSF in the west, and CSX and Norfolk Southern in the east. Canadian National Railway took over the Illinois Central route down the Mississippi River valley. In 2014, freight transportation establishments serving for-hire transportation and warehousing operations employed nearly 4.6 million workers and comprised 9.5 percent of the Nation's economic activity as measured by GDP. Truck driving is by far the largest freight transportation occupation, with approximately 2.83 million truck drivers. About 57.5 percent of these professional truck drivers operate heavy or Tractor-trailer trucks and 28.2 percent drive light or delivery service trucks. The Freight Facts and Figures 2015 indicates that the U.S. freight transportation system handled a record amount of freight in 2014. A daily average of approximately 55 million tons of freight valued at $49.3 billion moved across the transportation system in 2014 to meet the needs of the Nation's 122.5 million households, 7.5 million business establishments, and 90,056 Government units. Wartime expediency encouraged long distance pipeline transport of petroleum and natural gas, which was greatly expanded in the middle 20th century to take over most of the domestic long-haul market. Road transportation Infrastructure and private automobile use In comparison to some parts of the Western world, both the United States and Canada rely more heavily on motorized transit over walking and bicycling with 86% of American workers commuting to work via private vehicle, costing an estimated additional $1500 per year commuting compared to Western European counterparts. Car ownership is on the decline but still 91% nationally. Car ownership is universal, except in the largest cities where extensive mass transit and railroad systems have been built, with lowest car ownership rates in New York City (44%), Washington, D.C. (62%), Boston (63%), Philadelphia (67%), San Francisco (69%), and Baltimore (69%). With the development of the extensive Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, both long-distance trips and daily the commute were mostly by private automobile. This network was designed to exacting federal standards in order to receive federal funding. The system, , has a total length of , making it the world's second longest after China's, and the largest public works project in US history. The Interstate system joined |
political parties List of ruling political parties by country List of political parties in Puerto Rico List of state parties of the Democratic Party List of state Green Parties in the United States List of state parties of the Libertarian Party List of state parties of the Republican Party Party system Political party strength in U.S. | both past and present. The list does not include independents. Active parties Major parties Third parties Represented in state legislatures Represented in Puerto Rican legislature Not represented in Congress, state legislatures, or territorial legislatures Historical parties Non-electoral organizations These organizations generally do not nominate candidates for election, but some of them have in the past; they otherwise function similarly to political parties. See also Political parties in the United States List of frivolous political parties List of ruling political parties by country List of political parties in Puerto Rico List |
is high but also less evenly distributed than in most other developed countries; as a result, the United States fares particularly well in measures of average material well being that do not place weight on equality aspects. Measures In the United Nations Human Development Index, which measures health, education, and per capita income levels, the United States is relatively high, currently ranking 8th. However, the Human Development Index is not considered a measure of living standards, but a measure of potential living standards were there no inequality: rather, the inequality-adjusted Human Development Index is considered the actual level of human development, taking inequality into account. On the inequality-adjusted HDI, the United States ranked 27th in 2014, tied with Poland. In 2013, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Where-to-be-born Index, which takes into account material well-being as measured by GDP per capita, life expectancy, political stability, the quality of family life based on divorce rates, community life, crime and terrorism rates, gender equality, the quality of governance, climate, and unemployment rates, ranked the United States at 16th place, tied with Germany. The OECD Better Life Index, which measures quality of life according to 11 factors, ranks the United States as 7th among 34 OECD countries. The homeownership rate is relatively high compared to other post-industrial nations. In 2005, 69% of Americans resided in their own homes, roughly the same percentage as in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Israel and Canada. In 2007, Americans enjoyed more cars and radios per capita than any other nation and more televisions and personal computers per capita than any other nation with more than 200 million people. Changing over the past In colonial America, the standard of living was high by 18th century standards. Americans could choose their diet from a diverse range of plants and animals from Europe and the Western Hemisphere, and this, combined with favorable weather conditions, ensured that Americans never had to deal with harvest failures. There was little exposure to epidemic diseases, and low wealth inequality, ensuring that even the poor were well-fed. Historians have used height to measure living standards during this time as average adult heights can point to a population's net nutrition - the amount of nutrition people grew up with as compared to biological stress which can cause lower heights in adulthood, stemming from things like food deprivation, hard work, and disease. According to military records of American and European men, Americans were on average two to three inches taller than Europeans. Average heights showed little change until the second quarter of the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution. The growth of canals, steamboats, and railways, as well as the public school system, mass immigration, and urbanization, increased exposure to diseases. Food prices rose in the 1830s, and industrialization brought along with it growing wealth inequality and business depressions that further worsened the situations of the poor. As a result, average stature and life expectancy declined, and only rebounded from 1910 to 1950, as incomes rose, urban conditions became less crowded, and public health measures were put in place. From the 1930s up until 1980, the average American after-tax income adjusted for inflation tripled, which translated into higher living standards for the American population. Between 1949 and 1969, real median family income grew by 99.3%. From 1946 to 1978, the standard of living for the average family more than doubled. Average family income (in real terms) more than doubled from 1945 up until the 1970s, while unemployment steadily fell until it reached 4% in the 1960s. Between 1949-50 and 1965–66, median family income (in constant 2009 dollars) rose from $25,814 to $43,614, and from 1947 to 1960, consumer spending rose by a full 60%, and for the first time, as noted by Mary P. Ryan, "the majority of Americans would enjoy something called discretionary income, earnings that were secure and substantial enough to permit them to enter sectors of the marketplace that were once reserved for the affluent." In 1960, Americans were, on average, the richest people in the world by a massive margin. During the 1960s, median family incomes increased by over 33%, while per capita expenditures on recreation and meals grew by over 40%. From 1959 to 1969, median family income (in 1984 dollars) increased from $19,300 to $26,700. By 1969, 79.6% of all households owned at least one car, 82.6% owned a refrigerator or freezer, 79% owned a black and white television set, 31.9% owned a color television set, and 70% owned a washing machine. Leisure time also increased. By 1970, it was estimated that the average workingman in America had 140 days off work each year. US work hours fell by 10.7% between 1950 and 1979, though the decline was still around half that of Western Europe. In 1980, the American standard of living was the highest among the industrial countries, according to the OECD. Out of the 85 million households in the United States, 64% owned their own living quarters, 55% had at least two TV sets, and 51% had more than one vehicle. In terms of possession of telephones, TV sets, school enrollments, animal protein in diets, and energy consumption, the United States was far ahead of other industrialized countries. Wealthy and middle class and a majority of poor Americans had higher after-tax incomes than their counterparts almost anywhere else in the world. By 1985, the US per capita income was $11,727, | off work each year. US work hours fell by 10.7% between 1950 and 1979, though the decline was still around half that of Western Europe. In 1980, the American standard of living was the highest among the industrial countries, according to the OECD. Out of the 85 million households in the United States, 64% owned their own living quarters, 55% had at least two TV sets, and 51% had more than one vehicle. In terms of possession of telephones, TV sets, school enrollments, animal protein in diets, and energy consumption, the United States was far ahead of other industrialized countries. Wealthy and middle class and a majority of poor Americans had higher after-tax incomes than their counterparts almost anywhere else in the world. By 1985, the US per capita income was $11,727, one of the highest among industrialized countries. By the mid-1980s, 98% of all households had a telephone service, 77% a washing machine, 45% a freezer, and 43% a dishwasher. In the 1990s, the average American standard of living was regarded as amongst the highest in the world, and middle class and poor Americans were still, on average, richer than their counterparts in almost all other countries, though the gap with some European countries had noticeably narrowed. Current In 2006, median income was $43,318 per household ($26,000 per household member) with 42% of households having two income earners. Meanwhile, the median income of the average American age 25+ was roughly $32,000 ($39,000 if only counting those employed full-time between the ages of 25 to 64) in 2005. According to the CIA the gini index which measures income inequality (the higher the less equal the income distribution) was clocked at 45.0 in 2005, compared to 32.0 in the European Union and 28.3 in Germany. The US has... a per capita GDP [PPP] of $42,000... The [recent] onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market"... Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households... The rise in GDP in 2004 and 2005 was undergirded by substantial gains in labor productivity... Long-term problems include inadequate investment in economic infrastructure, rapidly rising medical and pension costs of an aging population, sizable trade and budget deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups. In 2014, median wealth in the United States was $44,900, which put the United States in 19th place, behind many other developed countries. In 2015, median wealth in the United States was $55,775. The United States has one of the widest rich-poor gaps of any high-income nation today, and that gap continues to grow. Some prominent economists have warned that the widening rich-poor gap in the U.S. population is a problem that could undermine and destabilize the country's economy and standard of living. In 2006, Alan Greenspan wrote that "The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself". In 2013, George Friedman, the head of Stratfor, wrote that the middle class' standard of living was declining, and that "If we move to a system where half of the country is either stagnant or losing ground while the other half is surging, the social fabric of the United States is at risk, and with it the massive global power the United States has accumulated." In 2015 a report was done that showed that 71 percent of all workers in America made less than $50,000 in 2014. For a family of four to live a middle class lifestyle, it was estimated that they would need $50,000 a year. For workers that make less than that, their standard of living is lacking. Since 1971, the middle income was above 50% of the population in the U.S. In 2015, the middle class income was 49.9% of the population. The middle class continues to shrink and standard of living continues to decrease. In 2020 Falcettoni and Nygaard wrote a paper and released a policy brief and a FEDS Note on the standard of living across the United States of America. Motivated by the fact that economists mainly focus on income per capita in |
sponsored projects, and has earned more than 300 patents since 2003. The University of Texas at Austin houses the Office of Technology Commercialization, a technology transfer center which serves as the bridge between laboratory research and commercial development. In 2009, the university created nine new start-up companies to commercialize technology developed at the university and has created 46 start-ups in the past seven years. License agreements generated $10.9 million in revenue for the university in 2009. Research at UT Austin is largely focused in the engineering and physical sciences, and the university is a world-leading research institution in fields such as computer science. Energy is a major research thrust, with federally funded projects on biofuels, battery and solar cell technology, and geological carbon dioxide storage, water purification membranes, among others. In 2009, the University of Texas founded the Energy Institute, led by former Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach, to organize and advance multi-disciplinary energy research. In addition to its own medical school, it houses medical programs associated with other campuses and allied health professional programs, as well as major research programs in pharmacy, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and others. In 2010, the University of Texas at Austin opened the $100 million Dell Pediatric Research Institute to increase medical research at the university and establish a medical research complex, and associated medical school, in Austin. The university operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby–Eberly Telescope, and three other large telescopes are part of the university's McDonald Observatory, west of Austin. The university manages nearly of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin. The Center for Agile Technology focuses on software development challenges. The J.J. Pickle Research Campus (PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates a series of supercomputers, such as Ranger (from 2008 to 2013 ), Stampede (2013–2017 ), Stampede2 (since 2017 ), and Frontera (since 2019). The Pickle campus also hosts the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a cleanroom for device fabrication. Founded in 1946, the university's Applied Research Laboratories at the PRC has developed or tested the vast majority of the Navy's high-frequency sonar equipment. In 2007, the Navy granted it a research contract funded up to $928 million over ten years. The Institute for Advanced Technology, founded in 1990 and located in the West Pickle Research Building, supports the U.S. Army with basic and applied research in several fields. The Center for Transportation Research is a nationally recognized research institution focusing on transportation research, education, and public service. Established in 1963 as the Center for Highway Research, its projects address virtually all aspects of transportation, including economics, multimodal systems, traffic congestion relief, transportation policy, materials, structures, transit, environmental impacts, driver behavior, land use, geometric design, accessibility, and pavements. In 2013, the University of Texas at Austin announced the naming of the O'Donnell Building for Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences. The O'Donnell Foundation of Dallas, headed by Peter O'Donnell and his wife, Edith Jones O'Donnell, has given more than $135 million to the university between 1983 and 2013. University president William C. Powers declared the O'Donnells "among the greatest supporters of the University of Texas in its 130-year history. Their transformative generosity is based on the belief in our power to change society for the better." In 2008, O'Donnell pledged $18 million to finance the hiring of university faculty members undertaking research in mathematics, computers, and multiple scientific disciplines; his pledge was matched by W. A. "Tex" Moncrief Jr., an oilman and philanthropist from Fort Worth. The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute is located on the Gulf coast in Port Aransas. Established in 1941, UTMSI was the first permanent marine research facility in the state of Texas and has since contributed significantly to our understanding of marine ecosystems. Research at the Marine Science Institute ranges from locally-important work on mariculture and estuarine ecosystems to the investigation of global issues in marine science, from the Arctic to the tropics. Endowment The University of Texas System is entitled to at least 30% of the distributions from the Permanent University Fund (PUF), with over $33 billion in assets as of year-end 2021. The University of Texas System gets two-thirds of the Available University Fund (the name of the annual distribution of PUF's income), and the Texas A&M University System gets the other third. A regental policy requires at least 45 percent of UT System's share of this money go to the University of Texas at Austin for "program enrichment". By taking two-thirds and multiplying it by 45 percent, UT gets 30 percent, which is the minimum amount of AUF income that can be distributed to the school under current policies. The Regents, however, can decide to allocate additional amounts to the university. Also, the majority of the University of Texas system share of the AUF is used for its debt service bonds, some of which were issued for the benefit of the Austin campus. The Regents can change the 45 percent minimum of the University of Texas System share to goes to the Austin campus at any time, although doing so might be difficult politically. Proceeds from lands appropriated in 1839 and 1876, as well as oil monies, comprise the majority of PUF. At one time, the PUF was the chief source of income for Texas' two university systems, the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System; today, however, its revenues account for less than 10 percent of the universities' annual budgets. This has challenged the universities to increase sponsored research and private donations. Privately funded endowments contribute over $2 billion to the university's total endowment. The University of Texas System also has about $22 billion of assets in its General Endowment Fund. Student life Student profile For Fall 2011, the university enrolled 38,437 undergraduate, 11,497 graduate and 1,178 law students. Out-of-state and international students comprised 9.1% of the undergraduate student body and 20.1% of the total student body, with students from all 50 states and more than 120 foreign countries—most notably, the Republic of Korea, followed by the People's Republic of China, India, Mexico, and Taiwan. For Fall 2015, the undergraduate student body was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The three largest undergraduate majors in 2009 were Biological Sciences, Unspecified Business, and Psychology, while the three largest graduate majors were Business Administration (MBA), Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Pharmacy (PharmD). Residential life The campus has fourteen residence halls, the newest of which opened in Spring 2007. On-campus housing can hold more than 7,100 students. Jester Center is the largest residence hall with its capacity of 2,945. Academic enrollment exceeds the on-campus housing capacity; as a result, most students must live in private residence halls, housing cooperatives, apartments, or with Greek organizations and other off-campus residences. University Housing and Dining, which already has the largest market share of 7,000 of the estimated 27,000 beds in the campus area, plans to expand to 9,000 beds. Student organizations The university recognizes more than 1,300 student organizations. In addition, it supports three official student governance organizations that represent student interests to faculty, administrators, and the Texas Legislature. Student Government, established in 1902, is the oldest governance organization and represents student interests in general. The Senate of College Councils represents students in academic affairs and coordinates the college councils, and the Graduate Student Assembly represents graduate student interests. The University Unions Student Events Center serves as the hub for student activities on campus. The Friar Society serves as the oldest honor society at the university and recognizes students who have made significant contributions to the school. Texas Orange Jackets, founded in 1923, is the oldest women's honorary service organization on campus and empowers young women leaders to serve the campus and community. The Texas Blazers, an honorary service organization, act as official hosts of the university. Texas 4000 for Cancer is another student organization, which also doubles as an Austin-based nonprofit, that hosts a 4,500-mile bike ride from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska, thus far raising over $5 million for cancer research and patient support services since its inception in 2004. Greek life The University of Texas at Austin is home to an active Greek community. Approximately 14 percent of undergraduate students are in fraternities or sororities. With more than 65 national chapters, the university's Greek community is one of the nation's largest. These chapters are under the authority of one of the school's six Greek council communities, Interfraternity Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council, Latino Pan-Hellenic Council, Multicultural Greek Council and University Panhellenic Council. Other registered student organizations also name themselves with Greek letters and are called affiliates. They are not a part of one of the six councils but have all of the same privileges and responsibilities of any other organization. Most Greek houses are west of the Drag in the West Campus neighborhood. Media Students express their opinions in and out of class through periodicals including Study Breaks magazine, Longhorn Life, The Daily Texan (the most award-winning daily college newspaper in the United States), and the Texas Travesty. Over the airwaves students' voices are heard through Texas Student Television (K29HW-D) and KVRX Radio. The Computer Writing and Research Lab of the university's Department of Rhetoric and Writing also hosts the Blogora, a blog for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life" by the Rhetoric Society of America. Traditions Traditions at the University of Texas are perpetuated through several school symbols and mediums. At athletic events, students frequently sing "Texas Fight", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns hand gesture—the gesture mimicking the horns of the school's mascot, Bevo the Texas Longhorn. Athletics The University of Texas offers a wide variety of varsity and intramural sports programs. On June 12, 2020, UT student-athletes banded together with their #WeAreOne statement on Twitter. Among the list of changes included: renaming certain campus buildings, replacing statues, starting outreach programs, and replacing "The Eyes of Texas." UT Interim President Jay Hartzell released a statement on July 13, 2020, announcing the changes to be implemented in light of these demands from UT student-athletes. Hartzell said the university would make a multi-million dollar investment to programs that recruit, retain and support Black students; rename the Robert L. Moore Building as the Physics, Math and Astronomy Building; honor Heman M. Sweatt in numerous ways, including placing a statue of Sweatt near the entrance of T.S. Painter Hall; honor the Precursors, the first Black undergraduates to attend The University of Texas at Austin, by commissioning a new monument on the East Mall; erect a statue for Julius Whittier, the Longhorns’ first Black football letterman, at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium; and more. However, one of the most controversial topics on the list – replacing "The Eyes of Texas" as UT's alma mater – remained untouched. Varsity sports The university's men's and women's athletics teams are nicknamed the Longhorns. Texas has won 50 total national championships, 42 of which are NCAA national championships. The football team experienced its greatest success under coach Darrell Royal, winning three national championships in 1963, 1969, and 1970. It won a fourth title under head coach Mack Brown in 2005 after a 41–38 victory over previously undefeated Southern California in the 2006 Rose Bowl. The University's baseball team has made more trips to the College World Series (35) than any other school, and won championships in 1949, 1950, 1975, 1983, 2002, and 2005. Additionally, the university's men's and women's swimming and diving teams lay claim to sixteen NCAA Division I titles, with the men's team having 13 of those titles, more than any other Division 1 team. The swim team was first developed under Coach Tex Robertson. Notable people Faculty In the Fall of 2016, the school employed 3,128 full-time faculty members, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 18.86 to 1. These include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Science, the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, and other various awards. Nine Nobel Laureates are or have been affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin. Research expenditures for the university exceeded $679.8 million in fiscal year 2018. Alumni Texas Exes is the official University of Texas alumni organization. The Alcalde, founded in 1913 and pronounced "all-call-day," is the university's alumni magazine. At least 15 graduates have served in the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives, including Lloyd Bentsen '42, who served in both Houses. Presidential cabinet members include former U.S. Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson '75, and James Baker '57, former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans '73. Former First Lady Laura Bush '73 and daughter Jenna '04 both graduated from Texas, as well as former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson '33 & '34 and her eldest daughter Lynda. In foreign governments, the university has been represented by Fernando Belaúnde Terry '36 (42nd President of Peru) and by Abdullah al-Tariki (co-founder of OPEC). Additionally, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Salam Fayyad, graduated from the university with a PhD in economics. Tom C. Clark, J.D. '22, served as United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967. Alumni in academia include the 26th President of The College of William & Mary Gene Nichol '76, the 10th President of Boston University Robert A. Brown '73 & '75, and the 8th President of the University of Southern California John R. Hubbard. The university also graduated Alan Bean '55, the fourth man to walk on the Moon. Additionally, alumni who have served as business leaders include Secretary of State and former ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson '75, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, and Gary C. Kelly, Southwest Airlines's CEO. In literature and journalism, the school boasts 20 Pulitzer Prizes to 18 former students, including Gail Caldwell and Ben Sargent '70. Walter Cronkite, the former CBS Evening News anchor once called the most trusted man in America, attended the University of Texas at Austin, as did CNN anchor Betty Nguyen '95. Alumnus J. M. Coetzee also received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. Novelist Raymond Benson ('78) was the official author of James Bond novels between 1996 and 2002, the only American to be commissioned to pen them. Donna Alvermann, a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, Department of Education also graduated from the University of Texas, as did Wallace Clift ('49) and Jean Dalby Clift ('50, J.D. '52), authors of several books in the fields of psychology of religion and spiritual growth. Notable alumni authors also include Kovid Gupta ('2010), author of several bestselling books, Ruth Cowan Nash ('23), America's first woman war correspondent, and Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis" and television commentator ('82, MS). Although expelled from the university, former student and The Daily Texan writer John Patric went on to become a noted writer for National Geographic, Reader's Digest, and author of 1940s best-seller Why Japan was Strong. University of Texas at Austin alumni also include 112 Fulbright Scholars, 31 Rhodes Scholars, 28 Truman Scholars, 23 Marshall Scholars, and nine astronauts. Several musicians and entertainers attended the university. Janis Joplin, the American singer posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, attended the university, as did February 1955 Playboy Playmate of the Month and Golden Globe recipient Jayne Mansfield. Composer Harold Morris is a 1910 graduate. Noted film director, cinematographer, writer, and editor Robert Rodriguez is a Longhorn, as are actors Eli Wallach and Matthew McConaughey, the latter of which now teaches a class at the university. Rodriguez dropped out of the university after two years to pursue his career in Hollywood, but completed his degree from the Radio-Television-Film department on May 23, 2009. Rodriguez also gave the keynote address at the university-wide commencement ceremony. Radio-Television-Film alumni Mark Dennis and Ben Foster took their award-winning feature film, Strings, to the American film festival circuit in 2011. Web and television actress Felicia Day and film actress Renée Zellweger attended the university. Day graduated with degrees in music performance (violin) and mathematics, while Zellweger graduated with a BA in English. Writer and recording artist Phillip Sandifer graduated with a degree in History. Michael "Burnie" Burns is an actor, writer, film director and film producer who graduated with a degree in Computer Science. He, along with graduate Matt Hullum, also founded the Austin-based production company Rooster Teeth, that produces many hit shows, including the award-winning Internet series, Red vs. Blue. Farrah Fawcett, one of the original Charlie's Angels, left after her junior year to pursue a modeling career. Actor Owen Wilson and writer/director Wes Anderson attended the university, where they wrote Bottle Rocket together, which became Anderson's first feature film. Writer and producer Charles Olivier is a Longhorn. So too are filmmakers and actors Mark Duplass and his brother Jay Duplass, key contributors to the mumblecore film genre. Another notable writer, Rob Thomas graduated with a BA in History in 1987 and later wrote the young adult novel Rats Saw God and created the series Veronica Mars. Illustrator, writer and alum Felicia Bond is best known for her illustrations in the If You Give... children's books series, starting with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Taiwanese singer-songwriter, producer, actress Cindy Yen (birth name Cindy Wu) graduated with double degrees in Music (piano performance) and Broadcast Journalism in 2008. Noted composer and arranger Jack Cooper received his D.M.A. in 1999 from The University of Texas at Austin in composition and has gone on to teach in higher education and become known internationally through the | philanthropist from Fort Worth. The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute is located on the Gulf coast in Port Aransas. Established in 1941, UTMSI was the first permanent marine research facility in the state of Texas and has since contributed significantly to our understanding of marine ecosystems. Research at the Marine Science Institute ranges from locally-important work on mariculture and estuarine ecosystems to the investigation of global issues in marine science, from the Arctic to the tropics. Endowment The University of Texas System is entitled to at least 30% of the distributions from the Permanent University Fund (PUF), with over $33 billion in assets as of year-end 2021. The University of Texas System gets two-thirds of the Available University Fund (the name of the annual distribution of PUF's income), and the Texas A&M University System gets the other third. A regental policy requires at least 45 percent of UT System's share of this money go to the University of Texas at Austin for "program enrichment". By taking two-thirds and multiplying it by 45 percent, UT gets 30 percent, which is the minimum amount of AUF income that can be distributed to the school under current policies. The Regents, however, can decide to allocate additional amounts to the university. Also, the majority of the University of Texas system share of the AUF is used for its debt service bonds, some of which were issued for the benefit of the Austin campus. The Regents can change the 45 percent minimum of the University of Texas System share to goes to the Austin campus at any time, although doing so might be difficult politically. Proceeds from lands appropriated in 1839 and 1876, as well as oil monies, comprise the majority of PUF. At one time, the PUF was the chief source of income for Texas' two university systems, the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System; today, however, its revenues account for less than 10 percent of the universities' annual budgets. This has challenged the universities to increase sponsored research and private donations. Privately funded endowments contribute over $2 billion to the university's total endowment. The University of Texas System also has about $22 billion of assets in its General Endowment Fund. Student life Student profile For Fall 2011, the university enrolled 38,437 undergraduate, 11,497 graduate and 1,178 law students. Out-of-state and international students comprised 9.1% of the undergraduate student body and 20.1% of the total student body, with students from all 50 states and more than 120 foreign countries—most notably, the Republic of Korea, followed by the People's Republic of China, India, Mexico, and Taiwan. For Fall 2015, the undergraduate student body was 48.9% male and 51.1% female. The three largest undergraduate majors in 2009 were Biological Sciences, Unspecified Business, and Psychology, while the three largest graduate majors were Business Administration (MBA), Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Pharmacy (PharmD). Residential life The campus has fourteen residence halls, the newest of which opened in Spring 2007. On-campus housing can hold more than 7,100 students. Jester Center is the largest residence hall with its capacity of 2,945. Academic enrollment exceeds the on-campus housing capacity; as a result, most students must live in private residence halls, housing cooperatives, apartments, or with Greek organizations and other off-campus residences. University Housing and Dining, which already has the largest market share of 7,000 of the estimated 27,000 beds in the campus area, plans to expand to 9,000 beds. Student organizations The university recognizes more than 1,300 student organizations. In addition, it supports three official student governance organizations that represent student interests to faculty, administrators, and the Texas Legislature. Student Government, established in 1902, is the oldest governance organization and represents student interests in general. The Senate of College Councils represents students in academic affairs and coordinates the college councils, and the Graduate Student Assembly represents graduate student interests. The University Unions Student Events Center serves as the hub for student activities on campus. The Friar Society serves as the oldest honor society at the university and recognizes students who have made significant contributions to the school. Texas Orange Jackets, founded in 1923, is the oldest women's honorary service organization on campus and empowers young women leaders to serve the campus and community. The Texas Blazers, an honorary service organization, act as official hosts of the university. Texas 4000 for Cancer is another student organization, which also doubles as an Austin-based nonprofit, that hosts a 4,500-mile bike ride from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska, thus far raising over $5 million for cancer research and patient support services since its inception in 2004. Greek life The University of Texas at Austin is home to an active Greek community. Approximately 14 percent of undergraduate students are in fraternities or sororities. With more than 65 national chapters, the university's Greek community is one of the nation's largest. These chapters are under the authority of one of the school's six Greek council communities, Interfraternity Council, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Texas Asian Pan-Hellenic Council, Latino Pan-Hellenic Council, Multicultural Greek Council and University Panhellenic Council. Other registered student organizations also name themselves with Greek letters and are called affiliates. They are not a part of one of the six councils but have all of the same privileges and responsibilities of any other organization. Most Greek houses are west of the Drag in the West Campus neighborhood. Media Students express their opinions in and out of class through periodicals including Study Breaks magazine, Longhorn Life, The Daily Texan (the most award-winning daily college newspaper in the United States), and the Texas Travesty. Over the airwaves students' voices are heard through Texas Student Television (K29HW-D) and KVRX Radio. The Computer Writing and Research Lab of the university's Department of Rhetoric and Writing also hosts the Blogora, a blog for "connecting rhetoric, rhetorical methods and theories, and rhetoricians with public life" by the Rhetoric Society of America. Traditions Traditions at the University of Texas are perpetuated through several school symbols and mediums. At athletic events, students frequently sing "Texas Fight", the university's fight song while displaying the Hook 'em Horns hand gesture—the gesture mimicking the horns of the school's mascot, Bevo the Texas Longhorn. Athletics The University of Texas offers a wide variety of varsity and intramural sports programs. On June 12, 2020, UT student-athletes banded together with their #WeAreOne statement on Twitter. Among the list of changes included: renaming certain campus buildings, replacing statues, starting outreach programs, and replacing "The Eyes of Texas." UT Interim President Jay Hartzell released a statement on July 13, 2020, announcing the changes to be implemented in light of these demands from UT student-athletes. Hartzell said the university would make a multi-million dollar investment to programs that recruit, retain and support Black students; rename the Robert L. Moore Building as the Physics, Math and Astronomy Building; honor Heman M. Sweatt in numerous ways, including placing a statue of Sweatt near the entrance of T.S. Painter Hall; honor the Precursors, the first Black undergraduates to attend The University of Texas at Austin, by commissioning a new monument on the East Mall; erect a statue for Julius Whittier, the Longhorns’ first Black football letterman, at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium; and more. However, one of the most controversial topics on the list – replacing "The Eyes of Texas" as UT's alma mater – remained untouched. Varsity sports The university's men's and women's athletics teams are nicknamed the Longhorns. Texas has won 50 total national championships, 42 of which are NCAA national championships. The football team experienced its greatest success under coach Darrell Royal, winning three national championships in 1963, 1969, and 1970. It won a fourth title under head coach Mack Brown in 2005 after a 41–38 victory over previously undefeated Southern California in the 2006 Rose Bowl. The University's baseball team has made more trips to the College World Series (35) than any other school, and won championships in 1949, 1950, 1975, 1983, 2002, and 2005. Additionally, the university's men's and women's swimming and diving teams lay claim to sixteen NCAA Division I titles, with the men's team having 13 of those titles, more than any other Division 1 team. The swim team was first developed under Coach Tex Robertson. Notable people Faculty In the Fall of 2016, the school employed 3,128 full-time faculty members, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 18.86 to 1. These include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Science, the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, and other various awards. Nine Nobel Laureates are or have been affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin. Research expenditures for the university exceeded $679.8 million in fiscal year 2018. Alumni Texas Exes is the official University of Texas alumni organization. The Alcalde, founded in 1913 and pronounced "all-call-day," is the university's alumni magazine. At least 15 graduates have served in the U.S. Senate or U.S. House of Representatives, including Lloyd Bentsen '42, who served in both Houses. Presidential cabinet members include former U.S. Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson '75, and James Baker '57, former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans '73. Former First Lady Laura Bush '73 and daughter Jenna '04 both graduated from Texas, as well as former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson '33 & '34 and her eldest daughter Lynda. In foreign governments, the university has been represented by Fernando Belaúnde Terry '36 (42nd President of Peru) and by Abdullah al-Tariki (co-founder of OPEC). Additionally, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Salam Fayyad, graduated from the university with a PhD in economics. Tom C. Clark, J.D. '22, served as United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967. Alumni in academia include the 26th President of The College of William & Mary Gene Nichol '76, the 10th President of Boston University Robert A. Brown '73 & '75, and the 8th President of the University of Southern California John R. Hubbard. The university also graduated Alan Bean '55, the fourth man to walk on the Moon. Additionally, alumni who have served as business leaders include Secretary of State and former ExxonMobil Corporation CEO Rex Tillerson '75, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, and Gary C. Kelly, Southwest Airlines's CEO. In literature and journalism, the school boasts 20 Pulitzer Prizes to 18 former students, including Gail Caldwell and Ben Sargent '70. Walter Cronkite, the former CBS Evening News anchor once called the most trusted man in America, attended the University of Texas at Austin, as did CNN anchor Betty Nguyen '95. Alumnus J. M. Coetzee also received the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. Novelist Raymond Benson ('78) was the official author of James Bond novels between 1996 and 2002, the only American to be commissioned to pen them. Donna Alvermann, a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia, Department of Education also graduated from the University of Texas, as did Wallace Clift ('49) and Jean Dalby Clift ('50, J.D. '52), authors of several books in the fields of psychology of religion and spiritual growth. Notable alumni authors also include Kovid Gupta ('2010), author of several bestselling books, Ruth Cowan Nash ('23), America's first woman war correspondent, and Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of "The Iran Threat: President Ahmadinejad and the Coming Nuclear Crisis" and television commentator ('82, MS). Although expelled from the university, former student and The Daily Texan writer John Patric went on to become a noted writer for National Geographic, Reader's Digest, and author of 1940s best-seller Why Japan was Strong. University of Texas at Austin alumni also include 112 Fulbright Scholars, 31 Rhodes Scholars, 28 Truman Scholars, 23 Marshall Scholars, and nine astronauts. Several musicians and entertainers attended the university. Janis Joplin, the American singer posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, attended the university, as did February 1955 Playboy Playmate of the Month and Golden Globe recipient Jayne Mansfield. Composer Harold Morris is a 1910 graduate. Noted film director, cinematographer, writer, and editor Robert Rodriguez is a Longhorn, as are actors Eli Wallach and Matthew McConaughey, the latter of which now teaches a class at the university. Rodriguez dropped out of the university after two years to pursue his career in Hollywood, but completed his degree from the Radio-Television-Film department on May 23, 2009. Rodriguez also gave the keynote address at the university-wide commencement ceremony. Radio-Television-Film alumni Mark Dennis and Ben Foster took their award-winning feature film, Strings, to the American film festival circuit in 2011. Web and television actress Felicia Day and film actress Renée Zellweger attended the university. Day graduated with degrees in music performance (violin) and mathematics, while Zellweger graduated with a BA in English. Writer and recording artist Phillip Sandifer graduated with a degree in History. Michael "Burnie" Burns is an actor, writer, film director and film producer who graduated with a degree in Computer Science. He, along with graduate Matt Hullum, also founded the Austin-based production company Rooster Teeth, that produces many hit shows, including the award-winning Internet series, Red vs. Blue. Farrah Fawcett, one of the original Charlie's Angels, left after her junior year to pursue a modeling career. Actor Owen Wilson and writer/director Wes Anderson attended the university, where they wrote Bottle Rocket together, which became Anderson's first feature film. Writer and producer Charles Olivier is a Longhorn. So too are filmmakers and actors Mark Duplass and his brother Jay Duplass, key contributors to the mumblecore film genre. Another notable writer, Rob Thomas graduated with a BA in History in 1987 and later wrote the young adult novel Rats Saw God and created the series Veronica Mars. Illustrator, writer and alum Felicia Bond is best known for her illustrations in the If You Give... children's books series, starting with If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Taiwanese singer-songwriter, producer, actress Cindy Yen (birth name Cindy Wu) graduated with double degrees in Music (piano performance) and Broadcast Journalism in 2008. Noted composer and arranger Jack Cooper received his D.M.A. in 1999 from The University of Texas at Austin in composition and has gone on to teach in higher education and become known internationally through the music publishing industry. Actor Trevante Rhodes competed as a sprinter for the Longhorns and graduated with a BS in Applied Learning and Development in 2012. In 2016, he starred as Chiron in the Academy Award- and Golden Globe-winning film Moonlight. Many alumni have found success in professional sports. Legendary pro football coach Tom Landry '49 attended the university as an industrial engineering major but interrupted his education after a semester to serve in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. Following the war, he returned to the university and played fullback and defensive back on the Longhorns' bowl-game winners on New Year's Day of 1948 and 1949. Seven-time Cy Young Award-winner Roger Clemens entered the MLB after helping the Longhorns win the 1983 College World Series. NBA MVP and four-time scoring champion Kevin Durant entered the 2007 NBA Draft and was selected second overall behind Greg Oden, after sweeping National Player of the Year honors, becoming the first freshman to win any of the awards. After becoming the first freshman in school history to lead Texas in scoring and being named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, Daniel Gibson entered the 2006 NBA draft and was selected in the second round by the Cleveland Cavaliers. In his one year at Texas, golfer Jordan Spieth led the University of Texas Golf club to the NCAA Men's Golf Championship in 2012 and went on to win The Masters Tournament three years after leaving the university. Several Olympic medalists have also attended the school, including 2008 Summer Olympics athletes Ian Crocker '05 (swimming world record holder and two-time Olympic gold medalist) and 4 × 400 m relay defending Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards '06. Mary Lou Retton (the first female gymnast outside Eastern Europe to win the Olympic all-around title, five-time Olympic medalist, and 1984 Sports Illustrated Sportswoman of the Year) also attended the university. Garrett Weber-Gale, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and world record-holder in two events, was a swimmer for the school. Also an alumnus is Dr. Robert Cade, the inventor of the sports drink Gatorade. In big, global philanthropy, the university is honored by Darren Walker, president of Ford Foundation. Other notable alumni include prominent businessman Red McCombs, Diane Pamela Wood, the first female chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, chemist Donna J. Nelson, and neuroscientist Tara Spires-Jones. Also an alumnus is Admiral William H. McRaven, credited for organizing and executing Operation Neptune's Spear, the special ops raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Oveta Culp Hobby, the |
introduced many of the basic features common to all later Unix shells, including piping, simple control structures using if and goto, and filename wildcarding. Though not in current use, it is still available as part of some Ancient UNIX systems. It was modeled after the Multics shell, developed in 1965 by American software engineer Glenda Schroeder. Schroeder's Multics shell was itself modeled after the RUNCOM program Louis Pouzin showed to the Multics Team. The "rc" suffix on some Unix configuration files (for example, ".vimrc"), is a remnant of the RUNCOM ancestry of Unix shells. The PWB shell or Mashey shell, sh, was an upward-compatible version of the Thompson shell, augmented by John Mashey and others and distributed with the Programmer's Workbench UNIX, circa 1975–1977. It focused on making shell programming practical, especially in large shared computing centers. It added shell variables (precursors of environment variables, including the search path mechanism that evolved into $PATH), user-executable shell scripts, and interrupt-handling. Control structures were extended from if/goto to if/then/else/endif, switch/breaksw/endsw, and while/end/break/continue. As shell programming became widespread, these external commands were incorporated into the shell itself for performance. But the most widely distributed and influential of the early Unix shells were the Bourne shell and the C shell. Both shells have been used as the coding base and model for many derivative and work-alike shells with extended feature sets. Bourne shell The Bourne shell, sh, was a new Unix shell by Stephen Bourne at Bell Labs. Distributed as the shell for UNIX Version 7 in 1979, it introduced the rest of the basic features considered common to all the later Unix shells, including here documents, command substitution, more generic variables and more extensive builtin control structures. The language, including the use of a reversed keyword to mark the end of a block, was influenced by ALGOL 68. Traditionally, the Bourne shell program name is and its path in the Unix file system hierarchy is . But a number of compatible work-alikes are also available with various improvements and additional features. On many systems, sh may be a symbolic link or hard link to one of these alternatives: Almquist shell (ash): written as a BSD-licensed replacement for the Bourne Shell; often used in resource-constrained environments. The sh of FreeBSD, NetBSD (and their derivatives) are based on ash that has been enhanced to be POSIX conformant. Busybox: a set of Unix utilities for small and embedded systems, which includes 2 shells: ash, a derivative of the Almquist shell; and hush, an independent implementation of a Bourne shell. Debian Almquist shell (dash): a modern replacement for ash in Debian and Ubuntu Bourne-Again shell (bash): written as part of the GNU Project to provide a superset of Bourne Shell functionality. This shell can be found installed and is the default interactive shell for users on most Linux systems. KornShell (ksh): written by David Korn based on the Bourne shell sources while working at Bell Labs Public domain Korn shell (pdksh) MirBSD Korn shell (mksh): a descendant of the OpenBSD /bin/ksh and pdksh, developed as part of MirOS BSD Z shell (zsh): a relatively modern shell that is backward compatible with bash. It's the default shell in Kali Linux since 2020.4 and macOS since 10.15 Catalina. The POSIX standard specifies its standard shell as a strict subset of the Korn shell, an enhanced version of the Bourne shell. From a user's perspective the Bourne shell was immediately recognized when active by its characteristic default command line prompt character, the dollar sign (). C shell The C shell, csh, was modeled on the C programming language, including the control structures and the expression grammar. It was written by Bill Joy as a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, and was widely distributed with BSD Unix. The C shell also introduced many features for interactive work, including the history and editing mechanisms, aliases, directory | if and goto, and filename wildcarding. Though not in current use, it is still available as part of some Ancient UNIX systems. It was modeled after the Multics shell, developed in 1965 by American software engineer Glenda Schroeder. Schroeder's Multics shell was itself modeled after the RUNCOM program Louis Pouzin showed to the Multics Team. The "rc" suffix on some Unix configuration files (for example, ".vimrc"), is a remnant of the RUNCOM ancestry of Unix shells. The PWB shell or Mashey shell, sh, was an upward-compatible version of the Thompson shell, augmented by John Mashey and others and distributed with the Programmer's Workbench UNIX, circa 1975–1977. It focused on making shell programming practical, especially in large shared computing centers. It added shell variables (precursors of environment variables, including the search path mechanism that evolved into $PATH), user-executable shell scripts, and interrupt-handling. Control structures were extended from if/goto to if/then/else/endif, switch/breaksw/endsw, and while/end/break/continue. As shell programming became widespread, these external commands were incorporated into the shell itself for performance. But the most widely distributed and influential of the early Unix shells were the Bourne shell and the C shell. Both shells have been used as the coding base and model for many derivative and work-alike shells with extended feature sets. Bourne shell The Bourne shell, sh, was a new Unix shell by Stephen Bourne at Bell Labs. Distributed as the shell for UNIX Version 7 in 1979, it introduced the rest of the basic features considered common to all the later Unix shells, including here documents, command substitution, more generic variables and more extensive builtin control structures. The language, including the use of a reversed keyword to mark the end of a block, was influenced by ALGOL 68. Traditionally, the Bourne shell program name is and its path in the Unix file system hierarchy is . But a number of compatible work-alikes are also available with various improvements and additional features. On many systems, sh may be a symbolic link or hard link to one of these alternatives: Almquist shell (ash): written as a BSD-licensed replacement for the Bourne Shell; often used in resource-constrained environments. The sh of FreeBSD, NetBSD (and their derivatives) are based on ash that has been enhanced to be POSIX conformant. Busybox: a set of Unix utilities for small and embedded systems, which includes 2 shells: ash, a derivative of the Almquist shell; and hush, an independent implementation of a Bourne shell. Debian Almquist shell (dash): a modern replacement for ash in Debian and Ubuntu Bourne-Again shell (bash): written as part of the GNU Project to provide a superset of Bourne Shell functionality. This shell can be found installed and is the default interactive shell for users on most Linux systems. KornShell (ksh): written by David Korn based on the Bourne shell sources while working at Bell Labs Public domain Korn shell (pdksh) MirBSD Korn shell (mksh): a descendant of the OpenBSD /bin/ksh and pdksh, developed as part of MirOS BSD Z shell (zsh): a relatively modern shell that is backward compatible with bash. It's the default shell in Kali Linux since 2020.4 and macOS since 10.15 Catalina. The POSIX standard specifies its standard shell as a strict subset of the Korn shell, an enhanced version of the Bourne shell. From a user's perspective the Bourne shell was immediately recognized when active by its characteristic default command line prompt character, the dollar sign (). C shell The C shell, csh, was modeled on the C programming language, including the control structures and the expression grammar. It was written by Bill Joy as a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, and was widely distributed |
in science fiction. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity, who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. Which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Gethen was portrayed as a society without war, as a result of this absence of fixed gender characteristics, and also without sexuality as a continuous factor in social relationships. Gethenian culture was explored in the novel through the eyes of a Terran, whose masculinity proves a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Outside the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin's use of a female protagonist in The Tombs of Atuan, published in 1971, was described as a "significant exploration of womanhood". Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Although The Left Hand of Darkness was seen as a landmark exploration of gender, it also received criticism for not going far enough. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, and the portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". Le Guin initially defended her writing; in a 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the novel's primary theme of loyalty. Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships. Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in a later reprinting of "Winter's King", which was first published in 1969. "Coming of Age in Karhide" was later anthologized in the 2002 collection The Birthday of the World, which contained six other stories featuring unorthodox sexual relationships and marital arrangements. She also revisited gender relations in Earthsea in Tehanu, published in 1990. This volume was described as a rewriting or reimagining of The Tombs of Atuan, because the power and status of the female protagonist Tenar are the inverse of what they were in the earlier book, which was also focused on her and Ged. During this later period she commented that she considered The Eye of the Heron, published in 1978, to be her first work genuinely centered on a woman. Moral development Le Guin explores coming of age, and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings. This is particularly the case in those works written for a younger audience, such as Earthsea and Annals of the Western Shore. Le Guin wrote in a 1973 essay that she chose to explore coming-of-age in Earthsea since she was writing for an adolescent audience: "Coming of age ... is a process that took me many years; I finished it, so far as I ever will, at about age thirty-one; and so I feel rather deeply about it. So do most adolescents. It's their main occupation, in fact." She also said that fantasy was best suited as a medium for describing coming of age, because exploring the subconscious was difficult using the language of "rational daily life". The first three Earthsea novels together follow Ged from youth to old age, and each of them also follow the coming of age of a different character. A Wizard of Earthsea focuses on Ged's adolescence, while The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore explore that of Tenar and the prince Arren, respectively. A Wizard of Earthsea is frequently described as a Bildungsroman, in which Ged's coming of age is intertwined with the physical journey he undertakes through the novel. To Mike Cadden the book was a convincing tale "to a reader as young and possibly as headstrong as Ged, and therefore sympathetic to him". Reviewers have described the ending of the novel, wherein Ged finally accepts the shadow as a part of himself, as a rite of passage. Scholar Jeanne Walker writes that the rite of passage at the end was an analogue for the entire plot of A Wizard of Earthsea, and that the plot itself plays the role of a rite of passage for an adolescent reader. Each volume of Annals of the Western Shore also describes the coming of age of its protagonists, and features explorations of being enslaved to one's own power. The process of growing up is depicted as seeing beyond narrow choices the protagonists are presented with by society. In Gifts, Orrec and Gry realize that the powers their people possess can be used in two ways: for control and dominion, or for healing and nurturing. This recognition allows them to take a third choice, and leave. This wrestling with choice has been compared to the choices the characters are forced to make in Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". Similarly, Ged helps Tenar in The Tombs of Atuan to value herself and to find choices that she did not see, leading her to leave the Tombs with him. Political systems Alternative social and political systems are a recurring theme in Le Guin's writing. Critics have paid particular attention to The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, although Le Guin explores related themes in a number of her works, such as in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". The Dispossessed is an anarchist utopian novel, which according to Le Guin drew from pacifist anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, as well as from the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Le Guin has been credited with anarchism from the cultural ghetto to which it has been consigned", and helping to bring it into the intellectual mainstream. Fellow author Kathleen Ann Goonan wrote that Le Guin's work confronted the "paradigm of insularity toward the suffering of people, other living beings, and resources", and explored "life-respecting sustainable alternatives". The Dispossessed, set on the twin planets of Urras and Anarres, features a planned anarcho-socialist society depicted as an "ambiguous utopia". The society, created by settlers from Urras, is materially poorer than the wealthy society of Urras, but ethically and morally more advanced. Unlike classical utopias, the society of Anarres is portrayed as neither perfect nor static; the protagonist Shevek finds himself traveling to Urras to pursue his research. Nonetheless, the misogyny and hierarchy present in the authoritarian society of Urras is absent among the anarchists, who base their social structure on cooperation and individual liberty. The Eye of the Heron, published a few years after The Dispossessed, was described as continuing Le Guin's exploration of human freedom, through a conflict between two societies of opposing philosophies: a town inhabited by descendants of pacifists, and a city inhabited by descendants of criminals. Always Coming Home, set in California in the distant future, examines a warlike society, resembling contemporary American society, from the perspective of the Kesh, its pacifist neighbors. The society of the Kesh has been identified by scholars as a feminist utopia, which Le Guin uses to explore the role of technology. Scholar Warren Rochelle stated that it was "neither a matriarchy nor a patriarchy: men and women just are". "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a parable depicting a society in which widespread wealth, happiness, and security, comes at the cost of the continued misery of a single child, has also been read as a critique of contemporary American society. The Word for World is Forest explored the manner in which the structure of society affects the natural environment; in the novel, the natives of the planet of Athshe have adapted their way of life to the ecology of the planet. The colonizing human society, in contrast, is depicted as destructive and uncaring; in depicting it, Le Guin also critiqued colonialism and imperialism, driven partly by her distaste for U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War. Other social structures are examined in works such as the story cycle Four Ways to Forgiveness, and the short story "Old Music and the Slave Women", occasionally described as a "fifth way to forgiveness". Set in the Hainish universe, the five stories together examine revolution and reconstruction in a slave-owning society. According to Rochelle, the stories examine a society that has the potential to build a "truly human community", made possible by the Ekumen's recognition of the slaves as human beings, thus offering them the prospect of freedom and the possibility of utopia, brought about through revolution. Slavery, justice, and the role of women in society are also explored in Annals of the Western Shore. Reception and legacy Reception Le Guin received rapid recognition after the publication of The Left Hand of Darkness in 1969, and by the 1970s she was among the best known writers in the field. Her books sold many millions of copies, and were translated into more than 40 languages; several remain in print many decades after their first publication. Her work received intense academic attention; she has been described as being the "premier writer of both fantasy and science fiction" of the 1970s, the most frequently discussed science fiction writer of the 1970s, and over her career, as intensively studied as Philip K. Dick. Later in her career, she also received recognition from mainstream literary critics: in an obituary, Jo Walton stated that Le Guin "was so good that the mainstream couldn't dismiss SF any more". According to scholar Donna White, Le Guin was a "major voice in American letters", whose writing was the subject of many volumes of literary critique, more than two hundred scholarly articles, and a number of dissertations. Le Guin was unusual in receiving most of her recognition for her earliest works, which remained her most popular; a commentator in 2018 described a "tendency toward didacticism" in her later works, while John Clute, writing in The Guardian, stated that her later writing "suffers from the need she clearly felt to speak responsibly to her large audience about important things; an artist being responsible can be an artist wearing a crown of thorns". Not all of her works received as positive a reception; The Compass Rose was among the volumes that had a mixed reaction, while the Science Fiction Encyclopedia described The Eye of the Heron as "an over-diagrammatic political fable whose translucent simplicity approaches self-parody". Even the critically well-received The Left Hand of Darkness, in addition to critique from feminists, was described by Alexei Panshin as a "flat failure". Her writing was recognized by the popular media and by commentators. The Los Angeles Times commented in 2009 that after the death of Arthur C. Clarke, Le Guin was "arguably the most acclaimed science fiction writer on the planet", and went on to describe her as a "pioneer" of literature for young people. In an obituary, Clute described Le Guin as having "presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century", and as having a reputation as an author of the "first rank". In 2016, The New York Times described her as "America's greatest living science fiction writer". Praise for Le Guin frequently focused on the social and political themes her work explored, and for her prose; literary critic Harold Bloom described Le Guin as an "exquisite stylist", saying that in her writing, "Every word was exactly in place and every sentence or line had resonance". According to Bloom, Le Guin was a "visionary who set herself against all brutality, discrimination, and exploitation". The New York Times described her as using "a lean but lyrical style" to explore issues of moral relevance. Prefacing an interview in 2008, Vice magazine described Le Guin as having written "some of the more mind-warping [science fiction] and fantasy tales of the past 40 years". Le Guin's fellow authors also praised her writing. After Le Guin's death in 2018, writer Michael Chabon referred to her as the "greatest American writer of her generation", and said that she had "awed [him] with the power of an unfettered imagination". Author Margaret Atwood hailed Le Guin's "sane, smart, crafty and lyrical voice", and wrote that social injustice was a powerful motivation through Le Guin's life. Her prose, according to Zadie Smith, was "as elegant and beautiful as any written in the twentieth century". Academic and author Joyce Carol Oates highlighted Le Guin's "outspoken sense of justice, decency, and common sense", and called her "one of the great American writers and a visionary artist whose work will long endure". China Miéville described Le Guin as a "literary colossus", and wrote that she was a "writer of intense ethical seriousness and intelligence, of wit and fury, of radical politics, of subtlety, of freedom and yearning". Awards and recognition The accolades Le Guin has received include numerous annual awards for individual works. She won eight Hugo Awards from twenty-six nominations, and six Nebula Awards from eighteen nominations, including four Nebula Awards for Best Novel from six nominations, more than any other writer. Le Guin won twenty-four Locus Awards, voted for by subscribers of Locus Magazine, and was joint third for total wins, as well as second behind Neil Gaiman, for the number of wins for works of fiction. For her novels alone she won five Locus Awards, four Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, and one World Fantasy Award, and won each of those awards in short fiction categories as well. Her third Earthsea novel, The Farthest Shore, won the 1973 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and she was a finalist for ten Mythopoeic Awards, nine in Fantasy and one for Scholarship. Her 1996 collection Unlocking the Air and Other Stories was one of three finalists for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other awards won by Le Guin include three James Tiptree Jr. Awards, and three Jupiter Awards. She won her final Hugo award a year after her death, for a complete edition of Earthsea, illustrated by Charles Vess; the same volume also won a Locus award. Other awards and accolades have recognized Le Guin's contributions to speculative fiction. She was voted a Gandalf Grand Master Award by the World Science Fiction Society in 1979. The Science Fiction Research Association gave her its Pilgrim Award in 1989 for her "lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship". At the 1995 World Fantasy Convention she won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, a judged recognition of outstanding service to the fantasy field. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted her in 2001, its sixth class of two deceased and two living writers. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named her its 20th Grand Master in 2003: she was the second, and one of only six, women to receive that honor. In 2013, she was given the Eaton Award by the University of California, Riverside, for lifetime achievement in science fiction. Later in her career Le Guin also received accolades recognizing her contributions to literature more generally. In April 2000, the U.S. Library of Congress named Le Guin a Living Legend in the "Writers and Artists" category for her significant contributions to America's cultural heritage. The American Library Association granted her the annual Margaret Edwards Award in 2004, and also selected her to deliver the annual May Hill Arbuthnot Lecture. The Edwards Award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work: the 2004 panel cited the first four Earthsea volumes, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Beginning Place. The panel said that Le Guin "has inspired four generations of young adults to read beautifully constructed language, visit fantasy worlds that inform them about their own lives, and think about their ideas that are neither easy nor inconsequential". A collection of Le Guin's works was published by the Library of America in 2016, an honor only rarely given to living writers. The National Book Foundation awarded Le Guin its Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014, stating that she had "defied conventions of narrative, language, character, and genre, and transcended boundaries between fantasy and realism to forge new paths for literary fiction". The American Academy of Arts and Letters made her a member in 2017. On July 27, 2021, Le Guin was honored by the US Postal Service with the 33rd stamp in the Postal Service's Literary Arts series. The stamp features a portrait of the author taken from a 2006 photograph against a background image inspired by her book The Left Hand of Darkness. The stamp was designed by Donato Gionacola. Legacy and influence Le Guin had a considerable influence on the field of speculative fiction; Jo Walton argued that Le Guin played a large role in both broadening the genre and helping genre writers achieve mainstream recognition. The Earthsea books are cited as having a wide impact, including outside the field of literature. Atwood considers A Wizard of Earthsea one of the "wellsprings" of fantasy literature, and modern writers have credited the book for the idea of a "wizard school", later made famous by the Harry Potter series of books, and with popularizing the trope of a boy wizard, also present in Harry Potter. The notion that names can exert power is a theme in the Earthsea series; critics have suggested that this inspired Hayao Miyazaki's use of the idea in his 2001 film Spirited Away. Le Guin's writings set in the Hainish universe also had a wide influence. Le Guin coined the name "ansible" for an instantaneous interstellar communication device in 1966; the term was later adopted by several other writers, including Orson Scott Card in the Ender Series and Neil Gaiman in a script for a Doctor Who episode. Suzanne Reid wrote that at the time The Left Hand of Darkness was written, Le Guin's ideas of androgyny were unique not only to science fiction, but to literature in general. That volume is specifically cited as leaving a large legacy; in discussing it, literary critic Harold Bloom wrote "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time". Bloom followed this up by listing the book in his The Western Canon (1994) as one of the books in his conception of artistic works that have been important and influential in Western culture. This view was echoed in The Paris Review, which wrote that "No single work did more to upend the genre's conventions than The Left Hand of Darkness", while White argued that it was one of the seminal works of science fiction, as important as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Commentators have also described Le Guin as being influential in the field of literature more generally. Literary critic Elaine Showalter suggested that Le Guin "set the pace as a writer for women unlearning silence, fear, and self-doubt", while writer Brian Attebery stated that "[Le Guin] invented us: science fiction and fantasy critics like me but also poets and essayists and picture book writers and novelists". Le Guin's own literary criticism proved influential; her 1973 essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" led to renewed interest in the work of Kenneth Morris, and eventually to the publication of a posthumous novel by Morris. Le Guin also played a role in bringing speculative fiction into the literary mainstream by supporting journalists and scholarly endeavors examining the genre. Several prominent authors acknowledge Le Guin's influence on their own writing. Jo Walton wrote that "her way of looking at the world had a huge influence on me, not just as a writer but as a human being". Other writers she influenced include Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, as well as David Mitchell, Gaiman, Algis Budrys, Goonan, and Iain Banks. Mitchell, author of books such as Cloud Atlas, described A Wizard of Earthsea as having a strong influence on him, and said that he felt a desire to "wield words with the same power as Ursula Le Guin". Le Guin is also credited with inspiring several female science fiction authors in the 1970s, including Vonda McIntyre. When McIntyre established a writers' workshop in Seattle in 1971, Le Guin was one of the instructors. Film-maker Arwen Curry began production on a documentary about Le Guin in 2009, filming "dozens" of hours of interviews with the author as well as many other writers and artists who have been inspired by her. Curry launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to finish the documentary in early 2016 after winning a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In October 2021, the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction was announced. The award is managed by the Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust and a panel of jurors. The prize is worth and will be awarded annually to "a single book-length work of imaginative fiction." The prize's inaugural winner will be announced on October 21, 2022, Le Guin's birthday. Adaptations of her work Le Guin's works have been adapted for radio, film, television, and the stage. Her 1971 novel The Lathe of Heaven has been released on film twice, in 1979 by WNET with Le Guin's participation, and then in 2002 by the A&E Network. In a 2008 interview, she said she considered the 1979 version as "the only good adaptation to film" of her work to date. In the early 1980s Hayao Miyazaki asked to create an animated adaptation of Earthsea. Le Guin, who was unfamiliar with his work and anime in general, initially turned down the offer, but later accepted after seeing My Neighbor Totoro. The third and fourth Earthsea books were used as the basis of Tales from Earthsea, released in 2006. Rather than being directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, the film was directed | and was broadcast twice by National Public Radio. Chronology of writings Early work Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in 1959, while her first published short story was "An die Musik", in 1961; both were set in her fictional country of Orsinia. Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels, all set in Orsinia, which were rejected by publishers on the grounds that they were inaccessible. Some of her poetry from this period was published in 1975 in the volume Wild Angels. Le Guin turned her attention to science fiction after a lengthy period of receiving rejections from publishers, knowing that there was a market for writing that could be readily classified as such. Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in 1962 in Fantastic Science Fiction, and seven other stories followed in the next few years, in Fantastic or Amazing Stories. Among them were "The Dowry of Angyar", which introduced the fictional Hainish universe, and "The Rule of Names" and "The Word of Unbinding", which introduced the world of Earthsea. These stories were largely ignored by critics. Ace Books released Rocannon's World, Le Guin's first published novel, in 1966. Two more Hainish novels, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions were published in 1966 and 1967, respectively, and the three books together would come to be known as the Hainish trilogy. The first two were each published as half of an "Ace Double": two novels bound into a paperback and sold as a single low-cost volume. City of Illusions was published as a standalone volume, indicating Le Guin's growing name recognition. These books received more critical attention than Le Guin's short stories, with reviews being published in several science fiction magazines, but the critical response was still muted. The books contained many themes and ideas also present in Le Guin's better known later works, including the "archetypal journey" of a protagonist who undertakes both a physical journey and one of self-discovery, cultural contact and communication, the search for identity, and the reconciliation of opposing forces. When publishing her story "Nine Lives" in 1968, Playboy magazine asked Le Guin whether they could run the story without her full first name, to which Le Guin agreed: the story was published under the name "U. K. Le Guin". She later wrote that it was the first and only time she had experienced prejudice against her as a woman writer from an editor or publisher, and reflected that "it seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important." In subsequent printings, the story was published under her full name. Critical attention Le Guin's next two books brought her sudden and widespread critical acclaim. A Wizard of Earthsea, published in 1968, was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults, but was asked to write a novel targeted at this group by the editor of Parnassus Press, who saw it as a market with great potential. A coming of age story set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, the book received a positive reception in both the U.S. and Britain. Her next novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, was a Hainish universe story exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex. The book was Le Guin's first to address feminist issues, and according to scholar Donna White, it "stunned the science fiction critics"; it won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win these awards, and a number of other accolades. A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness have been described by critic Harold Bloom as Le Guin's masterpieces. She won the Hugo Award again in 1973 for The Word for World is Forest. The book was influenced by Le Guin's anger over the Vietnam War, and explored themes of colonialism and militarism: Le Guin later described it as the "most overt political statement" she had made in a fictional work. Le Guin continued to develop themes of equilibrium and coming-of-age in the next two installments of the Earthsea series, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore, published in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Both books were praised for their writing, while the exploration of death as a theme in The Farthest Shore also drew praise. Her 1974 novel The Dispossessed again won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best novel, making her the first person to win both awards for each of two books. Also set in the Hainish universe, the story explored anarchism and utopianism. Scholar Charlotte Spivack described it as representing a shift in Le Guin's science fiction towards discussing political ideas. Several of her speculative fiction short stories from the period, including her first published story, were later anthologized in the 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters. The fiction of the period 1966 to 1974, which also included The Lathe of Heaven, the Hugo Award-winning "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" and the Nebula Award-winning "The Day Before the Revolution", constitutes Le Guin's best-known body of work. Wider exploration Le Guin published a variety of work in the second half of the 1970s. This included speculative fiction in the form of the novel The Eye of the Heron, which, according to Le Guin, may be a part of the Hainish universe. She also published Very Far Away from Anywhere Else, a realistic novel for adolescents, as well as the collection Orsinian Tales and the novel Malafrena in 1976 and 1979, respectively. Though the latter two were set in the fictional country of Orsinia, the stories were realistic fiction rather than fantasy or science fiction. The Language of the Night, a collection of essays, was released in 1979, and Le Guin also published Wild Angels, a volume of poetry, in 1975. Between 1979, when she published Malafrena, and 1994, when the collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea was released, Le Guin wrote primarily for a younger audience. In 1985 she published the experimental work Always Coming Home. She wrote 11 children's picture books, including the Catwings series, between 1979 and 1994, along with The Beginning Place, an adolescent fantasy novel, released in 1980. Four more poetry collections were also published in this period, all of which were positively received. She also revisited Earthsea, publishing Tehanu in 1990: coming eighteen years after The Farthest Shore, during which Le Guin's views had developed considerably, the book was grimmer in tone than the earlier works in the series, and challenged some ideas presented therein. It received critical praise, won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel, and led to the series being recognized among adult literature. Later writings Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the 1990s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with "The Shobies' Story" in 1990. These stories included "Coming of Age in Karhide" (1995), which explored growing into adulthood and was set on the same planet as The Left Hand of Darkness. It was described by scholar Sandra Lindow as "so transgressively sexual and so morally courageous" that Le Guin "could not have written it in the '60s". In the same year she published the story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness, and followed it up with "Old Music and the Slave Women", a fifth, connected, story in 1999. All five of the stories explored freedom and rebellion within a slave society. In 2000 she published The Telling, which would be her final Hainish novel, and the next year released Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind, the last two Earthsea books. The latter won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2002. From 2002 onwards several collections and anthologies of Le Guin's work were published. A series of her stories from the period 1994–2002 was released in 2002 in the collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, along with the novella Paradises Lost. The volume examined unconventional ideas about gender, as well as anarchist themes. Other collections included Changing Planes, also released in 2002, while the anthologies included The Unreal and the Real (2012), and The Hainish Novels and Stories, a two-volume set of works from the Hainish universe released by the Library of America. Other works from this period included Lavinia (2008), based on a character from Virgil's Aeneid, and the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy, consisting of Gifts (2004), Voices (2006), and Powers (2007). Although Annals of the Western Shore was written for an adolescent audience, the third volume, Powers, received the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2009. In her final years, Le Guin largely turned away from fiction, and produced a number of essays, poems, and some translation. Her final publications included the non-fiction collections Dreams Must Explain Themselves and Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, and the poetry volume So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018, all of which were released after her death. Style and influences Influences Le Guin read both classic and speculative fiction widely in her youth. She later said that science fiction did not have much impact on her until she read the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith, and that she had sneered at the genre as a child. Authors Le Guin describes as influential include Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Boris Pasternak, and Philip K. Dick. Le Guin and Dick attended the same high-school, but did not know each other; Le Guin later described her novel The Lathe of Heaven as an homage to him. She also considered J. R. R. Tolkien and Leo Tolstoy to be stylistic influences, and preferred reading Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges to well-known science-fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein, whose writing she described as being of the "white man conquers the universe" tradition. Several scholars state that the influence of mythology, which Le Guin enjoyed reading as a child, is also visible in much of her work: for example, the short story "The Dowry of Angyar" is described as a retelling of a Norse myth. The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. Her father Alfred Kroeber is considered a pioneer in the field, and was a director of the University of California Museum of Anthropology: as a consequence of his research, Le Guin was exposed to anthropology and cultural exploration as a child. In addition to myths and legends, she read such volumes as The Leaves of the Golden Bough by Lady Frazer, a children's book adapted from The Golden Bough, a study of myth and religion by her husband James George Frazer. She described living with her father's friends and acquaintances as giving her the experience of the other. The experiences of Ishi, in particular, were influential on Le Guin, and elements of his story have been identified in works such as Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The Word for World Is Forest and The Dispossessed. Several scholars have commented that Le Guin's writing was influenced by Carl Jung, and specifically by the idea of Jungian archetypes. In particular, the shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea is seen as the Shadow archetype from Jungian psychology, representing Ged's pride, fear, and desire for power. Le Guin discussed her interpretation of this archetype, and her interest in the dark and repressed parts of the psyche, in a 1974 lecture. She stated elsewhere that she had never read Jung before writing the first Earthsea books. Other archetypes, including the Mother, Animus, and Anima, have also been identified in Le Guin's writing. Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin's world view, and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories. Many of Le Guin's protagonists, including in The Lathe of Heaven, embody the Taoist ideal of leaving things alone. The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in A Wizard of Earthsea is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. Taoist influence is evident in Le Guin's depiction of equilibrium in the world of Earthsea: the archipelago is depicted as being based on a delicate balance, which is disrupted by somebody in each of the first three novels. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining. Another prominent Taoist idea is the reconciliation of opposites such as light and dark, or good and evil. A number of Hainish novels, The Dispossessed prominent among them, explored such a process of reconciliation. In the Earthsea universe, it is not the dark powers, but the characters' misunderstanding of the balance of life, that is depicted as evil, in contrast to conventional Western stories in which good and evil are in constant conflict. Genre and style Although Le Guin is primarily known for her works of speculative fiction, she also wrote realistic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several other literary forms, and as a result her work is difficult to classify. Her writings received critical attention from mainstream critics, critics of children's literature, and critics of speculative fiction. Le Guin herself said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin's transgression of conventional boundaries of genre led to literary criticism of Le Guin becoming "Balkanized", particularly between scholars of children's literature and speculative fiction. Commentators have noted that the Earthsea novels specifically received less critical attention because they were considered children's books. Le Guin herself took exception to this treatment of children's literature, describing it as "adult chauvinist piggery". In 1976, literature scholar George Slusser criticized the "silly publication classification designating the original series as 'children's literature, while in Barbara Bucknall's opinion Le Guin "can be read, like Tolkien, by ten-year-olds and by adults. These stories are ageless because they deal with problems that confront us at any age." Several of her works have a premise drawn from sociology, psychology, or philosophy. As a result, Le Guin's writing is often described as "soft" science fiction, and she has been described as the "patron saint" of this sub-genre. A number of science fiction authors have objected to the term "soft science fiction", describing it as a potentially pejorative term used to dismiss stories not based on problems in physics, astronomy, or engineering, and also to target the writing of women or other groups under-represented in the genre. Le Guin suggested the term "social science fiction" for some of her writing, while pointing out that many of her stories were not science fiction at all. She argued that the term "soft science fiction" was divisive, and implied a narrow view of what constitutes valid science fiction. The influence of anthropology can be seen in the setting Le Guin chose for a number of her works. Several of her protagonists are anthropologists or ethnologists exploring a world alien to them. This is particularly true in the stories set in the Hainish universe, an alternative reality in which humans did not evolve on Earth, but on Hain. The Hainish subsequently colonized many planets, before losing contact with them, giving rise to varied but related biology and social structure. Examples include Rocannon in Rocannon's World and Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness. Other characters, such as Shevek in The Dispossessed, become cultural observers in the course of their journeys on other planets. Le Guin's writing often examines alien cultures, and particularly the human cultures from planets other than Earth in the Hainish universe. In discovering these "alien" worlds, Le Guin's protagonists, and by extension the readers, also journey into themselves, and challenge the nature of what they consider "alien" and what they consider "native". Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive. The heterogeneous structure of The Left Hand of Darkness, described as "distinctly post-modern", was unusual for the time of its publication. This was in marked contrast to the structure of (primarily male-authored) traditional science fiction, which was straightforward and linear. The novel was framed as part of a report sent to the Ekumen by the protagonist Genly Ai after his time on the planet Gethen, thus suggesting that Ai was selecting and ordering the material, consisting of personal narration, diary extracts, Gethenian myths, and ethnological reports. Earthsea also employed an unconventional narrative form described by scholar Mike Cadden as "free indirect discourse", in which the feelings of the protagonist are not directly separated from the narration, making the narrator seem sympathetic to the characters, and removing the skepticism towards a character's thoughts and emotions that are a feature of more direct narration. Cadden suggests that this method leads to younger readers sympathizing directly with the characters, making it an effective technique for young-adult literature. A number of Le Guin's writings, including the Earthsea series, challenged the conventions of epic fantasies and myths. Many of the protagonists in Earthsea were dark-skinned individuals, in comparison to the white-skinned heroes more traditionally used; some of the antagonists, in contrast, were white-skinned, a switching of race roles that has been remarked upon by multiple critics. In a 2001 interview, Le Guin attributed the frequent lack of character illustrations on her book covers to her choice of non-white protagonists. She explained this choice, saying: "most people in the world aren't white. Why in the future would we assume they are?" Her 1985 book Always Coming Home, described as "her great experiment", included a story told from the perspective of a young protagonist, but also included poems, rough drawings of plants and animals, myths, and anthropological reports from the matriarchal society of the Kesh, a fictional people living in the Napa valley after a catastrophic global flood. Themes Gender and sexuality Gender and sexuality are prominent themes in a number of Le Guin's works. The Left Hand of Darkness, published in 1969, was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction, and is the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity, who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. Which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Gethen was portrayed as a society without war, as a result of this absence of fixed gender characteristics, and also without sexuality as a continuous factor in social relationships. Gethenian culture was explored in the novel through the eyes of a Terran, whose masculinity proves a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Outside the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin's use of a female protagonist in The Tombs of Atuan, published in 1971, was described as a "significant exploration of womanhood". Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Although The Left Hand of Darkness was seen as a landmark exploration of gender, it also received criticism for not going far enough. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, and the portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". Le Guin initially defended her writing; in a 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the novel's primary theme of loyalty. Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships. Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in |
two, when the schoolchildren construct their own prison and detain one of their own inside. The language spoken on Anarres also reflects anarchism. Pravic is a constructed language in the tradition of Esperanto. Pravic reflects many aspects of the philosophical foundations of utopian anarchism. For instance, the use of the possessive case is strongly discouraged, a feature that also is reflected by the novel's title. Children are trained to speak only about matters that interest others; anything else is "egoizing" (pp. 28–31). There is no property ownership of any kind. Shevek's daughter, upon meeting him for the first time, tells him, "You can share the handkerchief I use" rather than "You may borrow my handkerchief", thus conveying the idea that the handkerchief is not owned by the girl, but is merely used by her. Utopianism The work is sometimes said to represent one of the few modern revivals of the utopian genre. When first published, the book included the tagline: "The magnificent epic of an ambiguous utopia!" which was shortened by fans to "An ambiguous utopia" and adopted as a subtitle in certain editions. There are also many characteristics of a utopian novel found in this book. For example, Shevek is an outsider when he arrives on Urras, which capitalizes on the utopian and scientific fiction theme of the "estrangement-setting". Le Guin's utopianism, however, differs from the traditional "anarchist commune." Whereas most utopian novels attempt to convey a society that is absolutely good, this world differs as it is portrayed only as "ambiguously good." Feminism There is some disagreement as to whether The Dispossessed should be considered a feminist utopia or a feminist science fiction novel. According to Mary Morrison of the State University of New York at Buffalo, the anarchist themes in this book help to promote feminist themes as well. Other critics, such as William Marcellino of SUNY Buffalo and Sarah LeFanu, writer of "Popular Writing and Feminist Intervention in Science Fiction," argue that there are distinct anti-feminist undertones throughout the novel. Morrison argues that Le Guin's portrayed ideals of Taoism, the celebration of labor and the body, and desire or sexual freedom in an anarchist society contribute greatly to the book's feminist message. Taoism, which rejects dualisms and divisions in favor of a Yin and Yang balance, brings attention to the balance between not only the two planets, but between the male and female inhabitants. The celebration of labor on Anarres stems from a celebration of a mother's labor, focusing on creating life rather than on building objects. The sexual freedom on Anarres also contributes to the book's feminist message. On the other hand, some critics believe that Le Guin's feminist themes are either weak or not present. Some believe that the Taoist interdependence between the genders actually weakens Le Guin's feminist message. Marcellino believes that the anarchist themes in the novel take precedence and dwarf any feminist themes. Lefanu adds that there is a difference between the feminist messages that the book explicitly presents and the anti-feminist undertones. For example, the book says that women created the society on Anarres. However, female characters seem secondary to the male protagonist, who seems to be a traditional male hero; this subversion weakens any feminist message that Le Guin was trying to convey. Ansible theory The theory Shevek is working on in the novel seeks to tie together the seemingly contradictory natures of Simultaneity and Sequentiality in temporal physics. This is also described, in the banter at a party, as being linear time versus circular time. Shevek is aware of the concept of an ansible, which would allow for instantaneous communication across space, and how his theory would allow for its development. But the implications of that theory might also allow for "the instantaneous transferral of matter across space". Publication In Le Guin's book-writing process, the story always came to her through a character rather than an event, idea, plot, or society. The story behind The Dispossessed first occurred to Le Guin through a vision, revealed as if seen from a distance, first as a male physicist, his thin face, clear eyes, large ears, possibly recalling a memory of Robert Oppenheimer, and a vivid personality. She attempted to capture the character in a short story in what she recalled as one of her worst in 30 years of writing, in which the physicist escapes a gulag planet for a nearby wealthy sister planet, where he has a love affair but likes the planet even less, and so nobly returns to the gulag. She proceeded to rewrite the story, beginning with his name and origin—Shevek, from Utopia—which she considered reasonable based on his intelligence and disarming naivety. Knowing only bits of Thomas More (Utopia), William Morris (News from Nowhere), William Henry Hudson (A Crystal Age), and H. G. Wells (A Modern Utopia), Le Guin's reading of modern libertarian socialists rounded Shevek's prison planet into a place where she saw he would want to return: Marx and Engels, William Godwin, Emma Goldman, Paul Goodman and, foremost, Peter Kropotkin and Mary Shelley. Le Guin wrote The Dispossessed in 1973 for publication in May or June 1974. Critical reception The novel received generally positive reviews. On the positive side, Baird Searles characterized the novel as an "extraordinary work", saying Le Guin had "created a working society in exquisite detail" and "a fully realized hypothetical culture [as well as] living breathing characters who are inevitable products of that culture". Gerald Jonas, writing in The New York Times, said that "Le Guin's book, written in her solid, no-nonsense prose, is so persuasive that it ought to put a stop to the writing of prescriptive Utopias for at least 10 years". Theodore Sturgeon praised The Dispossessed as "a beautifully written, beautifully composed book", saying "it performs one of [science fiction's] prime functions, which is to create another kind of social system to see how it would work. Or if it would work." Lester del Rey, however, gave the novel a mixed review, citing the quality of Le Guin's writing but claiming that the ending "slips badly", a deus ex machina that "destroy[s] much of the strength of the novel". Awards Adaptations In 1987, the CBC Radio anthology program Vanishing Point adapted The Dispossessed into a series of six 30 minute episodes. On October 5, 2021, it was announced that 1212 Entertainment and Anonymous Content would adapt the novel into a limited series. Translations Azerbaijani: , 2021 Bulgarian: Chinese (Simplified): , 2009 Chinese (Traditional): , 2005 Catalan: Els desposseïts, 2018 Croatian: , 2009 Czech: , 1995 Danish: , 1979 Dutch: Estonian: Ilmajäetud, 2018 Finnish: , 1979 French: , 1975 Georgian: , 2018 German: , 1976, later , 2006, later , 2017 Greek: Hebrew: , 1980; later , 2015 Hungarian: , 1994 Italian: , later , 1976 Japanese: , 1980 Korean: , 2002 Polish: Portuguese: , Romanian: , 1995 Russian: , 1994, , 1997 Serbian: , 1987 Spanish: , 1983 Swedish: , 1976 Turkish: , 1990 , 2018 See also Ursula K. Le Guin bibliography Anarchism in the arts Notes Works cited Anarchism and The Dispossessed John P. Brennan, "Anarchism and Utopian Tradition in The Dispossessed", pp. 116–152, in Olander & Greenberg, editors, Ursula K. Le Guin, New York: Taplinger (1979). Samuel R. Delany, "To Read The Dispossessed," in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw. N.Y.: Dragon Press, 1977, pp. 239–308 (anarchism in The Dispossessed). (pdf available online through Project Muse) Neil Easterbrook, "State, Heterotopia: The Political Imagination in Heinlein, Le Guin, and Delany", pp. 43–75, in Hassler & Wilcox, editors, Political Science Fiction, Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina Press (1997). Leonard M. Fleck, "Science Fiction as a Tool of Speculative Philosophy: A Philosophic Analysis of Selected Anarchistic and Utopian Themes in Le Guin's The Dispossessed", pp. 133–45, in Remington, editor, Selected Proceedings of the 1978 Science Fiction Research Association National Conference, Cedar Falls: Univ. of Northern Iowa (1979). Larry L. Tifft, "Possessed Sociology and Le Guin's Dispossessed: From Exile to Anarchism", pp. 180–197, in De Bolt & Malzberg, editors, Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space, Port Washington, NY: Kennikat (1979). Kingsley Widmer, "The Dialectics of Utopianism: Le Guin's The Dispossessed", Liberal and Fine Arts Review, v.3, nos.1–2, pp. 1–11 (Jan.–July 1983). Gender and The Dispossessed Lillian M. Heldreth, "Speculations on Heterosexual Equality: Morris, McCaffrey, Le Guin", pp. 209–220 in Palumbo, ed., Erotic Universe: Sexuality and Fantastic Literature, Westport, CT: Greenwood (1986). Neil Easterbrook, "State, Heterotopia: The Political Imagination in Heinlein, Le Guin, and Delany", pp. 43–75, in Hassler & Wilcox, editors, Political Science Fiction, Columbia, SC: U of South Carolina Press (1997). Jim Villani, "The Woman Science Fiction Writer and the Non-Heroic Male Protagonist", pp. 21–30 in Hassler, ed., Patterns of the Fantastic, Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House (1983). Language and The Dispossessed Property and possessions Werner Christie Mathiesen, "The Underestimation of Politics in Green Utopias: The Description of Politics in Huxley's Island, Le Guin's The Dispossessed, and Callenbach's Ecotopia", Utopian Studies: Journal of the Society for Utopian Studies, v.12, n.1, pp. 56–78 (2001). Science and The Dispossessed Ellen M. Rigsby, "Time and the Measure of the Political Animal." The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Ed., Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman. Lanham: Lexington books., 2005. Taoism and The Dispossessed Elizabeth Cummins Cogell, "Taoist Configurations: The Dispossessed", pp. 153–179 in De Bolt & Malzberg, editors, Ursula K. Le Guin: Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space, Port Washington, NY: Kennikat (1979). Utopian literature and The Dispossessed James W. Bittner, "Chronosophy, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Le Guin's The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, pp. 244–270 in Rabkin, Greenberg, and Olander, editors, No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1983). John P. Brennan, "Anarchism and Utopian Tradition | rivalling Thu. At Ieu Eun University, Shevek struggles with teaching the Urrasti students and is manipulated by the physicists there, who hope that his breakthrough on the General Temporal Theory will allow them to build a faster-than-light ship. A mysterious note asking him to join his 'brothers' spooks Shevek, knowing that fellow like-minded anarchists are on Urras - in the shadows. Eventually, at a dinner party, a drunken Shevek publicly denounces his peers on A-lo, scolding them for their materialistic lives and taking their splendor for granted, before leading to a disastrous sexual encounter that further alienates Shevek from his peers. He has a sobering realisation that the theory he proposes will be capitalised by the Urrasti for potential warfare, not for the benefit of society. Shevek escapes the university, contacts an underground revolutionary group from the note he found, joining in a labor protest in Nio Esseia that is violently suppressed. He flees to the Terran embassy, where he asks them to transmit his theory to all worlds. The Terrans provide him safe passage back to Anarres. Onboard the Davenant (chapter 13) For interplanetary travel to his world, Anarres, Shevek is shown around a Hainish spaceship. Hainish culture is described. A Hainishman named Ketho, who sympathizes with Odonian thought, wants to disembark with Shevek when they land on Anarres. Not knowing if the Anarresti will welcome him back with open arms, Shevek remains content thinking about his family as the spaceship begins to land. Themes Symbolism The ambiguity of Anarres' economic and political situation in relation to Urras is symbolically manifested in the low wall surrounding Anarres' single spaceport. This wall is the only place on the anarchist planet where "No Trespassing!" signs may be seen, and it is where the book begins and ends. The people of Anarres believe that the wall divides a free world from the corrupting influence of an oppressor's ships. On the other hand, the wall could be a prison wall keeping the rest of the planet imprisoned and cut off. Shevek's life attempts to answer this question. In addition to Shevek's journey to answer questions about his society's true level of freedom, the meaning of his theories themselves weave their way into the plot; they not only describe abstract physical concepts, but they also reflect ups and downs of the characters' lives, and the transformation of the Anarresti society. An oft-quoted saying in the book is "true journey is return." The meaning of Shevek's theories—which deal with the nature of time and simultaneity—have been subject to interpretation. For example, there have been interpretations that the non-linear nature of the novel is a reproduction of Shevek's theory. Anarchism and capitalism Le Guin's foreword to the novel notes that her anarchism is closely akin to that of Peter Kropotkin, whose Mutual Aid closely assessed the influence of the natural world on competition and cooperation. Many conflicts occur between the freedom of anarchism and the constraints imposed by authority and society, both on Anarres and Urras. These constraints are both physical and social. Physically, Odo was imprisoned in the Fort for nine years. Socially speaking, 'time after time the question of who is being locked out or in, which side of the wall one is on, is the focus of the narrative.' Mark Tunik emphasises that the wall is the dominant metaphor for these social constraints. Shevek hits ‘the wall of charm, courtesy, indifference.” He later notes that he let a “wall be built around him” that kept him from seeing the poor people on Urras. He had been co-opted, with walls of smiles of the rich, and he didn't know how to break them down. Shevek at one point speculates that the people on Urras are not truly free, precisely because they have so many walls built between people and are so possessive. He says, “You are all in jail. Each alone, solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your eyes – the wall, the wall!” ‘ It is not just the state of mind of those inside the prisons that concerns Shevek, he also notes the effect on those outside the walls. Steve Grossi says, ‘by building a physical wall to keep the bad in, we construct a mental wall keeping ourselves, our thoughts, and our empathy out, to the collective detriment of all." Shevek himself later says, “those who build walls are their own prisoners.” Le Guin makes this explicit in chapter two, when the schoolchildren construct their own prison and detain one of their own inside. The language spoken on Anarres also reflects anarchism. Pravic is a constructed language in the tradition of Esperanto. Pravic reflects many aspects of the philosophical foundations of utopian anarchism. For instance, the use of the possessive case is strongly discouraged, a feature that also is reflected by the novel's title. Children are trained to speak only about matters that interest others; anything else is "egoizing" (pp. 28–31). There is no property ownership of any kind. Shevek's daughter, upon meeting him for the first time, tells him, "You can share the handkerchief I use" rather than "You may borrow my handkerchief", thus conveying the idea that the handkerchief is not owned by the girl, but is merely used by her. Utopianism The work is sometimes said to represent one of the few modern revivals of the utopian genre. When first published, the book included the tagline: "The magnificent epic of an ambiguous utopia!" which was shortened by fans to "An ambiguous utopia" and adopted as a subtitle in certain editions. There are also many characteristics of a utopian novel found in this book. For example, Shevek is an outsider when he arrives on Urras, which capitalizes on the utopian and scientific fiction theme of the "estrangement-setting". Le Guin's utopianism, however, differs from the traditional "anarchist commune." Whereas most utopian novels attempt to convey a society that is absolutely good, this world differs as it is portrayed only as "ambiguously good." Feminism There is some disagreement as to whether The Dispossessed should be considered a feminist utopia or a feminist science fiction novel. According to Mary Morrison of the State University of New York at Buffalo, the anarchist themes in this book help to promote feminist themes as well. Other critics, such as William Marcellino of SUNY Buffalo and Sarah LeFanu, writer of "Popular Writing and Feminist Intervention in Science Fiction," argue that there are distinct anti-feminist undertones throughout the novel. Morrison argues that Le Guin's portrayed ideals of Taoism, the celebration of labor and the body, and desire or sexual freedom in an anarchist society contribute greatly to the book's feminist message. Taoism, which rejects dualisms and divisions in favor of a Yin and Yang balance, brings attention to the balance between not only the two planets, but between the male and female inhabitants. The celebration of labor on Anarres stems from a celebration of a mother's labor, focusing on creating life rather than on building objects. The sexual freedom on Anarres also contributes to the book's feminist message. On the other hand, some critics believe that Le Guin's feminist themes are either weak or not present. Some believe that the Taoist interdependence between the genders actually weakens Le Guin's feminist message. Marcellino believes that the anarchist themes in the novel take precedence and dwarf any feminist themes. Lefanu adds that there is a difference between the feminist messages that the book explicitly presents and the anti-feminist undertones. For example, the book says that women created the society on Anarres. However, female characters seem secondary to the male protagonist, who seems to be a traditional male hero; this subversion weakens any feminist message that Le Guin was trying to convey. Ansible theory The theory Shevek is working on in the novel seeks to tie together the seemingly contradictory natures of Simultaneity and Sequentiality in temporal physics. This is also described, in the banter at a party, as being linear time versus circular time. Shevek is aware of the concept of an ansible, which would allow for instantaneous communication across space, and how his theory would allow for its development. But the implications of that theory might also allow for "the instantaneous transferral of matter across space". Publication In Le Guin's book-writing process, the story always came to her through a character rather than an event, idea, plot, or society. The story behind The Dispossessed first occurred to Le Guin through a vision, revealed as if seen from a distance, first as a male physicist, his thin face, clear eyes, large ears, possibly recalling a memory of Robert Oppenheimer, and a vivid personality. She attempted to capture the character in a short story in what she recalled as one of her worst in 30 years of writing, in which the physicist escapes a gulag planet for a nearby wealthy sister planet, where he has a love affair but likes the planet even less, and so nobly returns to the gulag. She proceeded to rewrite the story, beginning with his name and origin—Shevek, from Utopia—which she considered reasonable based on his intelligence and disarming naivety. Knowing only bits of Thomas More (Utopia), William Morris (News from Nowhere), William Henry Hudson (A Crystal Age), and H. G. Wells (A Modern Utopia), Le Guin's reading of modern libertarian socialists rounded Shevek's prison planet into a place where she saw he would want to return: Marx and Engels, William Godwin, Emma Goldman, Paul Goodman and, foremost, Peter Kropotkin and Mary Shelley. Le Guin wrote The Dispossessed in 1973 for publication in May or June 1974. Critical reception The novel received generally positive reviews. On the positive side, Baird Searles characterized the novel as an "extraordinary work", saying Le Guin had "created a working society in exquisite detail" and "a fully realized hypothetical culture [as well as] living breathing characters who are inevitable products of that culture". Gerald Jonas, writing in The New York Times, said that "Le Guin's book, written in her solid, no-nonsense prose, is so persuasive that it ought to put a stop to the writing of prescriptive Utopias for at least 10 years". Theodore Sturgeon praised The Dispossessed as "a beautifully written, beautifully composed book", saying "it performs one of [science fiction's] prime functions, which is to create another kind of social system to see how it would work. Or if it would work." Lester del Rey, however, gave the novel a mixed review, citing the quality of Le Guin's writing but claiming that the ending "slips badly", a deus ex machina that "destroy[s] much of the strength of the novel". Awards Adaptations In 1987, the CBC Radio anthology program Vanishing Point adapted The Dispossessed into a series of six 30 minute episodes. On October 5, 2021, it was announced that 1212 Entertainment and Anonymous |
(including Earth) forgot that other human worlds existed. The Ekumen stories tell of the efforts to re-establish a civilization on a galactic scale through NAFAL (Nearly As Fast As Light) interstellar travel taking years to travel between stars (although only weeks or months from the viewpoint of the traveler because of time dilation), and through instantaneous interstellar communication using the ansible. This seems to have happened in two phases: First, the League of All Worlds was formed, as an alliance of planets, mostly descended from colonization efforts from the planet Hain, uniting the "nine known worlds" — presumably along with new colonies. By the time of Rocannon's World it has grown but is also under threat from a distant enemy. In City of Illusions it is recalled as having been a league of some 80 worlds at the time it was destroyed by aliens called the Shing, who are uniquely able to lie in mindspeech. After the apparent overthrow of the Shing by Terran descendants from Alterra / Werel (capable of recognizing the Shing lies), the alliance is eventually reconstructed. A second phase begins with The Left Hand of Darkness. The 80 plus planets seem to have reunited as the Ekumen – a name derived from the Greek "oikoumene", meaning "the inhabited world", although characters occasionally refer to it as "the Household", which is in turn a reference to the Greek "oikos", a word which developed from the same root as "oikoumene". Unexplained references are made by the protagonist from Terra in the Left Hand of Darkness to a long-past "Age of the Enemy", which presumably refers to the time that the Shing controlled Terra, portrayed in City of Illusions. Planets The Ekumen (or the League of All Worlds, though that is also believed to be the previous planetary coalition, before some sort of galactic crisis) contains a very large number of planets and is continually exploring new ones. Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness explains that there are 83 planets in the Ekumen, with Gethen a candidate for becoming the 84th. The process of reaching out to potential civilizations is a tedious and sometimes dangerous one. Technology Societies tend to use sophisticated but unobtrusive technologies. Most notable is the ansible, an instant-communication device that keeps worlds in touch with each other. Physical communication is by NAFAL (Nearly As Fast As Light) ships. The physics is never explained; the ship vanishes from where it was and reappears somewhere else many years later. The trip takes slightly longer than it would to cross the same distance at the speed of light, but ship-time is just a few hours for those on board. It cannot be used for trips within a solar system. Trips can begin or end close to a planet, but if used without a "retemporalizer", there are drastic physical effects at the end of long trips, at least according to the Shing, whose information may be suspect. It is also lethal if the traveler is pregnant. City of Illusions mentions automatic death-machines that work on the same principle as the ansible and can strike instantly at distant worlds. Such a device is clearly used in the events of Rocannon's World. The weapons are not mentioned again in later books. Churten theory, as developed by the physicists of Anarres, should allow people to go instantly from solar system to solar system. It is a development of the work of Shevek, whose tale is told in The Dispossessed. Shevek's work made the ansible possible—it is mentioned in his tale that engineers decided they could build it once the correct theory was found. Churten theory offers a way to move people and spacecraft instantaneously, but there are side effects. These are described in three short stories, "The Shobies' Story," "Dancing to Ganam", and "Another Story, or, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea," all collected in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994). The ansible has been adopted by other science fiction and fantasy authors, such as Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon, and Vernor Vinge. Post-technological worlds The ideas of post-technological societies and social and ecological collapse are in several of the stories. These are portrayed as the end result of the wrong kind of civilizations, i.e., competitive, capitalist, patriarchal, "dynamic, aggressive, ecology-breaking cultures," while successful societies are close to the land, peaceful, non-authoritarian, non-competitive, static, communitarian, with the holistic outlook of Eastern religions. The Earth, called "Terra" in the Cycle, is mentioned as one of the failed civilizations. In City of Illusions, Earth has suffered some sort of collapse in a distant future, losing contact with the stars. In The Dispossessed, the ecological disaster of Earth is described; it has become "a planet spoiled by the human species" through wars and runaway industrial development. Pollution has turned it into a desert and ruined the carrying capacity of the land. The population has fallen from nine billion to half a billion, who | to potential civilizations is a tedious and sometimes dangerous one. Technology Societies tend to use sophisticated but unobtrusive technologies. Most notable is the ansible, an instant-communication device that keeps worlds in touch with each other. Physical communication is by NAFAL (Nearly As Fast As Light) ships. The physics is never explained; the ship vanishes from where it was and reappears somewhere else many years later. The trip takes slightly longer than it would to cross the same distance at the speed of light, but ship-time is just a few hours for those on board. It cannot be used for trips within a solar system. Trips can begin or end close to a planet, but if used without a "retemporalizer", there are drastic physical effects at the end of long trips, at least according to the Shing, whose information may be suspect. It is also lethal if the traveler is pregnant. City of Illusions mentions automatic death-machines that work on the same principle as the ansible and can strike instantly at distant worlds. Such a device is clearly used in the events of Rocannon's World. The weapons are not mentioned again in later books. Churten theory, as developed by the physicists of Anarres, should allow people to go instantly from solar system to solar system. It is a development of the work of Shevek, whose tale is told in The Dispossessed. Shevek's work made the ansible possible—it is mentioned in his tale that engineers decided they could build it once the correct theory was found. Churten theory offers a way to move people and spacecraft instantaneously, but there are side effects. These are described in three short stories, "The Shobies' Story," "Dancing to Ganam", and "Another Story, or, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea," all collected in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994). The ansible has been adopted by other science fiction and fantasy authors, such as Orson Scott Card, Elizabeth Moon, and Vernor Vinge. Post-technological worlds The ideas of post-technological societies and social and ecological collapse are in several of the stories. These are portrayed as the end result of the wrong kind of civilizations, i.e., competitive, capitalist, patriarchal, "dynamic, aggressive, ecology-breaking cultures," while successful societies are close to the land, peaceful, non-authoritarian, non-competitive, static, communitarian, with the holistic outlook of Eastern religions. The Earth, called "Terra" in the Cycle, is mentioned as one of the failed civilizations. In City of Illusions, Earth has suffered some sort of collapse in a distant future, losing contact with the stars. In The Dispossessed, the ecological disaster of Earth is described; it has become "a planet spoiled by the human species" through wars and runaway industrial development. Pollution has turned it into a desert and ruined the carrying capacity of the land. The population has fallen from nine billion to half a billion, who only survive by rationing, labor conscription, euthanasia, forced birth control, and the charity of the Hainish. In "Another Story" in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, it is mentioned that Earth still suffers badly from pollution. Eleven-Soro had a high level of technology and then a massive crash, as is told in the short story "Solitude" in The Birthday of the World. Hain itself has gone back to a simpler life, with high technology used only where it can be justified, as is told in the first part of "A Man of the People" in Four Ways to Forgiveness. This also seems to apply to the planet Ve. Orint and Kheakh are mentioned in passing as worlds that have totally destroyed themselves. In The Left Hand Of Darkness, the planet Gde is described as extremely hot rock and desert, the result of a |
Democrática Popular (People's Democratic Union (Portugal)) Unidad Democrática y Popular (Democratic and Popular Union), a former Bolivian umbrella party United Democratic Party (disambiguation), multiple organisations Science and technology Undecaprenyl phosphate, a bacterial cell membrane carrier lipid Uridine diphosphate, an | carrier lipid Uridine diphosphate, an organic chemical User Datagram Protocol, a network communications method Usenet Death Penalty, a discussion group disciplinary response Universality-diversity paradigm Other uses Unit Deployment Program, a military assignment system Unitary development plan, a land use planning system Universidad Diego Portales (Diego Portales |
Gilcrease Museum In July 2008, the University of Tulsa took over management of the Gilcrease Museum in a public-private partnership with the City of Tulsa. The museum has one of the largest collections of American Western art in the world (including famous works by Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, and others) and houses growing collections in artifacts from Central and South America. The museum sits on in northwest Tulsa, a considerable distance from the main university campus. The Bob Dylan Archive The Bob Dylan Archive is a collection of documents and objects relating to iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (whose mentor was Oklahoman Woody Guthrie). It was announced on March 2, 2016, that the archive had been acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) and the University of Tulsa. The university has since relinquished ownership to GKFF. It will be under the care of the university's Helmerich Center for American Research. Student body and student life Students at the University of Tulsa represent 46 states and over 60 foreign countries, of which 54% are Oklahoma residents. Among the most common countries of origin for TU international students are China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India, Nigeria, Angola and the United Kingdom. The University of Tulsa is home to more than 150 student organizations, registered with and partially funded by the Student Association. Diversity and campus life A number of groups exist to support diversity on the University of Tulsa campus. There at least 25 campus organizations existing to support and sustain a diverse campus community. In addition, TU hosts the Chevron Multicultural Resource Center, funded by a gift from the energy company, which hosts events and programming to promote diversity on campus. Although TU has historic ties to the Presbyterian Church, the university has long embraced religious diversity. In 2002, TU was home to the first mosque built on an American university campus. TU also hosts a chapter of Hillel International, an organization to support Jewish life on campus. The university also hosts a number of organizations reflecting different streams of Christian spiritual practice, including Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Student Association The Student Association is the University of Tulsa student government body. It is organized into three branches: the Executive Branch, which includes Cabinet and is in charge of organizing large campus-wide events and activities; the Judicial Branch; and the Legislative Branch, or Student Senate, which coordinates funding, supports student organization charters, and addresses general issues impacting student life on campus. Its budget is provided partially by the university and partially by a fee paid by students each semester. Traditionally, the Student Association coordinates Homecoming activities, including cross campus competitions and the homecoming game tailgate. Another traditional event is Springfest, a week-long series of events including food, various on-campus activities, and a concert bringing in such names as Imagine Dragons, Panic! At the Disco, and Ben Rector. In addition to traditional campus events, Student Association provides smaller campus programs including community service activities, social awareness events, and diversity programming. Activities organized by Student Association are free to all TU students. College traditions Kendall Bell: The Kendall Bell, now housed in Bayless Plaza, is traditionally rung by graduating seniors upon completion of their last final exam at the university. The bell was broken by a group of students in May 2008. They were trying to steal it, and dropped it in their escape. Homecoming Bonfire: Traditionally held the Friday evening prior to the Homecoming football game. The Homecoming court is honored along with the Jess Chouteau Top Ten Seniors. Alma Mater: "Hail to Tulsa U" is sung by alumni and current students prior to major sporting events and at the end of all commencement ceremonies. Alumni and students remain standing as a sign of respect. The melody is played by the Sharp Chapel carillon daily at 5 pm. Greek life There are six IFC fraternities and six NPC sororities on campus. The living quarters in the back of the sorority houses are university-owned residence halls, but, traditionally, only current members of the sororities live there. Other fraternities on campus that do not fall under the various councils include: Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota music sorority Delta Theta Phi co-ed law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta co-ed law fraternity Phi Delta Phi co-ed law fraternity Sigma Phi Lambda Christian sorority Beta Upsilon Chi Christian fraternity 2015 student speech controversy In February 2015, after the University of Tulsa suspended a student under its zero tolerance policy for harassment for allegedly threatening and defamatory Facebook postings by his fiancée against other faculty and a female student, administrators attempted to discourage the campus newspaper from publishing confidential information because of the non-disclosure agreement the suspended student and university had entered into. The controversy was picked up by several online sites which criticized the administration for using "threats" and "intimidation" to "cover up" their handling of the disciplinary issue. In January 2016, the former student filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming his dismissal was unfair and was a breach of the institution's commitment to due process. The incident earned the university a spot on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's 2016 "10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech". The lawsuit was dismissed in favor of the university in 2021. Athletics Tulsa's sports teams participate in NCAA Division I as a member of the American Athletic Conference (The American); its football team is part of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Tulsa has the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any FBS school. TU has had a rivalry with the slightly larger Rice University and a football rivalry with the substantially larger University of Houston. It also has two current rivalries with D-I schools that do not sponsor football—an in-conference rivalry with Wichita State University, especially in men's basketball, and a crosstown rivalry, most prominently in basketball, with Summit League member Oral Roberts University. The university's nickname is the Golden Hurricane (it was originally the Golden Tornadoes). The Sound of the Golden Hurricane marching band plays at all home football and basketball games as well as traveling to championships in support of the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa has won six national championships (three NCAA): four in women's golf and two in men's basketball. The University of Tulsa currently fields a varsity team in seven men's sports and ten women's sports. Athletic facilities are distributed throughout a number of buildings on campus. Mabee Gym houses an extensive indoor rowing facility, an indoor golf practice facility, and volleyball practice gyms. Renovations in spring 2008 incorporated FieldTurf into an indoor practice field for | composed of students and professors primarily in psychology, sociology, and nursing. The group contributes to the fields through presentations at local and major conferences and publications. RankingsU.S. News & World Reports 2022 edition of "Best Colleges" ranked the University of Tulsa 136 among "national universities" and tied at 79th for "Best Value". The university's graduate school program in petroleum engineering was ranked #5. Scholarship and fellowship recipients TU students have won 66 Goldwater Scholarships, five Marshall Scholarships, three Rhodes Scholarships (9 Rhodes finalists), 25 Fulbright Scholarships, and numerous Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, and Morris K. Udall Fellowships. Campus The campus of the University of Tulsa centers on a wide, grassy, quad-like space known as Dietler Commons, formerly called "The U." The predominant architectural style is English Gothic. Most of the buildings are constructed from tan and rose-colored Crab Orchard sandstone from Tennessee interspersed with stone quarried in Arkansas. Other materials include Bedford limestone from Indiana and slate quarried in Vermont. The university's campus borders Tulsa's Kendall-Whittier neighborhood and is not far from Tulsa's downtown and mid-town neighborhoods. The campus, in particular its football venue Skelly Field, is located on the historic U.S. Route 66, America's "Mother Road" stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles. University of Tulsa has participated in efforts towards sustainability including RecycleMania and Adopt a Recycle Bin. Many campus efforts have been led by student groups like the Sustainability Committee, the Association of International Students, Student Association, TU Earth Matters, and the TU Food Garden. The university strives to have its buildings meet LEED standards in order to reduce the school's overall carbon footprint. Bayless Plaza Completed in 2006, Bayless Plaza houses the Kendall Bell, hanging in the cupola of the former Kendall Hall. The plaza lies directly south of Tyrrell Hall, longtime home of the School of Music, and serves as the apex of Tucker Drive, the university's main entrance. H. A. Chapman Stadium TU football has played at Skelly Field at H.A. Chapman Stadium since 1930. It was renamed from Skelly Stadium following renovations in 2007. The Case Athletic Complex in the north end of the field provides office facilities for the football staff, a new locker room and trainer facility, a letterman's lounge and box seating on the top level, and meeting rooms, a computer lab, and study spaces for student-athletes. Renovations provide seating throughout the stadium, new turf, an updated score board and Jumbotron, and an expanded press box. The changes also include the addition of an extensive plaza area (Thomas Plaza) on the west side of the stadium to accommodate restrooms, food and drink stands, and souvenir shops. Donald W. Reynolds Center Home to women's volleyball along with the men's and women's basketball programs, the Donald W. Reynolds Center houses office and meeting space, practice and weights facilities, and the main basketball arena. Commencement exercises are held in the Reynolds Center in May. Sharp Chapel Named for its principal donors, Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Sharp, Sharp Chapel was completed on November 27, 1959. It replaced the university's original chapel that was located in Kendall Hall before its destruction and replacement by the current Kendall Hall theater building. Sharp Chapel houses the Offices of University Chaplain and serves the religious needs of multiple denominations present on campus as well as hosting many awards ceremonies and weddings. Additions to Sharp Chapel were completed in the spring of 2004, including the Westminster Room, an atrium, kitchen, and a second floor including administrative offices and a conference room. On-campus student residences On-campus housing consists of six residence halls, six sorority houses, and six university-owned apartment complexes, including eight apartments designed like townhouses. Residence halls: John Mabee Hall – all-male residence hall located at the Northwest end of Dietler Commons. It is known on campus as "The John". Lottie Jane Mabee Hall – all-female residence hall located at the Southwest end of Deitler Commons. It is known on campus as "Lottie." LaFortune Hall – coed residence hall close to the athletics areas. It is home to the university's International Living Community. It is named for the family of three Tulsa mayors. William F. Fisher Hall – coed freshman residence hall immediately adjacent to the facility formerly known as Twin Towers, first opened to students in the fall of 1984. It was known as Twin South from 1984 to 2009. It is now known on campus as "South" or "Fisher South." Fisher West Suites – coed residence hall immediately adjacent to the Dining Hall and part of the building formerly known as Twin Towers. It is known on campus as "West" or "Fisher West." Hardesty Hall – coed residence hall suites close to Allen Chapman Student Union. Apartment complexes include Brown Village, Lorton Village (includes townhouses), Mayo Village, Norman Village, University Square South, and University Square West. Museums and libraries McFarlin Library: Resources and Notable Collections At the top of Deitler Commons sits one of the campus' most notable landmarks, the McFarlin Library, named after Robert and Ida McFarlin, the library's primary benefactors. The McFarlins had only one stipulation with their gift: that the view of Downtown Tulsa from McFarlin could never be blocked. Groundbreaking ceremonies took place on May 3, 1929, and the edifice was dedicated on June 1, 1930. The library continued to grow over the years, adding a five-story addition in 1967, an underground stacks area in by 1979, and technology wing in 2007. The library contains over two million items. Currently, the library's Department of Special Collections and University Archives houses over twelve million archival items and has over a thousand collections on a wide-ranging array of topics including 20th-century British, Irish, and American literature, which includes the world's second largest collection of materials by James Joyce. It also houses the papers of Nobel Prize winners V.S. Naipaul and Doris Lessing, as well as novelists and poets Jean Rhys, Eliot Bliss, David Plante, Anna Kavan, and Stevie Smith, just to name a few. In addition to these famous novelists, McFarlin Library's houses the papers of Congresswoman Alice Mary Robertson, literary critic Richard Ellmann, comic book innovator E. Nelson Bridwell, Cherokee Principal Chief J.B. Milam, and writer/sexologist Edward Charles, among others. The Department of Special Collections also contains a vast collection of books on Native American history. Partnership with the Gilcrease Museum In July 2008, the University of Tulsa took over management of the Gilcrease Museum in a public-private partnership with the City of Tulsa. The museum has one of the largest collections of American Western art in the world (including famous works by Frederic Remington, Thomas Moran, and others) and houses growing collections in artifacts from Central and South America. The museum sits on in northwest Tulsa, a considerable distance from the main university campus. The Bob Dylan Archive The Bob Dylan Archive is a collection of documents and objects relating to iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (whose mentor was Oklahoman Woody Guthrie). It was announced on March 2, 2016, that the archive had been acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF) and the University of Tulsa. The university has since relinquished ownership to GKFF. It will be under the care of the university's Helmerich Center for American Research. Student body and student life Students at the University of Tulsa represent 46 states and over 60 foreign countries, of which 54% are Oklahoma residents. Among the most common countries of origin for TU international students are China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India, Nigeria, Angola and the United Kingdom. The University of Tulsa is home to more than 150 student organizations, registered with and partially funded by the Student Association. Diversity and campus life A number of groups exist to support diversity on the University of Tulsa campus. There at least 25 campus organizations existing to support and sustain a diverse campus community. In addition, TU hosts the Chevron Multicultural Resource Center, funded by a gift from the energy company, which hosts events and programming to promote diversity on campus. Although TU has historic ties to the Presbyterian Church, the university has long embraced religious diversity. In 2002, TU was home to the first mosque built on an American university campus. TU also hosts a chapter of Hillel International, an organization to support Jewish life on campus. The university also hosts a number of organizations reflecting different streams of Christian spiritual practice, including Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Student Association The Student Association is the University of Tulsa student government body. It is organized into three branches: the Executive Branch, which includes Cabinet and is in charge of organizing large campus-wide events and activities; the Judicial Branch; and the Legislative Branch, or Student Senate, which coordinates funding, supports student organization charters, and addresses general issues impacting student life on campus. Its budget is provided partially by the university and partially by a fee paid by students each semester. Traditionally, the Student Association coordinates Homecoming activities, including cross campus competitions and the homecoming game tailgate. Another traditional event is Springfest, a week-long series of events including food, various on-campus activities, and a concert bringing in such names as Imagine Dragons, Panic! At the Disco, and Ben Rector. In addition to traditional campus events, Student Association provides smaller campus programs including community service activities, social awareness events, and diversity programming. Activities organized by Student Association are free to all TU students. College traditions Kendall Bell: The Kendall Bell, now housed in Bayless Plaza, is traditionally rung by graduating seniors upon completion of their last final exam at the university. The bell was broken by a group of students in May 2008. They were trying to steal it, and dropped it in their escape. Homecoming Bonfire: Traditionally held the Friday evening prior to the Homecoming football game. The Homecoming court is honored along with the Jess Chouteau Top Ten Seniors. Alma Mater: "Hail to Tulsa U" is sung by alumni and current students prior to major sporting events and at the end of all commencement ceremonies. Alumni and students remain standing as a sign of respect. The melody is played by the Sharp Chapel carillon daily at 5 pm. Greek life There are six IFC fraternities and six NPC sororities on campus. The living quarters in the back of the sorority houses are university-owned residence halls, but, traditionally, only current members of the sororities live there. Other fraternities on campus that do not fall under the various councils include: Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota music sorority Delta Theta Phi co-ed law fraternity Phi Alpha Delta co-ed law fraternity Phi Delta Phi co-ed law fraternity Sigma Phi Lambda Christian sorority Beta Upsilon Chi Christian fraternity 2015 student speech controversy In February 2015, after the University of Tulsa suspended a student under its zero tolerance policy for harassment for allegedly threatening and defamatory Facebook postings by his fiancée against other faculty and a female student, administrators attempted to discourage the campus newspaper from publishing confidential information because of the non-disclosure agreement the suspended student and university had entered into. The controversy was picked up by several online sites which criticized the administration for using "threats" and "intimidation" to "cover up" their handling of the disciplinary issue. In January 2016, the former student filed a lawsuit against the university, claiming his dismissal was unfair and was |
group Pro-Choice Libertarians, consider denying a woman the right to choose abortion to be an act of aggression from the government against her. The party has nominated both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice candidates and does not take a strong stance on the issue in general. Crime and capital punishment Shortly before the 2000 elections, the party released a "Libertarian Party Program on Crime" in which they criticize the failures of a recently proposed Omnibus Crime Bill, especially detailing how it expands the list of capital crimes. Denouncing Federal executions, they also describe how the party would increase and safeguard the rights of the accused in legal settings as well as limit the use of excessive force by police. Instead, criminal laws would be reduced to violations of the rights of others through either force or fraud with maximum restitution given to victims of the criminals or negligent persons. In 2016, the party expanded their platform to officially support the repeal of capital punishment. Freedom of speech and censorship The Libertarian Party supports unrestricted freedom of speech and is opposed to any kind of censorship. The party describes the issue in its website: "We defend the rights of individuals to unrestricted freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right of individuals to dissent from government itself. [...] We oppose any abridgment of the freedom of speech through government censorship, regulation or control of communications media". The party claims it is the only political party in the United States "with an explicit stand against censorship of computer communications in its platform". Government reform The Libertarian Party favors election systems that are more representative of the electorate at the federal, state and local levels. The party platform calls for an end to any tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws which restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns. As a minor party, it opposes laws that effectively exclude alternative candidates and parties, deny ballot access, gerrymander districts, or deny the voters their right to consider all legitimate alternatives. Libertarians also promote the use of direct democracy through the referendum and recall processes. LGBT issues The Libertarian Party advocates repealing all laws that control or prohibit homosexuality. According to the Libertarian Party's platform: "Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government's treatment of individuals, such as in marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws". Gay activist Richard Sincere has pointed to the longstanding support of gay rights by the party, which has supported same-sex marriage since its first platform was drafted in 1972 (40 years before the Democratic Party adopted same-sex marriage into their platform in 2012). Many LGBT political candidates have run for office on the Libertarian Party ticket and there have been numerous LGBT caucuses in the party, with the most active in recent years being the Outright Libertarians. With regard to non-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people, the party is more divided, with some Libertarians supporting such laws, and others opposing them on the grounds that they violate freedom of association. In 2009, the Libertarian Party of Washington encouraged voters to approve Washington Referendum 71 that extended LGBT relationship rights. According to the party, withholding domestic partnership rights from same-sex couples is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. In September 2010, in the light of the failure to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (which banned openly gay people from serving in the military) during the Obama administration, the Libertarian Party urged gay voters to stop supporting the Democratic Party and vote Libertarian instead. The policy was repealed at the end of 2010. Pornography and prostitution The Libertarian Party views attempts by government to control obscenity or pornography as "an abridgment of liberty of expression" and opposes any government intervention to regulate it. According to former Libertarian National Committee chairman Mark Hinkle, "Federal anti-obscenity laws are unconstitutional in two ways. First, because the Constitution does not grant Congress any power to regulate or criminalize obscenity, and second, because the First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech". This also means that the party supports the legalization of prostitution. Many men and women with backgrounds in prostitution and activists for sex workers' rights, such as Norma Jean Almodovar and Starchild, have run for office on the Libertarian Party ticket or are active members of the party. Norma Jean Almodovar, a former officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and former call girl who authored the book From Cop to Call Girl about her experiences, ran on the Libertarian Party ticket for California lieutenant governor in 1986 and was actively supported by the party. Mark Hinkle described her as being the most able "of any Libertarian" "to generate publicity". The Massachusetts Libertarian Party was one of the few organizations to support a 1980s campaign to repeal prostitution laws. Second and Fourth Amendment rights The Libertarian Party affirms an individual's right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms and opposes the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense. The party opposes laws at any level of government requiring registration of or restricting the ownership, manufacture, or transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition. The Libertarian Party has also shown support in the past for the abolition of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and support for Constitutional carry. The party also affirms an individual's right to privacy through reforms that would give back rights of the Fourth Amendment of the United States of America's Bill of Rights to the citizens. Often this coincides with a citizen's right against covert surveillance by the government of their privacy. Foreign policy issues Libertarians generally prefer an attitude of mutual respect between all nations. Libertarians believe that free trade engenders positive international relationships. Libertarian candidates have promised to cut foreign aid and withdraw American troops from the Middle East and other areas throughout the world. The Libertarian Party opposed the 2011 military intervention in Libya and LP Chair Mark Hinkle in a statement described the position of the Libertarian Party: "President Obama's decision to order military attacks on Libya is only surprising to those who actually think he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. He has now ordered bombing strikes in six different countries, adding Libya to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen." Political status of Puerto Rico While the Libertarian Party has not taken an official stance on the political status of Puerto Rico, it did publish an article in which Bruce Majors – the party's 2012 candidate for the District of Columbia's at-large congressional district delegate election – expressed support to "put a referendum on the ballot" and "let residents decide whether they would like to be a state" and thereby give residents of Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico greater control over their level of taxation. Internal debates "Radicalism" vs. "pragmatism" debate A longstanding debate within the party is one referred to by libertarians as the anarchist–minarchist debate. In 1974, anarchists and minarchists within the party agreed to officially take no position on whether or not government should exist at all and to not advocate either particular view. This agreement has become known as the Dallas Accord, having taken place at the party's convention that year in Dallas, Texas. Libertarian members often cite the departure of Ed Crane (of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank) as a key turning point in the early party history. Crane (who in the 1970s had been the party's first Executive Director) and some of his allies resigned from the party in 1983 when their preferred candidates for national committee seats lost in the elections at the national convention. Others like Mary Ruwart say that despite this apparent victory of those favoring radicalism, the party has for decades been slowly moving away from those ideals. In the mid-2000s, groups such as the Libertarian Party Reform Caucus generally advocated revising the party's platform, eliminating or altering the membership statement and focusing on a politics-oriented approach aimed at presenting libertarianism to voters in what they deemed a "less threatening" manner. LPRadicals emerged in response and was active at the 2008 and 2010 Libertarian National Conventions. In its most recent incarnation, the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus was founded with the stated goal to "support the re-radicalization of the LP." At the 2016 Libertarian National Convention, the Radical Caucus endorsed Darryl W. Perry for President and Will Coley for Vice President, who respectively won 7% and 10% of the vote on the first ballot, both taking fourth place. Though not explicitly organized as such, most self-identified pragmatists or moderates supported the nomination of Gary Johnson for president and Bill Weld for vice president. Johnson and Weld were both nominated on the second ballot with a narrow majority after having both placed just shy of the required 50% on the first ballots. After the convention, the Libertarian Pragmatist Caucus ("LPC") was founded and organized with the goal "[t]o promote realistic, pragmatic, and practical libertarian candidates and solutions." LPC supported Nicholas Sarwark in his successful bid for re-election as Chair of the party's national committee at the 2018 convention in New Orleans. Platform revision In 1999, a working group of leading Libertarian Party activists proposed to reformat and retire the platform to serve as a guide for legislative projects (its main purpose to that point) and create a series of custom platforms on issues for different purposes, including the needs of the growing number of Libertarians in office. The proposal was incorporated in a new party-wide strategic plan and a joint platform-program committee proposed a reformatted project platform that isolated talking points on issues, principles and solutions as well as an array of projects for adaptation. This platform, along with a short Summary for talking points, was approved in 2004. Confusion arose when prior to the 2006 convention there was a push to repeal or substantially rewrite the Platform, at the center of which were groups such as the Libertarian Reform Caucus. Their agenda was partially successful in that the platform was much shortened (going from 61 to 15 planks – 11 new planks and 4 retained from the old platform) over the previous one. Members differ as to the reasons why the changes were relatively more drastic than any platform actions at previous conventions. Some delegates voted for changes so the party could appeal to a wider audience, while others simply thought the entire document needed an overhaul. It was also pointed out that the text of the existing platform was not provided to the delegates, making many reluctant to vote to retain the planks when the existing language was not provided for review. Not all party members approved of the changes, some believing them to be a setback to libertarianism and an abandonment of what they see as the most important purpose of the Libertarian Party. At the 2008 Libertarian National Convention, the changes went even further with the approval of an entirely revamped platform. Much of the new platform recycles language from pre-millennial platforms. While the planks were renamed, most address ideas found in earlier platforms and run no longer than three to four sentences. State and territorial parties Libertarian Party of Alabama Libertarian Party of Alaska Libertarian Party of Arizona Libertarian Party of Arkansas Libertarian Party of California Libertarian Party of Colorado Libertarian Party of Connecticut Libertarian Party of Delaware Libertarian Party of Florida Libertarian Party of Georgia Libertarian Party of Hawaii Libertarian Party of Idaho Libertarian Party of Illinois Libertarian Party of Indiana Libertarian Party of Iowa Libertarian Party of Kansas Libertarian Party of Kentucky Libertarian Party of Louisiana Libertarian Party of Maine Libertarian Party of Maryland Libertarian Party of Massachusetts Libertarian Party of Michigan Libertarian Party of Minnesota Libertarian Party of Mississippi Libertarian Party of Missouri Montana Libertarian Party Libertarian Party of Nebraska Libertarian Party of Nevada Libertarian Party of New Hampshire Libertarian Party of New Jersey Libertarian Party of New Mexico Libertarian Party of New York Libertarian Party of North Carolina Libertarian Party of North Dakota Libertarian Party of Ohio Libertarian Party of Oklahoma Libertarian Party of Oregon Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania Libertarian Party of Rhode Island Libertarian Party of South Carolina Libertarian Party of South Dakota Libertarian Party of Tennessee Libertarian Party of Texas Libertarian Party of Utah Libertarian Party of Vermont Libertarian Party of Virginia Libertarian Party of Washington Libertarian Party of West Virginia Libertarian Party of Wisconsin Libertarian Party of Wyoming Libertarian Party of the District of Columbia See also Factions in the Libertarian Party (United States) Libertarianism in the United States Libertarian National Committee Libertarian National Convention List of libertarian organizations List of libertarian political parties List of libertarians in the United States List of political parties in the United States List of state parties of the Libertarian Party (United States) Political party strength in U.S. states Third parties in the United States Notes References Further reading External links LPedia - Libertarian Party Wiki Libertarian Party Platform | made news when she switched parties to become a registered Libertarian, expressing her dislike of Trump. Several Republican elected officials publicly stated that were considering voting for the Libertarian Party ticket in 2016. That included 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. It had been a common question and concern that the Libertarian ticket will exclusively draw away votes from Donald Trump and not the Democratic ticket. In response, Libertarian 2016 nominee Gary Johnson noted that analysis of national polls shows more votes drawn from Hillary Clinton. Johnson would go on to receive 3.3% of the nationwide popular vote, with his best performance (9.3%) coming in New Mexico, where he previously served as a two-term governor. After the conclusion of the Electoral College in 2016, the Libertarian Party received one electoral college vote from a faithless elector in Texas. However, the party's 2016 nominee Gary Johnson did not receive the vote. The single faithless vote went instead to former Republican Congressman Ron Paul, who had rejoined the Libertarian Party in 2015. He is the first Libertarian to receive an electoral vote since 1972. Politicians leaving their parties for the Libertarian Party After presidential candidate Donald Trump won Indiana's 2016 Republican primary, several Republican officeholders left the Party and changed their affiliation to the Libertarian Party. The first to do so was John Moore, a then-sitting Assemblyman in Nevada. Following the 2016 Nebraska State Legislative Session, state Senator Laura Ebke announced her displeasure with the Republican Party and announced she was registering as a Libertarian. After that, Mark B. Madsen, a Utah State Senator, switched from the Republican Party to the Libertarian Party. From February to June 2017, three New Hampshire State Representatives (Caleb Q. Dyer, Joseph Stallcop and Brandon Phinney) left the Republican and Democratic Parties and joined the Libertarian Party. In January 2018, New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Aubrey Dunn Jr. switched his party registration from Republican to Libertarian and subsequently announced he would run as the Libertarian nominee for the Senate election in New Mexico. Dunn was the first Libertarian in a partisan statewide office and was the highest ever official from the Libertarian Party until US Representative Justin Amash switched his party registration from independent to Libertarian on April 29, 2020. In December 2020, Maine House of Representatives member John Andrews changed his party registration to Libertarian after winning re-election as a Republican. There have also been a number of politicians who joined the Libertarian Party, sometimes only briefly, after having left office, including former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, former Alaska United States Senator Mike Gravel, former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, and former Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Presidential ballot access The Libertarian Party has placed a presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states, as well as D. C., six times: 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2016, and 2020. That level of ballot access has only been achieved by a third-party candidate four other times (John Anderson in 1980, Lenora Fulani in 1988, and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.) Although the territory of Guam has no electoral votes, it began holding presidential preference elections in 1980. The Libertarian Party presidential candidate has appeared on the ballot in Guam in every election from 1980 through 2020, except for 2016. Anderson and Fulani were also on the ballot in Guam. The following is a table comparison of ballot status for the Libertarian Party presidential nominee from 1972 to 2020. In some instances the candidate appeared on the ballot as an independent. Political positions The Libertarian Party supports laissez-faire capitalism and the abolition of the modern welfare state. It adopts pro-civil liberties and pro-cultural liberal approaches to cultural and social issues. Paul H. Rubin, professor of law and economics at Emory University, believes that while liberal Democrats generally seek to control economic activities and conservative Republicans generally seek to control consumption activities such as sexual behavior, abortion and so on, the Libertarian Party is the largest political party in the United States that advocates few or no regulations in what he deems "social" and "economic" issues. Economic issues The "poverty and welfare" issues page of the Libertarian Party's website says that it opposes regulation of capitalist economic institutions and advocates dismantling the entirety of the welfare state: We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.According to the party platform: "The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected" (adopted May 2008). The Libertarian Party believes government regulations in the form of minimum wage laws drive up the cost of employing additional workers. That is why Libertarians favor loosening minimum wage laws so that overall unemployment rate can be reduced and low-wage workers, unskilled workers, visa immigrants and those with limited education or job experience can find employment. Education The party supports ending the public school system. The party's official platform states that education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality, accountability and efficiency with more diversity of school choice. Seeing the education of children as a parental responsibility, the party would give authority to parents to determine the education of their children at their expense without interference from government. This includes ending corporal punishment within public schools. Libertarians have expressed that parents should have control of and responsibility for all funds expended for their children's education. Environment The Libertarian Party supports a clean and healthy environment and sensible use of natural resources, believing that private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining such natural resources. The party has also expressed that "governments, unlike private businesses, are unaccountable for such damage done to the environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection". The party contends that the environment is best protected when individual rights pertaining to natural resources are clearly defined and enforced. The party also contends that free markets and property rights (implicitly without government intervention) will stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect the environment and ecosystem because environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior. Fiscal policies The Libertarian Party opposes all government intervention and regulation on wages, prices, rents, profits, production and interest rates and advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. The party's recent platform calls for the repeal of the income tax, the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services, such as the Federal Reserve System. The party supports the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution which they believe will significantly lower the national debt, provided that the budget is balanced preferably by cutting expenditures and not by raising taxes. Libertarians favor free-market banking, with unrestricted competition among banks and depository institutions of all types. The party also wants a halt to inflationary monetary policies and legal tender laws. While the party defends the right of individuals to form corporations, cooperatives and other types of companies, it opposes government subsidies to business, labor, or any other special interest. Healthcare The Libertarian Party favors a free market health care system without government oversight, approval, regulation, or licensing. The party states that it "recognizes the freedom of individuals to determine the level of health insurance they want, the level of health care they want, the care providers they want, the medicines and treatments they will use and all other aspects of their medical care, including end-of-life decisions". They support the repeal of all social insurance policies such as Medicare and Medicaid and favor "consumer-driven health care". The Libertarian Party has been advocating for Americans' ability to purchase health insurance across state lines and medicine across international borders. Immigration and trade agreements The Libertarian Party consistently lobbies for the removal of governmental impediments to free trade. This is because their platform states that "political freedom and escape from tyranny demand that individuals not be unreasonably constrained by government in the crossing of political boundaries". To promote economic freedom, they demand the unrestricted movement of humans as well as financial capital across national borders. However, the party encourages blocking immigration of those with violent backgrounds or violent intent. Labor The Libertarian Party supports the repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment while opposing government-fostered/forced retirement and heavy interference in the bargaining process. The party supports the right of free persons to associate or not associate in labor unions and believes that employers should have the right to recognize or refuse to recognize a union. Retirement and Social Security The party believes that retirement planning is the responsibility of the individual, not the government. Libertarians would phase out the government-sponsored Social Security system and transition to a private voluntary system. The Libertarians feel that the proper and most effective source of help for the poor is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals, believing members of society will become more charitable and civil society will be strengthened as government reduces its activity in that realm. Social issues The Libertarian Party supports the legalization of all victimless crimes, including drugs, pornography, prostitution, polygamy, and gambling, has always supported the removal of restrictions on homosexuality, opposes any kind of censorship and supports freedom of speech, and supports the right to keep and bear arms while opposing Federal capital punishment. The Libertarian Party's platform states: "Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships". Abortion The official Libertarian party platform states: "Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration". Libertarians have very different opinions on the issue, just like in the general public. Some, like the group Libertarians for Life, consider abortion to be an act of aggression against a baby, therefore necessitating government intervention to prevent it. Others, like the group Pro-Choice Libertarians, consider denying a woman the right to choose abortion to be an act of aggression from the government against her. The party has nominated both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice candidates and does not take a strong stance on the issue in general. Crime and capital punishment Shortly before the 2000 elections, the party released a "Libertarian Party Program on Crime" in which they criticize the failures of a recently proposed Omnibus Crime Bill, especially detailing how it expands the list of capital crimes. Denouncing Federal executions, they also describe how the party would increase and safeguard the rights of the accused in legal settings as well as limit the use of excessive force by police. Instead, criminal laws would be reduced to violations of the rights of others through either force or fraud with maximum restitution given to victims of the criminals or negligent persons. In 2016, the party expanded their platform to officially support the repeal of capital punishment. Freedom of speech and censorship The Libertarian Party supports unrestricted freedom of speech and is opposed to any kind of censorship. The party describes the issue in its website: "We defend the rights of individuals to unrestricted freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right of individuals to dissent from government itself. [...] We oppose any abridgment of the freedom of speech through government censorship, regulation or control of communications media". The party claims it is the only political party in the United States "with an explicit stand against censorship of computer communications in its platform". Government reform The Libertarian Party favors election systems that are more representative of the electorate at the federal, state and local levels. The party platform calls for an end to any tax-financed subsidies to candidates or parties and the repeal of all laws which restrict voluntary financing of election campaigns. As a minor party, it opposes laws that effectively exclude alternative candidates and parties, deny ballot access, gerrymander districts, or deny the voters their right to consider all legitimate alternatives. Libertarians also promote the use of direct democracy through the referendum and recall processes. LGBT issues The Libertarian Party advocates repealing all laws that control or prohibit homosexuality. According to the Libertarian Party's platform: "Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government's treatment of individuals, such as in marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws". Gay activist Richard Sincere has pointed to the longstanding support of gay rights by the party, which has supported same-sex marriage since its first platform was drafted in 1972 (40 years before the Democratic Party adopted same-sex marriage into their platform in 2012). Many LGBT political candidates have run for office on the Libertarian Party ticket and there have been numerous LGBT caucuses in the party, with the most active in recent years being the Outright Libertarians. With regard to non-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people, the party is more divided, with some Libertarians |
Bulletin to The Journal for Ethnic and Migration studies, journal of Experimental Psychopathology, The World Trade Review, Journal of Banking and Finance, International Journal of Innovation Management, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, European Journal of International Relations and the Child and Family Social Work Journal, among many others. Admissions New students entering the university in 2013 had an average of 385 points (the equivalent of AAB - AAA at A Level). According to the 2019 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 19.2% of Sussex's undergraduates come from independent schools. Educational partners Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) results from a partnership between the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex. The school, the first medical school in the South East outside London, gained its licence in 2002 and opened in 2003. The Guardian ranked the medical school as 16th in the UK in 2018. The Institute of Development Studies offers research, teaching and communications related to international development. IDS originated in 1966 as a research institute based at the university. It is financially and constitutionally independent under the status of a charitable company limited by guarantee. The Centre for Research in Innovation Management, a research-based school of the University of Brighton, dates from 1990. It was located in the Freeman Centre building but has now moved to the University of Brighton campus. The Sussex Innovation Centre, an on-campus commercial business centre, opened in 1996. It provides services for the formation and growth of technology- and knowledge-based companies in the South East. It offers a business environment to over 40 companies in the IT, biotech, media and engineering sectors. Nationally, the university has a number of partner institutions across the UK including Bellerbys College, British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM), University Centre Croydon (UCC, also known as Croydon College), Highbury College Portsmouth, International Study Centre (Study Group), Roffey Park Institute, University of Brighton and West Dean College. These partnerships include both validated courses (designed and delivered by the partner institution but awarded and quality assured by the university) and franchised courses (designed and assessed by the university, but delivered by another institution). Study Group works in partnership with the university to provide the University of Sussex International Study Centre (ISC). It offers a course of academic subjects, study skills and English-language training for students who wish to study a degree at the university but who do not yet possess the necessary qualifications to start a degree. The ISC course provides students with English-language and academic skills to start at Sussex the following year. In 2018, ISC announced that they will increase their postgraduate and undergraduate offerings by adding 50 new courses across the pre-masters and pathway options on offer. The British and Irish Modern Music Institute offers BA courses in Modern Musicianship – validated by the university – at its centres in London, Berlin, Hamburg, Brighton, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Internationally, the university has over 160 partner institutions including the University of British Columbia, University of California, George Washington University, Georgetown University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Asheville, University of Pittsburgh, Purdue University, University of Rochester, State University of New York, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, Kyoto University, Peking University, Korea University, National Taiwan University (NTU), Université Grenoble Alpes, Aix-Marseille Université, Paris-Sorbonne University, Sciences Po Aix, Sciences Po Paris, University of Strasbourg, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. These are institutions where there are formal agreements for student exchange, research collaborations, staff and faculty mobility and study abroad schemes. Student life The Sussex Student Union is the main body responsible for the representation of Sussex students. It runs a number of restaurants, bars, schemes (such as the buddy scheme) and projects (such as the role model project). The Student Union runs Falmer Bar, which once hosted bands such as The Who and Northfield Bar. There are 261 student clubs and societies at Sussex, all functioning under the Student Union. Students are also supported through the university, for example through the Student Life Centre which covers problems ranging from financial difficulties to psychological ones. Like many campus universities, many of the students studying at Sussex live in the city. Students are highly involved in Brighton's life, from its cultural scene to community service. In 2016, Sussex won the AGCAS award for Student engagement. In 2017, Sussex was ranked as top in the UK for political scene (tied with Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, Goldsmith and LSE). Student research Sussex runs a Junior Researcher scheme in which undergraduate students can receive funding and spend 8 weeks during their summer vacation doing research alongside Sussex researchers and academics. Additionally, a number of independent bursaries for undergraduates to conduct research projects exist within Schools and research centres. In parallel, a competitive International Junior researcher scheme exists to allow students from Sussex's institutional partners, such as Georgetown University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of California, Santa Cruz to receive funding and come to Sussex to work on research projects alongside researchers and academics. Additionally, a number of research groups and networks incorporate advanced undergraduate students into their projects offering them the opportunity to both shadow and actively participate in ongoing research at the university. At postgraduate level, Sussex offers MA, MS, MRes, PGCert, PGDip, CLNDIP and LLM degrees. All master's degrees are research based and master's students are incorporated with PhD students in the different research centres, clusters and networks across the university and many master's degrees are based in research centres instead of being based in University departments. Further, student research mobility schemes are in place to allow students to conduct research at other institutions across the world. The university has a number of research-oriented funding schemes (scholarships and fellowships) for master's students, including a Sussex Graduate Scholarship for current undergraduate students at the university. There are also country scholarships for postgraduate students applying from India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia and Vietnam. International students and opportunities In 2016–2017, there were 17,319 students at Sussex, with under 12,000 undergraduates and over 5,000 postgraduates. In total, there are around 5,000 students from outside the EU, the majority of whom are postgraduates. It also has many students from mainland Europe. One in five of its undergraduates study abroad at some point of their education: the majority of its undergraduate courses offer a study abroad year and/or placement. Sussex students may also spend a year abroad as part of their degree, in a variety of European institutions through the Erasmus+ programme, as well as North America, Asia, Central and South America, Australia and North Africa. The university runs the First-Generation Scholars scheme, an award-winning initiative, to support students from lower-economic backgrounds as well as students who are the first to pursue higher education in their families. In 2017, Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn met some First-Generation Scholar students during his visit to the university. In the OFFA last ranking (2016) Sussex ranked as second in the South east (after Oxford) and sixth in the UK in expenditure on widening participation. Support at Sussex includes a work-study programme to help students earn money, funded work placements and three years’ aftercare for graduates to help them find a suitable career. The Sussex Plus programme documents and credits students' extracurricular skills. English Language courses for speakers of other languages are provided by the Language Institute. "English in the Vacation" gives intensive practice in spoken and written English. An International Foundation Year offered by the ISC (Sussex University International Study Centre) offers direct routes to Sussex degrees. The Sussex International Summer School runs for four and eight weeks starting in July, providing intensive courses. It is predominantly attended by foreign students. The ISS trips office provides excursions to prominent cities, theatres, and activities. Sussex is also home to the Fulbright Sussex Summer institute, a four-week academic program on British culture designed for American Students. The International Study Centre, run by Study Group International at Sussex offers international Foundation courses, pre-masters and an International Year 1 scheme to prepare students for their degrees. The centre also offers a "Pre-masters" degree for international students. The Sussex Student Union also runs a series of events in support of international students at Sussex. The union has a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy in all its shops, bars and cafes. Housing Overall, there are nine on-campus university managed accommodations, one off-campus university managed block of flats, one off-campus university managed study lodge and a number of university houses within Brighton and Hove. In 2016, there were over 5000 students living in university accommodation, including all first year students (who are guaranteed accommodation). Accommodation on campus was expanded in the 1970s with the construction of the unusual split-level flats of East Slope, a development that included social building with a porter's office and bar. From 2017, that development was demolished, being gradually replaced by new housing facilities due for final completion in 2021. When complete, it will include over 2,100 new housing units as well as a new social space. The total build has a budget of £150 Million. In the 1990s, as student numbers rose, further developments were constructed in the corner of campus between East Slope and Park Village. Brighthelm and Lewes Court were constructed in public-private partnership funding arrangements with the Bradford & Northern and Kelsey Housing Associations. Two newer accommodation areas were completed in the | Sciences in the U.S. News & World Report. The QS World University Rankings by Subject for 2016, 2017 and 2018 placed the University 1st in the world for Development Studies. Further, it ranked in the world's top 100 for Anthropology, Sociology, Politics and International Studies, History, Geography, English Language and Literature and Communication and Media Studies in the QS 2018 rankings. Other top 150 subject rankings in the world include Education, Economics and Psychology. Research In 2017, Sussex's research income was around £65 million. This primarily came from funding body grants and research grants and contracts. In addition to being home to Institute of Development Studies, Sussex has over 40 university research centres, over 15 strategic research centres and many smaller research clusters. IDS is ranked as 1st in the UK, 2nd International Development Think Tank and 4th university affiliated Think Tank in the world (out of 8,000 think tanks ranked) by the University of Pennsylvania Global Go To Think Tank Index Report 2017. Sussex research centres include SPRU, the Science Policy Research Unit, which is ranked as 3rd best Science and technology Think Tank in the World (out of 8,000 think tanks ranked by the University of Pennsylvania Global Go To Think Tank Index Report 2017) Other notable centres include the STEPS Centre, the Centre for American Studies and the Sussex European Institute. The university is one of the UK ESRC's 21 Centres for Doctoral Training, the only institutions accredited in 2010 and capable of receiving ESRC doctoral studentships and funding. The system was updated in 2016 and Doctoral Training Partnerships were established to replace the DTC. In this respect, Sussex is now a member of the Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts-South East England (CHASE) and the South East Network for Social Sciences. The results of the Research Excellence Framework 2014 show that 98% of research activity at Sussex is categorised as ‘world-leading’ (28%), ‘internationally excellent’ (48%) or ‘internationally recognised’ (22%) in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Sussex has a number of research collaborations with other Higher Education institutions as well as governmental and non-governmental organisations and institutes around the world. For example, the Harvard Sussex program is a long-standing research collaboration between Sussex and Harvard University focusing on public policy towards chemical and biological weapons. The CBW Conventions Bulletin is a quarterly newsletter published by the HSP. Sussex-Cornell Partnership, the Sussex-Bocconi-Renmin Intrapreneurship Hub and the Sussex-Lund Partnership in Middle Eastern and North African Studies are recent examples. Sussex also co-coordinates the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts. Sussex is also one of the eight universities of the Tyndall Centre network. In Europe, Sussex is one of the collaborating institutions of the Paul Scherrer Institute, the largest research institute in Switzerland, focusing on issues of technology and the natural sciences. Sussex is involved with many projects with the EU and with European countries. For example, BAR research is an Anglo-French collaboration between the Sussex, the East Sussex County Council and three French universities. Nationally, Sussex is involved in a number of partnerships including the Nexus Network (A partnership between Sussex, University of Cambridge and the University of East Anglia) and CIED (a collaboration between Sussex, Oxford University and University of Manchester). The university is also a partner of the Metropolitan Police, with Demos (UK think tank) and Palantir Technologies. In recent years, the institutes for the study of consciousness science, Centre for Advanced International Theory (CAIT), the institute for the study of corruption and the Middle East studies institute were opened at the university. The university also has a Genome Damage and Stability Centre, a nuclear magnetic resonance facility and a purpose-built apparatus in cryogenic research. In terms of policy, Sussex is highly involved with the UK government, the UN and governments around the world. For example, the university is a UN Habitat partner. Nationally, the UK Trade Policy Observatory was set up at the university to offer the UK government, the UK industry as well as the public advice in addressing trade issues resulting from Brexit. The university is also one of the UK government's partner institutions on the Arctic Research Program. Similarly, SPRU and IDS are involved in policy recommendations with countries on all five continents. In 2016, the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC) was set up as a collaboration between the university and the governments of Sweden, Norway, Finland, South Africa and Colombia to research social and economic issues. The university is also home to a number of academic journals from the IDS Bulletin to The Journal for Ethnic and Migration studies, journal of Experimental Psychopathology, The World Trade Review, Journal of Banking and Finance, International Journal of Innovation Management, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, European Journal of International Relations and the Child and Family Social Work Journal, among many others. Admissions New students entering the university in 2013 had an average of 385 points (the equivalent of AAB - AAA at A Level). According to the 2019 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 19.2% of Sussex's undergraduates come from independent schools. Educational partners Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) results from a partnership between the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex. The school, the first medical school in the South East outside London, gained its licence in 2002 and opened in 2003. The Guardian ranked the medical school as 16th in the UK in 2018. The Institute of Development Studies offers research, teaching and communications related to international development. IDS originated in 1966 as a research institute based at the university. It is financially and constitutionally independent under the status of a charitable company limited by guarantee. The Centre for Research in Innovation Management, a research-based school of the University of Brighton, dates from 1990. It was located in the Freeman Centre building but has now moved to the University of Brighton campus. The Sussex Innovation Centre, an on-campus commercial business centre, opened in 1996. It provides services for the formation and growth of technology- and knowledge-based companies in the South East. It offers a business environment to over 40 companies in the IT, biotech, media and engineering sectors. Nationally, the university has a number of partner institutions across the UK including Bellerbys College, British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM), University Centre Croydon (UCC, also known as Croydon College), Highbury College Portsmouth, International Study Centre (Study Group), Roffey Park Institute, University of Brighton and West Dean College. These partnerships include both validated courses (designed and delivered by the partner institution but awarded and quality assured by the university) and franchised courses (designed and assessed by the university, but delivered by another institution). Study Group works in partnership with the university to provide the University of Sussex International Study Centre (ISC). It offers a course of academic subjects, study skills and English-language training for students who wish to study a degree at the university but who do not yet possess the necessary qualifications to start a degree. The ISC course provides students with English-language and academic skills to start at Sussex the following year. In 2018, ISC announced that they will increase their postgraduate and undergraduate offerings by adding 50 new courses across the pre-masters and pathway options on offer. The British and Irish Modern Music Institute offers BA courses in Modern Musicianship – validated by the university – at its centres in London, Berlin, Hamburg, Brighton, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Internationally, the university has over 160 partner institutions including the University of British Columbia, University of California, George Washington University, Georgetown University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Asheville, University of Pittsburgh, Purdue University, University of Rochester, State University of New York, University of Texas at Austin, University of Washington, Kyoto University, Peking University, Korea University, National Taiwan University (NTU), Université Grenoble Alpes, Aix-Marseille Université, Paris-Sorbonne University, Sciences Po Aix, Sciences Po Paris, University of Strasbourg, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. These are institutions where there are formal agreements for student exchange, research collaborations, staff and faculty mobility and study abroad schemes. Student life The Sussex Student Union is the main body responsible for the representation of Sussex students. It runs a number of restaurants, bars, schemes (such as the buddy scheme) and projects (such as the role model project). The Student Union runs Falmer Bar, which once hosted bands such as The Who and Northfield Bar. There are 261 student clubs and societies at Sussex, all functioning under the Student Union. Students are also supported through the university, for example through the Student Life Centre which covers problems ranging from financial difficulties to psychological ones. Like many campus universities, many of the students studying at Sussex live in the city. Students are highly involved in Brighton's life, from its cultural scene to community service. In 2016, Sussex won the AGCAS award for Student engagement. In 2017, Sussex was ranked as top in the UK for political scene (tied with Cambridge, Oxford, Manchester, Goldsmith and LSE). Student research Sussex runs a Junior Researcher scheme in which undergraduate students can receive funding and spend 8 weeks during their summer vacation doing research alongside Sussex researchers and academics. Additionally, a number of independent bursaries for undergraduates to conduct research projects exist within Schools and research centres. In parallel, a competitive International Junior researcher scheme exists to allow students from Sussex's institutional partners, such as Georgetown University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of California, Santa Cruz to receive funding and come to Sussex to work on research projects alongside researchers and academics. Additionally, a number of research groups and networks incorporate advanced undergraduate students into their projects offering them the opportunity to both shadow and actively participate in ongoing research at the university. At postgraduate level, Sussex offers MA, MS, MRes, PGCert, PGDip, CLNDIP and LLM degrees. All master's degrees are research based and master's students are incorporated with PhD students in the different research centres, clusters and networks across the university and many master's degrees are based in research centres instead of being based in University departments. Further, student research mobility schemes are in place to allow students to conduct research at other institutions across the world. The university has a number of research-oriented funding schemes (scholarships and fellowships) for master's students, including a Sussex Graduate Scholarship for current undergraduate students at the university. There are also country scholarships for postgraduate students applying from India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia and Vietnam. International students and opportunities In 2016–2017, there were 17,319 students at Sussex, with under 12,000 undergraduates and over 5,000 postgraduates. In total, there are around 5,000 students from outside the EU, the majority of whom are postgraduates. It also has many students from mainland Europe. One in five of its undergraduates study abroad at some point of their education: the majority of its undergraduate courses offer a study abroad year and/or placement. Sussex students may also spend a year abroad as part of their degree, in a variety of European institutions through the Erasmus+ programme, as well as North America, Asia, Central and South America, Australia and North Africa. The university runs the First-Generation Scholars scheme, an award-winning initiative, to support students from lower-economic backgrounds as well as students who are the first to pursue higher education in their families. In 2017, Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn met some First-Generation Scholar students during his visit to the university. In the OFFA last ranking (2016) Sussex ranked as second in the South east (after Oxford) and sixth in the UK in expenditure on widening participation. Support at Sussex includes a work-study programme to help students earn money, funded work placements and three years’ aftercare for graduates to help them find a suitable career. The Sussex Plus programme documents and credits students' extracurricular skills. English Language courses for speakers of other languages are provided by the Language Institute. "English in the Vacation" gives intensive practice in spoken and written English. An International Foundation Year offered by the ISC (Sussex University International Study Centre) offers direct routes to Sussex degrees. The Sussex International Summer School runs for four and eight weeks starting in July, providing intensive courses. It is predominantly attended by foreign students. The ISS trips office provides excursions to prominent cities, theatres, and activities. Sussex is also home to the Fulbright Sussex Summer institute, a four-week academic program on British culture designed for American Students. The International Study Centre, run by Study Group International at Sussex offers international Foundation courses, pre-masters and an International Year 1 scheme to prepare students for their degrees. The centre also offers a "Pre-masters" degree for international students. The Sussex Student Union also runs a series of events in support of international students at Sussex. The union has a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy in all its shops, bars and cafes. Housing Overall, there are nine on-campus university managed accommodations, one off-campus university managed block of flats, one off-campus university managed study lodge and a number of university houses within Brighton and Hove. In 2016, there were over 5000 students living in university accommodation, including all first year students (who are guaranteed accommodation). Accommodation on campus was expanded in the 1970s with the construction of the unusual split-level flats of East Slope, a development that included social building with a porter's office and bar. From 2017, that development was demolished, being gradually replaced by new housing facilities due for final completion in 2021. When complete, it will include over 2,100 new housing units as well as a new social space. The total build has a budget of £150 Million. In the 1990s, as student numbers rose, further developments were constructed in the corner of campus between East Slope and Park Village. Brighthelm and Lewes Court were constructed in public-private partnership funding arrangements with the Bradford & Northern and Kelsey Housing Associations. Two newer accommodation areas were completed in the 2000s: one next to Falmer railway station, named Stanmer Court, and the other next to East Slope, opposite Bramber House, known as Swanborough. Northfield were constructed at the top end of campus, beyond Lewes Court, which opened in September 2011. In 2017, East Slope was demolished to create up to date accommodation (also called East Slope) which houses more students, in addition to a new student space. The new East Slope has opened in phases and is due to open in completion by January 2021. In 2020, the university announced that they plan to replace Park Village and Park Houses (excluding Norwich House) by new accommodation called West Slope as well as creating new facilities including a new library, cafe, supermarket, additional study spaces, and flexible green space. The first phase is projected to be completed by autumn 2022 and this work is projected to be fully completed by 2025. The new accommodation will provide approximately 1000 additional bedrooms. The university's Sustainability Action Plan released in June 2021 includes plans for increasing the energy efficiency of campus housing and ancillary facilities in an effort to reach net zero by 2035. The plan includes upgrading building energy management systems by August 2022 and assessing if the BREEAM Excellent environmental construction standards are sufficient for new construction by December 2022. Sport The university has two sports centres on its campus: the Sussex Sports Centre and the Falmer Sports Complex. There is also one sports shop within the sports centre and one in the Falmer sports complex. The Falmer sports centre alone has over 40 acres of playing field. The university also has agreements with Freedom Leisure, granting its students access to sports centres across West Sussex. The university competes in the following sports, usually with both men's and women's teams: Team sports: basketball, cricket, football, field hockey, lacrosse, netball, American football, rugby union, ultimate Frisbee, rowing, and volleyball. Racquet sports: tennis, table tennis, badminton, and squash. Individual |
2015 Songs "Up" (Cardi B song), 2021 "Up" (Inna song), 2021 "Up" (James Morrison song), 2011 "Up" (Olly Murs song), 2014 "Up" (The Saturdays song), 2008 "Up!" (LoveRance song), 2011 "Up!" (Samantha Jade song), 2014 "Up!" (Shania Twain song), 2002 "Up", a 2021 song by Dune Rats "Up", a song by Justin Bieber from the 2010 album My World 2.0 "Up!", a song by M83 from the 2008 album Saturdays = Youth "Up", a song by Nav from the 2017 mixtape Nav "Up", a song by Oneohtrix Point Never from the 2011 album Replica "Up", a 2007 song by Rob Crow "Up", a song by Take That from the 2017 album Wonderland Television and film Up (TV channel), formerly known as GMC Up (TV program), on MSNBC Up (TV series), a British documentary series following several people over their lives Other media Up (video game), based on the Disney/Pixar film Up!, a musical comedy also known as Via Galactica Businesses and organizations Political parties National Popular Party (Romania), a Romanian political party, "Uniunea Patrioților" in Romanian Patriotic Union (Colombia), a Colombian political party Labour United, a Polish political party, "Unia Pracy" in Polish Unidad Popular, a Chilean coalition of political parties Unidade Popular, a Brazilian political party United Party (disambiguation), any of several political parties Unity Party (disambiguation), any of several political parties Schools Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Panamerican University, Mexico, "Universidad Panamericana" in Spanish Pedagogical University, Mozambique Umutara Polytechnic, Rwanda University of Patras, Greece | song by Oneohtrix Point Never from the 2011 album Replica "Up", a 2007 song by Rob Crow "Up", a song by Take That from the 2017 album Wonderland Television and film Up (TV channel), formerly known as GMC Up (TV program), on MSNBC Up (TV series), a British documentary series following several people over their lives Other media Up (video game), based on the Disney/Pixar film Up!, a musical comedy also known as Via Galactica Businesses and organizations Political parties National Popular Party (Romania), a Romanian political party, "Uniunea Patrioților" in Romanian Patriotic Union (Colombia), a Colombian political party Labour United, a Polish political party, "Unia Pracy" in Polish Unidad Popular, a Chilean coalition of political parties Unidade Popular, a Brazilian political party United Party (disambiguation), any of several political parties Unity Party (disambiguation), any of several political parties Schools Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Panamerican University, Mexico, "Universidad Panamericana" in Spanish Pedagogical University, Mozambique Umutara Polytechnic, Rwanda University of Patras, Greece University of Pennsylvania, United States University of the Philippines, national university system of the Philippines University of the Philippines Diliman, its flagship university University of Phoenix, United States University of Poitiers, France University of Portland, United States University of Porto, Portugal University of Potsdam, Germany University of Pretoria, South Africa Other businesses and organizations Up (airline), a former low-cost airline Bahamasair, IATA airline code UP Union Pacific Railroad Union Pearson Express, or UP Express, an airport rail link in Toronto, Canada United Press International, a news agency Any of |
have been a growing urban center during the fourth millennium). As other Sumerians, the new settlers of Ur were a non-Semitic people who may have come from the east circa 3300 BC, and spoke a language isolate. The third millennium BC is generally described as the Early Bronze Age of Mesopotamia, which ends approximately after the demise of the Third Dynasty of Ur in the 21st century BC. Third millennium BC (Early Bronze Age) There are various main sources informing scholars about the importance of Ur during the Early Bronze Age. The First Dynasty of Ur seems to have had great wealth and power, as shown by the lavish remains of the Royal Cemetery at Ur. The Sumerian King List provides a tentative political history of ancient Sumer and mentions, among others, several rulers of Ur. Mesannepada is the first king mentioned in the Sumerian King List, and appears to have lived in the 26th century BC. That Ur was an important urban centre already then seems to be indicated by a type of cylinder seal called the City Seals. These seals contain a set of proto-cuneiform signs which appear to be writings or symbols of the name of city-states in ancient Mesopotamia. Many of these seals have been found in Ur, and the name of Ur is prominent on them. A large body of cuneiform documents, mostly from the empire of the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur (also known as the Neo-Sumerian Empire), appears at the very end of the third millennium. This was the most centralized bureaucratic state the world had yet known. Ur came under the control of the Semitic-speaking Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC. This was a period when the Semitic-speaking Akkadians, who had entered Mesopotamia in approximately 3000 BC, gained ascendancy over the Sumerians, and indeed much of the ancient Near East. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire in the mid-22nd century BC, southern Mesopotamia came to be ruled for a few decades by the Gutians, a language isolate-speaking barbarian people originating in the Zagros Mountains to the northeast of Mesopotamia, while the Assyrian branch of the Akkadian speakers reasserted their independence in the north of Mesopotamia. Ur III The third dynasty was established when the king Ur-Nammu came to power, ruling between c. 2047 BC and 2030 BC. During his rule, temples, including the Ziggurat of Ur, were built, and agriculture was improved through irrigation. His code of laws, the Code of Ur-Nammu (a fragment was identified in Istanbul in 1952) is one of the oldest such documents known, preceding the Code of Hammurabi by 300 years. He and his successor Shulgi were both deified during their reigns, and after his death he continued as a hero-figure: one of the surviving works of Sumerian literature describes the death of Ur-Nammu and his journey to the underworld. Ur-Nammu was succeeded by Shulgi, the greatest king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who solidified the hegemony of Ur and reformed the empire into a highly centralized bureaucratic state. Shulgi ruled for a long time (at least 42 years) and deified himself halfway through his rule. The Ur empire continued through the reigns of three more kings with Semitic Akkadian names, Amar-Sin, Shu-Sin, and Ibbi-Sin. It fell around 1940 BC to the Elamites in the 24th regnal year of Ibbi-Sin, an event commemorated by the Lament for Ur. According to one estimate, Ur was the largest city in the world from c. 2030 to 1980 BC. Its population was approximately 65,000 (or 0.1 per cent share of global population then). Later Bronze Age The city of Ur lost its political power after the demise of the Third Dynasty of Ur. Nevertheless, its important position which kept on providing access to the Persian Gulf ensured the ongoing economic importance of the city during the second millennium BC. The splendour of the city, the might of the empire, the greatness of king Shulgi, and undoubtedly the efficient propaganda of the state endured throughout Mesopotamian history. Shulgi was a well known historical figure for at least another two thousand years, while historical narratives of the Mesopotamian societies of Assyria and Babylonia kept names, events, and mythologies in remembrance. The city came to be ruled by the first dynasty (Amorite) of Babylonia which rose to prominence in southern Mesopotamia in the 18th century BC. After the fall of Hammurabi's short lived Babylonian Empire, it later became a part of the native Akkadian ruled Sealand Dynasty for over 270 years, and was reconquered into Babylonia by the successors of the Amorites, the Kassites in the 16th century BC. During the Kassite Dynastic period Ur, along with the rest of Babylonia, came under sporadic control of the Elamites and the Middle Assyrian Empire, the latter of which straddled the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age periods between the early 14th century BC and mid 11th century BC. Iron Age The city, along with the rest of southern Mesopotamia and much of the Near East, Asia Minor, North Africa and southern Caucasus, fell to the north Mesopotamian Neo-Assyrian Empire from the 10th to late 7th centuries BC. From the end of the 7th century BC Ur was ruled by the so-called Chaldean Dynasty of Babylon. In the 6th century BC there was new construction in Ur under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The last Babylonian king, Nabonidus (who was Assyrian-born and not a Chaldean), improved the ziggurat. However, the city started to decline from around 530 BC after Babylonia fell to the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and was no longer inhabited by the early 5th century BC. The demise of Ur was perhaps owing to drought, changing river patterns, and the silting of the outlet to the Persian Gulf. Identification with the Biblical Ur Ur is possibly the city of Ur Kasdim mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the birthplace of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic), traditionally believed to have lived some time in the 2nd millennium BC. There are however conflicting traditions and scholarly opinions identifying Ur Kasdim with the sites of Şanlıurfa, Urkesh, Urartu or Kutha. The biblical Ur is mentioned four times in the Torah or Old Testament, with the distinction "of the Kasdim/Kasdin"—traditionally rendered in English as "Ur of the Chaldees". The Chaldeans had settled in the vicinity by around 850 BC, but were not extant anywhere in Mesopotamia during the 2nd millennium BC period when Abraham is traditionally held to have lived. The Chaldean dynasty did not rule Babylonia (and thus become the rulers of Ur) until the late 7th century BC, and held power only until the mid 6th century BC. The name is found in Genesis 11:28, Genesis 11:31, and Genesis 15:7. In Nehemiah 9:7, a single passage mentioning Ur is a paraphrase of Genesis. Archaeology In 1625, the site was visited by Pietro Della Valle, who recorded the presence of ancient bricks stamped with strange symbols, cemented together with bitumen, as well as inscribed pieces of black marble that appeared to be seals. European archaeologists did not identify Tell el-Muqayyar as the site of Ur until Henry Rawlinson successfully deciphered some bricks from that location, brought to England by William Loftus in 1849. The site was first excavated in 1853 and 1854, on behalf of the British Museum and with instructions from the Foreign Office, by John George Taylor, British vice consul at Basra from 1851 to 1859. Taylor uncovered the Ziggurat of Ur and a structure with an arch later identified as part of the "Gate of Judgment". In the four corners of the ziggurat's top stage, Taylor found clay cylinders bearing an inscription of Nabonidus (Nabuna`id), the last king of Babylon (539 BC), | last king of Babylon (539 BC), closing with a prayer for his son Belshar-uzur (Bel-ŝarra-Uzur), the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel. Evidence was found of prior restorations of the ziggurat by Ishme-Dagan of Isin and Shu-Sin of Ur, and by Kurigalzu, a Kassite king of Babylon in the 14th century BC. Nebuchadnezzar also claims to have rebuilt the temple. Taylor further excavated an interesting Babylonian building, not far from the temple, part of an ancient Babylonian necropolis. All about the city he found abundant remains of burials of later periods. Apparently, in later times, owing to its sanctity, Ur became a favorite place of sepulchres, so that even after it had ceased to be inhabited, it continued to be used as a necropolis. Typical of the era, his excavations destroyed information and exposed the tell. Natives used the now loosened, 4,000-year-old bricks and tile for construction for the next 75 years, while the site lay unexplored, the British Museum having decided to prioritize archaeology in Assyria. After Taylor's time, the site was visited by numerous travellers, almost all of whom have found ancient Babylonian remains, inscribed stones and the like, lying upon the surface. The site was considered rich in remains, and relatively easy to explore. After some soundings were made in 1918 by Reginald Campbell Thompson, H. R. Hall worked the site for one season for the British Museum in 1919, laying the groundwork for more extensive efforts to follow. Excavations from 1922 to 1934 were funded by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania and led by the archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley. A total of about 1,850 burials were uncovered, including 16 that were described as "royal tombs" containing many valuable artifacts, including the Standard of Ur. Most of the royal tombs were dated to about 2600 BC. The finds included the unlooted tomb of a queen thought to be Queen Puabi—the name is known from a cylinder seal found in the tomb, although there were two other different and unnamed seals found in the tomb. Many other people had been buried with her, in a form of human sacrifice. Near the ziggurat were uncovered the temple E-nun-mah and buildings E-dub-lal-mah (built for a king), E-gi-par (residence of the high priestess) and E-hur-sag (a temple building). Outside the temple area, many houses used in everyday life were found. Excavations were also made below the royal tombs layer: a layer of alluvial clay covered the remains of earlier habitation, including pottery from the Ubaid period, the first stage of settlement in southern Mesopotamia. Woolley later wrote many articles and books about the discoveries. One of Woolley's assistants on the site was the archaeologist Max Mallowan. The discoveries at the site reached the headlines in mainstream media in the world with the discoveries of the Royal Tombs. As a result, the ruins of the ancient city attracted many visitors. One of these visitors was the already famous Agatha Christie, who as a result of this visit ended up marrying Max Mallowan. During this time the site was accessible from the Baghdad–Basra railway, from a stop called "Ur Junction". When the Royal Tombs at Ur were first discovered, they had no idea how big they were. They started by digging two trenches in the middle of the desert to see if they could find anything that would allow them to keep digging. They originally split into two teams. Team A and team B. Both teams spent the first few months digging a trench and had found evidence of burial grounds by collecting small pieces of golden jewelry and pottery. This was called at the time the "gold trench". At this time, the first season of digging had come to a close, and Woolley returned to England. In Autumn, Woolley returned and continued to dig into the second season. By the end of the second season, he had uncovered a courtyard surrounded by many rooms. In their third season of digging they had uncovered their biggest find yet, a building that was believed to have been built by the orders of the king, and the second building to be where the high priestess lived. As the fourth and fifth season came to a close, they had discovered so many items that most of their time was now spent recording the objects they found instead of actually digging objects. They had found many items from gold jewelry to clay pots and stones. One of the most significant objects that was discovered was the Standard of Ur. At the end of their sixth season they had excavated 1850 burials and deemed 17 of them to be "Royal Tombs". Woolley finished his work excavating the Royal Tombs in 1934, uncovering a series of burials. Many servants were killed and buried with the royals, who he believed went to their deaths willingly. Computerized tomography scans on some of the surviving skulls have showed signs that they were killed by blows to the head that could be from the spiked end of a copper axe, which showed Woolley's initial theory of mass suicide via poison to be incorrect. Inside Puabi's tomb there was a chest in the middle of the room. Underneath that chest was a hole in the ground that led to what was called the "King's Grave": PG-789. It was believed to be the king's grave because it was buried next to the queen. In this grave, there were 63 attendants who were all equipped with copper helmets and swords. It is thought to be his army buried with him. Another large room was uncovered, PG-1237, called the "Great death pit". This large room had 74 bodies, 68 of which were women. There were only two artifacts in the tomb, both of which were Lyres. Most of the treasures excavated at Ur are in the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. At the Penn Museum the exhibition "Iraq's Ancient Past", which includes many of the most famous pieces from the Royal Tombs, opened to visitors in late Spring 2011. Previously, the Penn Museum had sent many of its best pieces from Ur on tour in an exhibition called "Treasures From the Royal Tombs of Ur." It traveled to eight American museums, including those in Cleveland, Washington and Dallas, ending the tour at the Detroit Institute of Art in May 2011. In 2009, an agreement was reached for a joint University of Pennsylvania and Iraqi team to resume archaeological work at the site of Ur. Excavations began in 2015 under the direction of Elizabeth C Stone and Paul Zimansky of the State University of New York. The first excavation season was primarily to re-excavate Woolley's work in an Old Babylonian housing area with two new trenches for confirmation. Among other finds a cylinder seal, a cuneform tablet, and balance pan weights were found. A similar though smaller dig was made in a Neo-Babylonian housing area. Archaeological remains Though some of the areas that were cleared during modern excavations have sanded over again, the Great Ziggurat is fully cleared and stands as the best-preserved and most visible landmark at the site. The famous Royal tombs, also called the Neo-Sumerian Mausolea, located about south-east of the Great Ziggurat in |
Soviet Union in its relations with Finland. In August 1958, Karl-August Fagerholm's third cabinet, a coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and including Kekkonen's party Agrarian League, was formed. The Communist front SKDL was left out. This irritated the Soviet Union because of the inclusion of ministers from SDP's anti-Communist wing, namely Väinö Leskinen and Olavi Lindblom. They were seen by the Soviet Union as puppets of the anti-Communist SDP chair Väinö Tanner, who had been convicted in the war-responsibility trials. Kekkonen had warned against this but was ignored by SDP. The Night Frost Crisis, as coined by Nikita Khrushchev, led to Soviet pressure against Finland in economic matters. Kekkonen sided with the Soviet Union, working behind the scenes against the cabinet; Fagerholm's cabinet consequently resigned in December 1958. The Finnish Foreign Ministry ignored United States offers for help as promised by Ambassador John D. Hickerson (see Country-studies.com, U.S. Embassy in Finland website, U.S. State Department website) in November 1958. The crisis was resolved by Kekkonen in January 1959, when he privately travelled to Moscow to negotiate with Khrushchev and Andrei Gromyko. The crisis hurt the freedom of the parties to compose coalition governments, so that after the crisis, Kekkonen was seen as the only authority for deciding which parties can participate in cabinets. The second time the Soviets helped Kekkonen came in the Note Crisis in 1961. The most widely held view of the Note Crisis is that the Soviet Union acted to ensure Kekkonen's reelection. Parties competing against Kekkonen attempted to form an anti-Kekkonen alliance, "Honka-liitto", to promote Chancellor of Justice Olavi Honka, a non-partisan candidate, in the 1962 presidential elections. Kekkonen had planned to prevent Honka-liitto from succeeding by dissolving parliament. However, in October 1961, the Soviet Union sent a diplomatic note demanding common military exercises against the West in reference to the Finno-Soviet Treaty. As a result, Honka dropped his candidacy, leaving Kekkonen with a clear majority (199 / 300 electors) in the 1962 elections. In addition to support from his own party, Kekkonen received the backing of the Swedish People's Party and the Finnish People's Party, a small classical liberal party. Furthermore, the conservative National Coalition Party quietly supported Kekkonen, although they had no official presidential candidate after Honka's withdrawal. Following the Note Crisis, genuine opposition to Kekkonen disappeared, and he acquired an exceptionally strong—later even autocratic—status as the political leader of Finland. Kekkonen's policies, especially towards the USSR, were criticised within his own party by Veikko Vennamo, who broke off his Centre Party affiliation when Kekkonen was elected president in 1956. In 1959, Vennamo founded the Finnish Rural Party, the forerunner of the nationalist True Finns. Second term (1962–68) In the 1960s Kekkonen was responsible for a number of foreign-policy initiatives, including the Nordic nuclear-free zone proposal, a border agreement with Norway, and a 1969 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The purpose of these initiatives was to avoid the enforcement of the military articles in the Finno-Soviet Treaty which called for military co-operation with the Soviet Union. Kekkonen thereby hoped to strengthen Finland's moves toward a policy of neutrality. Following the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, pressure for neutrality increased. Kekkonen informed the Soviet Union in 1970 that if it was no longer prepared to recognise Finland's neutrality, he would not continue as president, nor would the Finno-Soviet Treaty be extended. Third term (1968–78) Kekkonen was re-elected for a third term in 1968. That year, he was supported by five political parties: the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders (a short-lived SDP faction), the Finnish People's Democratic League (a communist front), and the Swedish People's Party. He received 201 votes in the electoral college, whereas the National Coalition party's candidate finished second with 66 votes. Vennamo came third with 33 votes. Although Kekkonen was re-elected with two-thirds of the vote, he was so displeased with his opponents and their behaviour that he publicly refused to stand for the presidency again. Vennamo's bold and constant criticisms of his presidency and policies especially infuriated Kekkonen, who labelled him a "cheat" and "demagogue". Initially, Kekkonen had intended to retire at the end of this term, and the Centre Party already began to prepare for his succession by Ahti Karjalainen. However, Kekkonen began to see Karjalainen as a rival instead, and eventually rejected the idea. Term extension (1973) On 18 January 1973, the enacting of an emergency law saw Kekkonen's presidency extended by four years. By this time, Kekkonen had secured the backing of most political parties, but the major right-wing National Coalition Party, which Kekkonen had opposed, was still skeptical, and stood in the way of the required 5/6 majority. Concurrently, Finland was negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EEC, and as the EEC agreement promoted economic integration with the West, it was supported by National Coalition Party. Kekkonen had implied that if he did not remain president, the Soviets would not accept Finland's free trade agreement with the EEC. The tactic secured National Coalition support and the subsequent passing of a derogation law. The elimination of any significant opposition and competition meant he became Finland's de facto political autocrat. His power reached its zenith in 1975 when he dissolved parliament and hosted the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki with the assistance of a caretaker government. Fourth term (1978–82) After nine political parties supported Kekkonen's candidacy in the 1978 presidential election, including the Social Democratic, Centre and National Coalition parties, no serious rivals remained. He humiliated his opponents by not appearing in televised presidential debates and went on to win 259 out of the 300 electoral college votes, with his nearest rival, Raino Westerholm of the Christian Union, receiving only 25. According to Finnish historians and political journalists, there were at least three reasons why Kekkonen clung on to the Presidency. First, he did not believe that any of his successor candidates would manage Finland's Soviet foreign policy well enough. Second, until at least the summer of 1978, he considered there was room for improvement in Finnish-Soviet relations and that his experience was vital to the process. This is exemplified by the use of his diplomatic skills to reject the Soviet Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov's offer to arrange a joined Soviet-Finnish military exercise. Third, he believed that by working for as long as possible he would remain healthy and live longer. Kekkonen's most severe critics, such as Veikko Vennamo, claimed that he remained President so long mainly because he and his closest associates were power-hungry. In 1980 Kekkonen was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. Later life From December 1980 onwards, Kekkonen suffered from an undisclosed disease that appeared to affect his brain functions, sometimes leading to delusional thoughts. He had begun to suffer occasional brief memory lapses as early as the autumn of 1972; they became more frequent during the late 1970s. Around the same time, Kekkonen's eyesight deteriorated so much that for his last few years in office, all of his official papers had to be typed in block letters. Kekkonen had also suffered from a failing sense of balance since the mid-1970s and from enlargement of his prostate gland since 1974. He was also subject to occasional violent headaches and suffered from diabetes from the autumn of 1979. Rumors about his declining health had begun to circulate in the mid to late 1970s, but the press attempted to silence these rumors to respect the president's privacy. According to biographer Juhani Suomi, Kekkonen gave no thought to resigning until his physical condition began to deteriorate in July 1981. The 80-year-old president then began to seriously consider resigning, most likely in early 1981. Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto finally dealt a defeat to Kekkonen in 1981. In April, Koivisto did what no one else had dared to during Kekkonen's presidency by stating that under the constitution, the prime minister and cabinet were responsible to Parliament, not to the President. Kekkonen asked Koivisto to resign, but he refused. This is generally seen as the death knell of the Kekkonen era; Kekkonen, who felt that he had lost a significant amount of his authority, never fully recovered from the shock caused by this event. Historians and journalists debate the precise meaning of this dispute. According to Seppo Zetterberg, Allan Tiitta, and Pekka Hyvärinen, Kekkonen wanted to force Koivisto to resign to decrease his chances of succeeding him as president. In contrast, Juhani Suomi believed the dispute involved scheming between Koivisto and rival prospective presidential candidates. Kekkonen at times criticised Koivisto for making political decisions too slowly and for his vacillation, especially for speaking too unclearly and philosophically. Kekkonen became ill in August during a fishing trip to Iceland. He went on medical leave on 10 September, before finally resigning due to ill health on 26 October, 1981, aged 81. There is no report available about his illness, as the papers have been moved to an unknown location, but it is commonly believed that he suffered from vascular dementia, probably due to atherosclerosis. Kekkonen withdrew from politics during his final years. He died at Tamminiemi on August 31, 1986, three days before his 86th birthday, and was buried with full honours. His heirs restricted access to his diaries and | December 1958. The Finnish Foreign Ministry ignored United States offers for help as promised by Ambassador John D. Hickerson (see Country-studies.com, U.S. Embassy in Finland website, U.S. State Department website) in November 1958. The crisis was resolved by Kekkonen in January 1959, when he privately travelled to Moscow to negotiate with Khrushchev and Andrei Gromyko. The crisis hurt the freedom of the parties to compose coalition governments, so that after the crisis, Kekkonen was seen as the only authority for deciding which parties can participate in cabinets. The second time the Soviets helped Kekkonen came in the Note Crisis in 1961. The most widely held view of the Note Crisis is that the Soviet Union acted to ensure Kekkonen's reelection. Parties competing against Kekkonen attempted to form an anti-Kekkonen alliance, "Honka-liitto", to promote Chancellor of Justice Olavi Honka, a non-partisan candidate, in the 1962 presidential elections. Kekkonen had planned to prevent Honka-liitto from succeeding by dissolving parliament. However, in October 1961, the Soviet Union sent a diplomatic note demanding common military exercises against the West in reference to the Finno-Soviet Treaty. As a result, Honka dropped his candidacy, leaving Kekkonen with a clear majority (199 / 300 electors) in the 1962 elections. In addition to support from his own party, Kekkonen received the backing of the Swedish People's Party and the Finnish People's Party, a small classical liberal party. Furthermore, the conservative National Coalition Party quietly supported Kekkonen, although they had no official presidential candidate after Honka's withdrawal. Following the Note Crisis, genuine opposition to Kekkonen disappeared, and he acquired an exceptionally strong—later even autocratic—status as the political leader of Finland. Kekkonen's policies, especially towards the USSR, were criticised within his own party by Veikko Vennamo, who broke off his Centre Party affiliation when Kekkonen was elected president in 1956. In 1959, Vennamo founded the Finnish Rural Party, the forerunner of the nationalist True Finns. Second term (1962–68) In the 1960s Kekkonen was responsible for a number of foreign-policy initiatives, including the Nordic nuclear-free zone proposal, a border agreement with Norway, and a 1969 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The purpose of these initiatives was to avoid the enforcement of the military articles in the Finno-Soviet Treaty which called for military co-operation with the Soviet Union. Kekkonen thereby hoped to strengthen Finland's moves toward a policy of neutrality. Following the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, pressure for neutrality increased. Kekkonen informed the Soviet Union in 1970 that if it was no longer prepared to recognise Finland's neutrality, he would not continue as president, nor would the Finno-Soviet Treaty be extended. Third term (1968–78) Kekkonen was re-elected for a third term in 1968. That year, he was supported by five political parties: the Centre Party, the Social Democrats, the Social Democratic Union of Workers and Smallholders (a short-lived SDP faction), the Finnish People's Democratic League (a communist front), and the Swedish People's Party. He received 201 votes in the electoral college, whereas the National Coalition party's candidate finished second with 66 votes. Vennamo came third with 33 votes. Although Kekkonen was re-elected with two-thirds of the vote, he was so displeased with his opponents and their behaviour that he publicly refused to stand for the presidency again. Vennamo's bold and constant criticisms of his presidency and policies especially infuriated Kekkonen, who labelled him a "cheat" and "demagogue". Initially, Kekkonen had intended to retire at the end of this term, and the Centre Party already began to prepare for his succession by Ahti Karjalainen. However, Kekkonen began to see Karjalainen as a rival instead, and eventually rejected the idea. Term extension (1973) On 18 January 1973, the enacting of an emergency law saw Kekkonen's presidency extended by four years. By this time, Kekkonen had secured the backing of most political parties, but the major right-wing National Coalition Party, which Kekkonen had opposed, was still skeptical, and stood in the way of the required 5/6 majority. Concurrently, Finland was negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EEC, and as the EEC agreement promoted economic integration with the West, it was supported by National Coalition Party. Kekkonen had implied that if he did not remain president, the Soviets would not accept Finland's free trade agreement with the EEC. The tactic secured National Coalition support and the subsequent passing of a derogation law. The elimination of any significant opposition and competition meant he became Finland's de facto political autocrat. His power reached its zenith in 1975 when he dissolved parliament and hosted the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki with the assistance of a caretaker government. Fourth term (1978–82) After nine political parties supported Kekkonen's candidacy in the 1978 presidential election, including the Social Democratic, Centre and National Coalition parties, no serious rivals remained. He humiliated his opponents by not appearing in televised presidential debates and went on to win 259 out of the 300 electoral college votes, with his nearest rival, Raino Westerholm of the Christian Union, receiving only 25. According to Finnish historians and political journalists, there were at least three reasons why Kekkonen clung on to the Presidency. First, he did not believe that any of his successor candidates would manage Finland's Soviet foreign policy well enough. Second, until at least the summer of 1978, he considered there was room for improvement in Finnish-Soviet relations and that his experience was vital to the process. This is exemplified by the use of his diplomatic skills to reject the Soviet Defence Minister Dmitriy Ustinov's offer to arrange a joined Soviet-Finnish military exercise. Third, he believed that by working for as long as possible he would remain healthy and live longer. Kekkonen's most severe critics, such as Veikko Vennamo, claimed that he remained President so long mainly because he and his closest associates were power-hungry. In 1980 Kekkonen was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. Later life From December 1980 onwards, Kekkonen suffered from an undisclosed disease that appeared to affect his brain functions, sometimes leading to delusional thoughts. He had begun to suffer occasional brief memory lapses as early as the autumn of 1972; they became more frequent during the late 1970s. Around the same time, Kekkonen's eyesight deteriorated so much that for his last few years in office, all of his official papers had to be typed in block letters. Kekkonen had also suffered from a failing sense of balance since the mid-1970s and from enlargement of his prostate gland since 1974. He was also subject to occasional violent headaches and suffered from diabetes from the autumn of 1979. Rumors about his declining health had begun to circulate in the mid to late 1970s, but the press attempted to silence these rumors to respect the president's privacy. According to biographer Juhani Suomi, Kekkonen gave no thought to resigning until his physical condition began to deteriorate in July 1981. The 80-year-old president then began to seriously consider resigning, most likely in early 1981. Prime Minister Mauno Koivisto finally dealt a defeat to Kekkonen in 1981. In April, Koivisto did what no one else had dared to during Kekkonen's presidency by stating that under the constitution, the prime minister and cabinet were responsible to Parliament, not to the President. Kekkonen asked Koivisto to resign, but he refused. This is generally seen as the death knell of the Kekkonen era; Kekkonen, who felt that he had lost a significant amount of his authority, never fully recovered from the shock caused by this event. Historians and journalists debate the precise meaning of this dispute. According to Seppo Zetterberg, Allan Tiitta, and Pekka Hyvärinen, Kekkonen wanted to force Koivisto to resign to decrease his chances of succeeding him as president. In contrast, Juhani Suomi believed the dispute involved scheming between Koivisto and rival prospective presidential candidates. Kekkonen at times criticised Koivisto for making political decisions too slowly and for his vacillation, especially for speaking too unclearly and philosophically. Kekkonen became ill in August during a fishing trip to Iceland. He went on medical leave on 10 September, before finally resigning due to ill health on 26 October, 1981, aged 81. There is no report available about his illness, as the papers have been moved to an unknown location, but it is commonly believed that he suffered from vascular dementia, probably due to atherosclerosis. Kekkonen withdrew from politics during his final years. He died at Tamminiemi on August 31, 1986, three days before his 86th birthday, and was buried with full honours. His heirs restricted access to his diaries and later an "authorised" biography by Juhani Suomi was commissioned, the author subsequently defending the interpretation of the history therein and denigrating most other interpretations. Critics have questioned the value of this work; the historian Hannu Rautkallio considered the biography little else than a "commercial project" designed for selling books rather than aiming for historical accuracy. Legacy Some of Kekkonen's actions remain controversial in modern Finland, and disputes continue about how to interpret many of his policies and actions. He often used what was termed the "Moscow card" when his authority was threatened, but he was not the only Finnish politician with close relations to Soviet representatives. Kekkonen's authoritarian behavior during his presidential term was one of the main reasons for the reforms of the Finnish Constitution in 1984–2003. Under these, the powers of Parliament and the Prime Minister were increased at the expense of Presidential power. Several of the changes were initiated by Kekkonen's successors. Presidential tenure was limited to two consecutive terms. The President's role in cabinet formation was restricted. The President was to be elected directly, not by an electoral college. The President could no longer dissolve Parliament without the support of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's role in shaping the foreign relations of Finland was enhanced. Although controversial, his policy of neutrality allowed trade with both the Communist and Western blocs. The bilateral trade policy with the Soviet Union was lucrative for many Finnish businesses. His term saw a period of high sustained economic growth and increasing integration with the West. He negotiated entrance into EFTA and thus was an early beginner for Finnish participation in European integration, which later culminated in full membership in the EU and the euro. He remained highly popular during his |
city in the Netherlands. Utrecht may also refer to: Utrecht (agglomeration), including the city of Utrecht Utrecht (province), of which the city of Utrecht is the capital In history: Lordship of Utrecht, precursor of the province Episcopal principality of Utrecht, precursor of the lordship Archdiocese of Utrecht (695–1580), historic diocese and precursor of the bishopric Outside the Netherlands: Utrecht, KwaZulu-Natal, a South African village named after the Dutch city Republic of Utrecht, named after the village New Utrecht, Brooklyn, named after the Dutch city Other | of Utrecht, precursor of the lordship Archdiocese of Utrecht (695–1580), historic diocese and precursor of the bishopric Outside the Netherlands: Utrecht, KwaZulu-Natal, a South African village named after the Dutch city Republic of Utrecht, named after the village New Utrecht, Brooklyn, named after the Dutch city Other uses: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht, current diocese of Utrecht Old Catholic Archdiocese of Utrecht Union of Utrecht, treaty signed in 1579, |
of South Australia University of Salerno, in Italy | Amaro, in Brazil Unisa Bangura (born 1987), Sierra |
the intellectual and theological battle fought between proponents of the new philosophy (René Descartes lived for a few years in Utrecht) and proponents of the strict Reformed theologian Voetius. They also witnessed the teachings of renowned Dutch jurist, Johannes Voet, a university alumnus and professor of law, whose works remain highly authoritative in modern Roman-Dutch law. In 1806, the French occupying authorities of the Netherlands downgraded Utrecht University to an école secondaire (high school), but after the establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1813 it regained its former status. Leiden, Leuven, Groningen, Utrecht and Ghent were the five universities () of the new state. Two of the universities (Leuven and Ghent) became part of the new Belgian state after their respective provinces separated from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830. As a result, Utrecht University remained one of only three Dutch universities. During the French occupation, King Louis Napoleon ordered the construction of a palace in the centre of Utrecht, which eventually became the University Library City Centre. Utrecht University played a prominent role in the golden age of Dutch science. Around 1850 the "Utrechtian School" of science formed, with Pieter Harting, Gerardus J. Mulder, Christophorus H. D. Buys Ballot and Franciscus Donders among the leading scientists. They introduced the educational laboratory (onderwijslaboratorium) as a practical learning place for their students. The National Veterinary School (Dutch:Rijks Veeartsenijschool) became Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1918. As the university grew, the academic buildings in the historic city centre were unable to meet the university's increasing need for space. Therefore, starting from the 1960s, a significant part of the university moved to the De Uithof campus, which occupies the easternmost part of the city and is located south of De Bilt. However, the university continued to retain its academic buildings and presence in the historic city centre. The university is represented in the Stichting Academisch Erfgoed, a foundation with the goal of preserving the university's heritage and collections. Organisation The university consists of seven faculties: Faculty of Geosciences Department of Earth Sciences Department of Physical Geography Department of Sustainable Development (Copernicus Institute) Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning Faculty of Humanities Department of History and Art History Department of Languages, Literature and Communication Department of Media and Culture Studies Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance Utrecht University School of Law Utrecht University School of Economics (USE) Utrecht University School of Governance (USG) Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Science Department of Biology Department of Chemistry Department of Information and Computing Sciences Department of Mathematics Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Department of Education and Pedagogy Department of Social Sciences Department of Psychology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine There are three interfaculty units: University College Utrecht University College Roosevelt Centre for Education and Learning (COLUU) Campus The two large faculties of Humanities and Law & Governance are situated in the inner city of Utrecht. The other five faculties and most of the administrative services are located in Utrecht Science Park De Uithof, a campus area on the outskirts of the city. University College Utrecht, along with the Utrecht School of Economics, are situated in the former Kromhout Kazerne, which used to be a Dutch | University Library City Centre. Utrecht University played a prominent role in the golden age of Dutch science. Around 1850 the "Utrechtian School" of science formed, with Pieter Harting, Gerardus J. Mulder, Christophorus H. D. Buys Ballot and Franciscus Donders among the leading scientists. They introduced the educational laboratory (onderwijslaboratorium) as a practical learning place for their students. The National Veterinary School (Dutch:Rijks Veeartsenijschool) became Utrecht University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1918. As the university grew, the academic buildings in the historic city centre were unable to meet the university's increasing need for space. Therefore, starting from the 1960s, a significant part of the university moved to the De Uithof campus, which occupies the easternmost part of the city and is located south of De Bilt. However, the university continued to retain its academic buildings and presence in the historic city centre. The university is represented in the Stichting Academisch Erfgoed, a foundation with the goal of preserving the university's heritage and collections. Organisation The university consists of seven faculties: Faculty of Geosciences Department of Earth Sciences Department of Physical Geography Department of Sustainable Development (Copernicus Institute) Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning Faculty of Humanities Department of History and Art History Department of Languages, Literature and Communication Department of Media and Culture Studies Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance Utrecht University School of Law Utrecht University School of Economics (USE) Utrecht University School of Governance (USG) Faculty of Medicine Faculty of Science Department of Biology Department of Chemistry Department of Information and Computing Sciences Department of Mathematics Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Department of Education and Pedagogy Department of Social Sciences Department of Psychology Faculty of Veterinary Medicine There are three interfaculty units: University College Utrecht University College Roosevelt Centre for Education and Learning (COLUU) Campus The two large faculties of Humanities and Law & Governance are situated in the inner city of Utrecht. The other five faculties and most of the administrative services are located in Utrecht Science Park De Uithof, a campus area on the outskirts of the city. University College Utrecht, along with the Utrecht School of Economics, are situated in the former Kromhout Kazerne, which used to be a Dutch military base. University College Roosevelt is located off-campus in the city of Middelburg in the south-west of the Netherlands. International rankings On the 2021 Academic Ranking of World |
Convention which drafted the Constitution, while Bertie Ahern, leader of FF, negotiated the treaty as President of the European Council in 2004. UEN was a heterogeneous group: broadly Eurosceptic and national-conservative, it included some parties which were either uncomfortable with this characterisation or eventually evolved into something different. More specifically, FF was a "catch all" centre-right party and later joined the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, AN was a conservative party which eventually joined the European People's Party through The People of Freedom, and Lega Nord was supportive of a "Europe of Regions". After the 2009 European elections the group officially had 35 members but this figure included parties such as AN and FF, which had already committed to leave. UEN members migrated to other groups after the elections in June 2009 and before the Seventh European Parliament term started on 14 July 2009. | Democracy (EFD) Group. With this loss of members, the UEN group was dissolved by default. Membership Membership by member state at 11 June 2009 On 11 June 2009, UEN had 35 MEPs as follows: Membership by party at 10 February 2008 On 10 February 2008, UEN had 44 MEPs as follows: Membership after 1999 election - Rally for France, 12 MEPs - National Alliance and Patto Segni, 9 MEPs - Fianna Fáil, 6 MEPs - Democratic and Social Centre – People's Party, 2 MEPs - Danish People's Party, 1 MEP Notes References External links Table of all groups and the number of |
a three years course post masters and includes thesis and a mandatory publication. This degree is awarded after completing MBBS (four and half year plus a one-year rotatory internship) and MS (Mastery of surgery) in general surgery (three years course). Till now two Universities Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University as well as two Autonomous institutes BP Koirala Institute of health sciences and National Academy of Medical Sciences (Bir Hospital) run the MCh Urology programme.19, 20 This degree is equivalent to Clinical PhD and called as "Chikitsa Bidhyabaridhi" by Tribhuvan University (Government University) and is considered to be the highest degree among the surgical discipline degrees. Besides Urology, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Surgical Gastroenterology, Plastic Surgery, and Neurosurgery MCh programmes also run in the country. Ethiopia Urology is a relatively new field in Ethiopia. By 2001, there were only five qualified Urologists in the country. All trained abroad, in countries like India, Tanzania and Hungary. Before this chapter all Urology cases were managed by General surgeons. The only Urological Unit in the country was at Tikur Anbessa Tertiary Hospital. The services provided included ESWL and Endo- urology. The Urology training program was started in 2009 with a curriculum for General Surgeons which had a three-year training program. Up to 2019 six Urologists have graduated by this program for General surgeons. The first residency program started accepting General practitioners in 2010 for a five-year program. The first two years were trainings in General surgery, the next three years were dedicated urology training program, which included the same three year training as of the General surgeons three year curriculum. It started with two residents who graduated in 2015 with a certificate in specialty of Urology. Up to 2019 seventeen Urologists have graduated from this five year residency program. From the start these programs in 2009 up to 2019, a total of 23 urologists have been trained in Tikur Anbessa Tertioary Hospital. Currently there are 26 trainees in the program. One General surgeon who is in the 2nd year of the three year program and 25 residents who completed two years of general surgery training, as of 2020, 6 are in PGY3, 10 PGY4 and 9 PGY5. All of the Urologists who graduated from Tikur Anbessa Tertioary Hospital are currently working in different parts of the country Subdisciplines As a medical discipline that involves the care of many organs and physiological systems, urology can be broken down into several subdisciplines. At many larger academic centers and university hospitals that excel in patient care and clinical research, urologists often specialize in a particular sub discipline. Endourology Endourology is the branch of urology that deals with the closed manipulation of the urinary tract. It has lately grown to include all minimally invasive urologic surgical procedures. As opposed to open surgery, endourology is performed using small cameras and instruments inserted into the urinary tract. Transurethral surgery has been the cornerstone of endourology. Most of the urinary tract can be reached via the urethra, enabling prostate surgery, surgery of tumors of the urothelium, stone surgery, and simple urethral and urethral procedures. Recently, the addition of laparoscopy and robotics has further subdivided this branch of urology. Laparoscopy Laparoscopy is a rapidly evolving branch of urology and has replaced some open surgical procedures. Robot-assisted surgery of the prostate, kidney, and ureter has been expanding this field. Today, many prostatectomies in the United States are carried out by so-called robotic assistance. This has created controversy, however, as robotics greatly increase the cost of surgery and the benefit for the patient may or may not be proportional to the extra cost. Moreover, current (2011) market situation for robotic equipment is a de facto monopoly of one publicly held corporation which further fuels the cost-effectiveness controversy. Urologic oncology Urologic oncology concerns the surgical treatment of malignant genitourinary diseases such as cancer of the prostate, adrenal glands, bladder, kidneys, ureters, testicles, and penis, as well as the skin and subcutaneous tissue and muscle and fascia of those areas (that particular subspecialty overlaps with dermatological oncology and related areas of oncology). The treatment of genitourinary cancer is managed by either a urologist or an oncologist, depending on the treatment type (surgical or medical). Most urologic oncologists in Western countries use minimally invasive techniques (laparoscopy or endourology, robotic-assisted surgery) to manage urologic cancers amenable to surgical management. Neurourology Neurourology concerns nervous system control of the genitourinary system, and of conditions causing abnormal urination. Neurological diseases and disorders such as a stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and spinal cord injury can disrupt the lower urinary tract and result in conditions such as urinary incontinence, detrusor overactivity, urinary retention, and detrusor sphincter dyssynergia. Urodynamic studies play an important diagnostic role in neurourology. Therapy for nervous system disorders includes clean intermittent self-catheterization of the bladder, anticholinergic drugs, injection of Botulinum toxin into the bladder wall and advanced and less commonly used therapies such as sacral neuromodulation. Less marked neurological abnormalities can cause urological disorders as well—for example, abnormalities of the sensory nervous system are thought by many researchers to play a role in disorders of painful or frequent urination (e.g. painful bladder syndrome also known as interstitial cystitis). Pediatric urology Pediatric urology concerns urologic disorders in children. Such disorders include cryptorchidism (undescended testes), congenital abnormalities of the genitourinary tract, enuresis, underdeveloped genitalia (due to delayed growth or delayed puberty, often an endocrinological problem), and vesicoureteral reflux. Andrology Andrology is the medical specialty that deals with male health, particularly relating to the problems of the male reproductive system and urological problems that are unique to men such as prostate cancer, male fertility problems, and surgery of the male reproductive system. It is the counterpart to gynaecology, which deals with medical issues that are specific to female health, especially reproductive and urologic health. Reconstructive urology Reconstructive urology is a highly specialized field of male urology that restores both structure and function to the genitourinary tract. Prostate procedures, full or partial hysterectomies, trauma (auto accidents, gunshot wounds, industrial accidents, straddle injuries, etc.), disease, obstructions, blockages (e.g., urethral strictures), and occasionally, childbirth, can necessitate reconstructive surgery. The urinary bladder, ureters (the tubes that lead from the kidneys to the urinary bladder) and genitalia are other examples of reconstructive urology. Female urology Female urology is a branch of urology dealing with overactive bladder, pelvic organ prolapse, and urinary incontinence. Many of these | years. After urology residency, there are seven subspecialties recognized by the AUA (American Urological Association): Oncology Calculi Female Urology Infertility Pediatrics Transplant (renal) Neurourology. Australia Training is completed through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS). The program requires six years of full-time training (for those who commenced prior to 2016), or five years for those who commenced after 2016. The program is accredited by the Australian Medical Council. Pre-requisites include: Australian Citizenship, New Zealand Citizenship or Australian Permanent Residency General medical registration Completion of PGY2 (see: Medical education in Australia) Completion of the RACS Hand Hygiene Learning Module Nepal In Nepal, the formal urologist degree awarded is MCh (Magister Chirurgiae). This is a three years course post masters and includes thesis and a mandatory publication. This degree is awarded after completing MBBS (four and half year plus a one-year rotatory internship) and MS (Mastery of surgery) in general surgery (three years course). Till now two Universities Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University as well as two Autonomous institutes BP Koirala Institute of health sciences and National Academy of Medical Sciences (Bir Hospital) run the MCh Urology programme.19, 20 This degree is equivalent to Clinical PhD and called as "Chikitsa Bidhyabaridhi" by Tribhuvan University (Government University) and is considered to be the highest degree among the surgical discipline degrees. Besides Urology, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Surgical Gastroenterology, Plastic Surgery, and Neurosurgery MCh programmes also run in the country. Ethiopia Urology is a relatively new field in Ethiopia. By 2001, there were only five qualified Urologists in the country. All trained abroad, in countries like India, Tanzania and Hungary. Before this chapter all Urology cases were managed by General surgeons. The only Urological Unit in the country was at Tikur Anbessa Tertiary Hospital. The services provided included ESWL and Endo- urology. The Urology training program was started in 2009 with a curriculum for General Surgeons which had a three-year training program. Up to 2019 six Urologists have graduated by this program for General surgeons. The first residency program started accepting General practitioners in 2010 for a five-year program. The first two years were trainings in General surgery, the next three years were dedicated urology training program, which included the same three year training as of the General surgeons three year curriculum. It started with two residents who graduated in 2015 with a certificate in specialty of Urology. Up to 2019 seventeen Urologists have graduated from this five year residency program. From the start these programs in 2009 up to 2019, a total of 23 urologists have been trained in Tikur Anbessa Tertioary Hospital. Currently there are 26 trainees in the program. One General surgeon who is in the 2nd year of the three year program and 25 residents who completed two years of general surgery training, as of 2020, 6 are in PGY3, 10 PGY4 and 9 PGY5. All of the Urologists who graduated from Tikur Anbessa Tertioary Hospital are currently working in different parts of the country Subdisciplines As a medical discipline that involves the care of many organs and physiological systems, urology can be broken down into several subdisciplines. At many larger academic centers and university hospitals that excel in patient care and clinical research, urologists often specialize in a particular sub discipline. Endourology Endourology is the branch of urology |
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