Split (1)

train · 41.2k rows

text stringlengths 151 4.06k
In 2009, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair picked Yale as one location – the others are Britain's Durham University and Universiti Teknologi Mara – for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation's United States Faith and Globalization Initiative. As of 2009, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo is the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and teaches an undergraduate seminar, "Debating Globalization". As of 2009, former presidential candidate and DNC chair Howard Dean teaches a residential college seminar, "Understanding Politics and Politicians." Also in 2009, an alliance was formed among Yale, University College London, and both schools’ affiliated hospital complexes to conduct research focused on the direct improvement of patient care—a growing field known as translational medicine. President Richard Levin noted that Yale has hundreds of other partnerships across the world, but "no existing collaboration matches the scale of the new partnership with UCL".
The Yale Provost's Office has launched several women into prominent university presidencies. In 1977 Hanna Holborn Gray was appointed acting President of Yale from this position, and went on to become President of the University of Chicago, the first woman to be full president of a major university. In 1994 Yale Provost Judith Rodin became the first female president of an Ivy League institution at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2002 Provost Alison Richard became the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. In 2004, Provost Susan Hockfield became the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2007 Deputy Provost Kim Bottomly was named President of Wellesley College. In 2003, the Dean of the Divinity School, Rebecca Chopp, was appointed president of Colgate University and now heads Swarthmore College.
Much of Yale University's staff, including most maintenance staff, dining hall employees, and administrative staff, are unionized. Clerical and technical employees are represented by Local 34 of UNITE HERE and service and maintenance workers by Local 35 of the same international. Together with the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO), an unrecognized union of graduate employees, Locals 34 and 35 make up the Federation of Hospital and University Employees. Also included in FHUE are the dietary workers at Yale-New Haven Hospital, who are members of 1199 SEIU. In addition to these unions, officers of the Yale University Police Department are members of the Yale Police Benevolent Association, which affiliated in 2005 with the Connecticut Organization for Public Safety Employees. Finally, Yale security officers voted to join the International Union of Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America in fall 2010 after the National Labor Relations Board ruled they could not join AFSCME; the Yale administration contested the election.
Yale has a history of difficult and prolonged labor negotiations, often culminating in strikes. There have been at least eight strikes since 1968, and The New York Times wrote that Yale has a reputation as having the worst record of labor tension of any university in the U.S. Yale's unusually large endowment exacerbates the tension over wages. Moreover, Yale has been accused of failing to treat workers with respect. In a 2003 strike, however, the university claimed that more union employees were working than striking. Professor David Graeber was 'retired' after he came to the defense of a student who was involved in campus labor issues.
Yale's central campus in downtown New Haven covers 260 acres (1.1 km2) and comprises its main, historic campus and a medical campus adjacent to the Yale-New Haven Hospital. In western New Haven, the university holds 500 acres (2.0 km2) of athletic facilities, including the Yale Golf Course. In 2008, Yale purchased the 136-acre (0.55 km2) former Bayer Pharmaceutical campus in West Haven, Connecticut, the buildings of which are now used as laboratory and research space. Yale also owns seven forests in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire—the largest of which is the 7,840-acre (31.7 km2) Yale-Myers Forest in Connecticut's Quiet Corner—and nature preserves including Horse Island.
Yale is noted for its largely Collegiate Gothic campus as well as for several iconic modern buildings commonly discussed in architectural history survey courses: Louis Kahn's Yale Art Gallery and Center for British Art, Eero Saarinen's Ingalls Rink and Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, and Paul Rudolph's Art & Architecture Building. Yale also owns and has restored many noteworthy 19th-century mansions along Hillhouse Avenue, which was considered the most beautiful street in America by Charles Dickens when he visited the United States in the 1840s. In 2011, Travel+Leisure listed the Yale campus as one of the most beautiful in the United States.
Many of Yale's buildings were constructed in the Collegiate Gothic architecture style from 1917 to 1931, financed largely by Edward S. Harkness Stone sculpture built into the walls of the buildings portray contemporary college personalities such as a writer, an athlete, a tea-drinking socialite, and a student who has fallen asleep while reading. Similarly, the decorative friezes on the buildings depict contemporary scenes such as policemen chasing a robber and arresting a prostitute (on the wall of the Law School), or a student relaxing with a mug of beer and a cigarette. The architect, James Gamble Rogers, faux-aged these buildings by splashing the walls with acid, deliberately breaking their leaded glass windows and repairing them in the style of the Middle Ages, and creating niches for decorative statuary but leaving them empty to simulate loss or theft over the ages. In fact, the buildings merely simulate Middle Ages architecture, for though they appear to be constructed of solid stone blocks in the authentic manner, most actually have steel framing as was commonly used in 1930. One exception is Harkness Tower, 216 feet (66 m) tall, which was originally a free-standing stone structure. It was reinforced in 1964 to allow the installation of the Yale Memorial Carillon.
Other examples of the Gothic (also called neo-Gothic and collegiate Gothic) style are on Old Campus by such architects as Henry Austin, Charles C. Haight and Russell Sturgis. Several are associated with members of the Vanderbilt family, including Vanderbilt Hall, Phelps Hall, St. Anthony Hall (a commission for member Frederick William Vanderbilt), the Mason, Sloane and Osborn laboratories, dormitories for the Sheffield Scientific School (the engineering and sciences school at Yale until 1956) and elements of Silliman College, the largest residential college.
Alumnus Eero Saarinen, Finnish-American architect of such notable structures as the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Washington Dulles International Airport main terminal, Bell Labs Holmdel Complex and the CBS Building in Manhattan, designed Ingalls Rink at Yale and the newest residential colleges of Ezra Stiles and Morse. These latter were modelled after the medieval Italian hilltown of San Gimignano – a prototype chosen for the town's pedestrian-friendly milieu and fortress-like stone towers. These tower forms at Yale act in counterpoint to the college's many Gothic spires and Georgian cupolas.
Yale's Office of Sustainability develops and implements sustainability practices at Yale. Yale is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 10% below 1990 levels by the year 2020. As part of this commitment, the university allocates renewable energy credits to offset some of the energy used by residential colleges. Eleven campus buildings are candidates for LEED design and certification. Yale Sustainable Food Project initiated the introduction of local, organic vegetables, fruits, and beef to all residential college dining halls. Yale was listed as a Campus Sustainability Leader on the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s College Sustainability Report Card 2008, and received a "B+" grade overall.
Yale's secret society buildings (some of which are called "tombs") were built both to be private yet unmistakable. A diversity of architectural styles is represented: Berzelius, Donn Barber in an austere cube with classical detailing (erected in 1908 or 1910); Book and Snake, Louis R. Metcalfe in a Greek Ionic style (erected in 1901); Elihu, architect unknown but built in a Colonial style (constructed on an early 17th-century foundation although the building is from the 18th century); Mace and Chain, in a late colonial, early Victorian style (built in 1823). Interior moulding is said to have belonged to Benedict Arnold; Manuscript Society, King Lui-Wu with Dan Kniley responsible for landscaping and Josef Albers for the brickwork intaglio mural. Building constructed in a mid-century modern style; Scroll and Key, Richard Morris Hunt in a Moorish- or Islamic-inspired Beaux-Arts style (erected 1869–70); Skull and Bones, possibly Alexander Jackson Davis or Henry Austin in an Egypto-Doric style utilizing Brownstone (in 1856 the first wing was completed, in 1903 the second wing, 1911 the Neo-Gothic towers in rear garden were completed); St. Elmo, (former tomb) Kenneth M. Murchison, 1912, designs inspired by Elizabethan manor. Current location, brick colonial; Shabtai, 1882, the Anderson Mansion built in the Second Empire architectural style; and Wolf's Head, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (erected 1923-4).
Several campus safety strategies have been pioneered at Yale. The first campus police force was founded at Yale in 1894, when the university contracted city police officers to exclusively cover the campus. Later hired by the university, the officers were originally brought in to quell unrest between students and city residents and curb destructive student behavior. In addition to the Yale Police Department, a variety of safety services are available including blue phones, a safety escort, and 24-hour shuttle service.
Through its program of need-based financial aid, Yale commits to meet the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants. Most financial aid is in the form of grants and scholarships that do not need to be paid back to the university, and the average need-based aid grant for the Class of 2017 was $46,395. 15% of Yale College students are expected to have no parental contribution, and about 50% receive some form of financial aid. About 16% of the Class of 2013 had some form of student loan debt at graduation, with an average debt of $13,000 among borrowers.
Rare books are found in several Yale collections. The Beinecke Rare Book Library has a large collection of rare books and manuscripts. The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library includes important historical medical texts, including an impressive collection of rare books, as well as historical medical instruments. The Lewis Walpole Library contains the largest collection of 18th‑century British literary works. The Elizabethan Club, technically a private organization, makes its Elizabethan folios and first editions available to qualified researchers through Yale.
Yale's museum collections are also of international stature. The Yale University Art Gallery, the country's first university-affiliated art museum, contains more than 180,000 works, including Old Masters and important collections of modern art, in the Swartout and Kahn buildings. The latter, Louis Kahn's first large-scale American work (1953), was renovated and reopened in December 2006. The Yale Center for British Art, the largest collection of British art outside of the UK, grew from a gift of Paul Mellon and is housed in another Kahn-designed building.
Yale's English and Comparative Literature departments were part of the New Criticism movement. Of the New Critics, Robert Penn Warren, W.K. Wimsatt, and Cleanth Brooks were all Yale faculty. Later, the Yale Comparative literature department became a center of American deconstruction. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, taught at the Department of Comparative Literature from the late seventies to mid-1980s. Several other Yale faculty members were also associated with deconstruction, forming the so-called "Yale School". These included Paul de Man who taught in the Departments of Comparative Literature and French, J. Hillis Miller, Geoffrey Hartman (both taught in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature), and Harold Bloom (English), whose theoretical position was always somewhat specific, and who ultimately took a very different path from the rest of this group. Yale's history department has also originated important intellectual trends. Historians C. Vann Woodward and David Brion Davis are credited with beginning in the 1960s and 1970s an important stream of southern historians; likewise, David Montgomery, a labor historian, advised many of the current generation of labor historians in the country. Yale's Music School and Department fostered the growth of Music Theory in the latter half of the 20th century. The Journal of Music Theory was founded there in 1957; Allen Forte and David Lewin were influential teachers and scholars.
Yale's residential college system was established in 1933 by Edward S. Harkness, who admired the social intimacy of Oxford and Cambridge and donated significant funds to found similar colleges at Yale and Harvard. Though Yale's colleges resemble their English precursors organizationally and architecturally, they are dependent entities of Yale College and have limited autonomy. The colleges are led by a master and an academic dean, who reside in the college, and university faculty and affiliates comprise each college's fellowship. Colleges offer their own seminars, social events, and speaking engagements known as "Master's Teas," but do not contain programs of study or academic departments. Instead, all undergraduate courses are taught by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and are open to members of any college.
While Harkness' original colleges were Georgian Revival or Collegiate Gothic in style, two colleges constructed in the 1960s, Morse and Ezra Stiles Colleges, have modernist designs. All twelve college quadrangles are organized around a courtyard, and each has a dining hall, courtyard, library, common room, and a range of student facilities. The twelve colleges are named for important alumni or significant places in university history. In 2017, the university expects to open two new colleges near Science Hill.
In the wake of the racially-motivated" church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, Yale was under criticism again in the summer of 2015 for Calhoun College, one of 12 residential colleges, which was named after John C. Calhoun, a slave-owner and strong slavery supporter in the nineteenth century. In July 2015 students signed a petition calling for the name change. They argued in the petition that—while Calhoun was respected in the 19th century as an "extraordinary American statesman"—he was "one of the most prolific defenders of slavery and white supremacy" in the history of the United States. In August 2015 Yale President Peter Salovey addressed the Freshman Class of 2019 in which he responded to the racial tensions but explained why the college would not be renamed. He described Calhoun as a "a notable political theorist, a vice president to two different U.S. presidents, a secretary of war and of state, and a congressman and senator representing South Carolina." He acknowledged that Calhoun also "believed that the highest forms of civilization depend on involuntary servitude. Not only that, but he also believed that the races he thought to be inferior, black people in particular, ought to be subjected to it for the sake of their own best interests." Racial tensions increased in the fall of 2015 centering on comments by Nicholas A. Christakis and his wife Erika regarding freedom of speech. In April 2016 Salovey announced that "despite decades of vigorous alumni and student protests," Calhoun's name will remain on the Yale residential college explaining that it is preferable for Yale students to live in Calhoun's "shadow" so they will be "better prepared to rise to the challenges of the present and the future." He claimed that if they removed Calhoun's name, it would "obscure" his "legacy of slavery rather than addressing it." "Yale is part of that history" and "We cannot erase American history, but we can confront it, teach it and learn from it." One change that will be issued is the title of “master” for faculty members who serve as residential college leaders will be renamed to “head of college” due to its connotation of slavery.
The university hosts a variety of student journals, magazines, and newspapers. Established in 1872, The Yale Record is the world's oldest humor magazine. Newspapers include the Yale Daily News, which was first published in 1878, and the weekly Yale Herald, which was first published in 1986. Dwight Hall, an independent, non-profit community service organization, oversees more than 2,000 Yale undergraduates working on more than 70 community service initiatives in New Haven. The Yale College Council runs several agencies that oversee campus wide activities and student services. The Yale Dramatic Association and Bulldog Productions cater to the theater and film communities, respectively. In addition, the Yale Drama Coalition serves to coordinate between and provide resources for the various Sudler Fund sponsored theater productions which run each weekend. WYBC Yale Radio is the campus's radio station, owned and operated by students. While students used to broadcast on AM & FM frequencies, they now have an Internet-only stream.
Yale seniors at graduation smash clay pipes underfoot to symbolize passage from their "bright college years," though in recent history the pipes have been replaced with "bubble pipes". ("Bright College Years," the University's alma mater, was penned in 1881 by Henry Durand, Class of 1881, to the tune of Die Wacht am Rhein.) Yale's student tour guides tell visitors that students consider it good luck to rub the toe of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey on Old Campus. Actual students rarely do so. In the second half of the 20th century Bladderball, a campus-wide game played with a large inflatable ball, became a popular tradition but was banned by administration due to safety concerns. In spite of administration opposition, students revived the game in 2009, 2011, and 2014, but its future remains uncertain.
Yale has numerous athletic facilities, including the Yale Bowl (the nation's first natural "bowl" stadium, and prototype for such stadiums as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Bowl), located at The Walter Camp Field athletic complex, and the Payne Whitney Gymnasium, the second-largest indoor athletic complex in the world. October 21, 2000, marked the dedication of Yale's fourth new boathouse in 157 years of collegiate rowing. The Richard Gilder Boathouse is named to honor former Olympic rower Virginia Gilder '79 and her father Richard Gilder '54, who gave $4 million towards the $7.5 million project. Yale also maintains the Gales Ferry site where the heavyweight men's team trains for the Yale-Harvard Boat Race.
Yale has had many financial supporters, but some stand out by the magnitude or timeliness of their contributions. Among those who have made large donations commemorated at the university are: Elihu Yale; Jeremiah Dummer; the Harkness family (Edward, Anna, and William); the Beinecke family (Edwin, Frederick, and Walter); John William Sterling; Payne Whitney; Joseph E. Sheffield, Paul Mellon, Charles B. G. Murphy and William K. Lanman. The Yale Class of 1954, led by Richard Gilder, donated $70 million in commemoration of their 50th reunion. Charles B. Johnson, a 1954 graduate of Yale College, pledged a $250 million gift in 2013 to support of the construction of two new residential colleges.
Yale has produced alumni distinguished in their respective fields. Among the best-known are U.S. Presidents William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; royals Crown Princess Victoria Bernadotte, Prince Rostislav Romanov and Prince Akiiki Hosea Nyabongo; heads of state, including Italian prime minister Mario Monti, Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, German president Karl Carstens, and Philippines president José Paciano Laurel; U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas; U.S. Secretaries of State John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Cyrus Vance, and Dean Acheson; authors Sinclair Lewis, Stephen Vincent Benét, and Tom Wolfe; lexicographer Noah Webster; inventors Samuel F. B. Morse and Eli Whitney; patriot and "first spy" Nathan Hale; theologian Jonathan Edwards; actors, directors and producers Paul Newman, Henry Winkler, Vincent Price, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Patricia Clarkson, Courtney Vance, Frances McDormand, Elia Kazan, George Roy Hill, Edward Norton, Lupita Nyong'o, Allison Williams, Oliver Stone, Sam Waterston, and Michael Cimino; "Father of American football" Walter Camp, James Franco, "The perfect oarsman" Rusty Wailes; baseball players Ron Darling, Bill Hutchinson, and Craig Breslow; basketball player Chris Dudley; football players Gary Fencik, and Calvin Hill; hockey players Chris Higgins and Mike Richter; figure skater Sarah Hughes; swimmer Don Schollander; skier Ryan Max Riley; runner Frank Shorter; composers Charles Ives, Douglas Moore and Cole Porter; Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver; child psychologist Benjamin Spock; architects Eero Saarinen and Norman Foster; sculptor Richard Serra; film critic Gene Siskel; television commentators Dick Cavett and Anderson Cooper; New York Times journalist David Gonzalez; pundits William F. Buckley, Jr., and Fareed Zakaria; economists Irving Fischer, Mahbub ul Haq, and Paul Krugman; cyclotron inventor and Nobel laureate in Physics, Ernest Lawrence; Human Genome Project director Francis S. Collins; mathematician and chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs; and businesspeople, including Time Magazine co-founder Henry Luce, Morgan Stanley founder Harold Stanley, Boeing CEO James McNerney, FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith, Time Warner president Jeffrey Bewkes, Electronic Arts co-founder Bing Gordon, and investor/philanthropist Sir John Templeton; pioneer in electrical applications Austin Cornelius Dunham.
Yale University, one of the oldest universities in the United States, is a cultural referent as an institution that produces some of the most elite members of society and its grounds, alumni, and students have been prominently portrayed in fiction and U.S. popular culture. For example, Owen Johnson's novel, Stover at Yale, follows the college career of Dink Stover and Frank Merriwell, the model for all later juvenile sports fiction, plays football, baseball, crew, and track at Yale while solving mysteries and righting wrongs. Yale University also is featured in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby". The narrator, Nick Carraway, wrote a series of editorials for the Yale News, and Tom Buchanan was "one of the most powerful ends that ever played football" for Yale.
Around 1300, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it was before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare. France and England experienced serious peasant uprisings, such as the Jacquerie and the Peasants' Revolt, as well as over a century of intermittent conflict in the Hundred Years' War. To add to the many problems of the period, the unity of the Catholic Church was shattered by the Western Schism. Collectively these events are sometimes called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.
Despite these crises, the 14th century was also a time of great progress in the arts and sciences. Following a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts that took root in the High Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance began. The absorption of Latin texts had started before the Renaissance of the 12th century through contact with Arabs during the Crusades, but the availability of important Greek texts accelerated with the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West, particularly Italy.
Combined with this influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would later lead to the Protestant Reformation. Toward the end of the period, an era of discovery began (Age of Discovery). The rise of the Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, eroded the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire and cut off trading possibilities with the east. Europeans were forced to seek new trading routes, leading to the expedition of Columbus to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation of India and Africa in 1498. Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations.
The term "Late Middle Ages" refers to one of the three periods of the Middle Ages, along with the Early Middle Ages and the High Middle Ages. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442). Flavio Biondo used a similar framework in Decades of History from the Deterioration of the Roman Empire (1439–1453). Tripartite periodization became standard after the German historian Christoph Cellarius published Universal History Divided into an Ancient, Medieval, and New Period (1683).
As economic and demographic methods were applied to the study of history, the trend was increasingly to see the late Middle Ages as a period of recession and crisis. Belgian historian Henri Pirenne continued the subdivision of Early, High, and Late Middle Ages in the years around World War I. Yet it was his Dutch colleague, Johan Huizinga, who was primarily responsible for popularising the pessimistic view of the Late Middle Ages, with his book The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919). To Huizinga, whose research focused on France and the Low Countries rather than Italy, despair and decline were the main themes, not rebirth.
Modern historiography on the period has reached a consensus between the two extremes of innovation and crisis. It is now (generally) acknowledged that conditions were vastly different north and south of the Alps, and "Late Middle Ages" is often avoided entirely within Italian historiography. The term "Renaissance" is still considered useful for describing certain intellectual, cultural, or artistic developments, but not as the defining feature of an entire European historical epoch. The period from the early 14th century up until – and sometimes including – the 16th century, is rather seen as characterised by other trends: demographic and economic decline followed by recovery, the end of western religious unity and the subsequent emergence of the nation state, and the expansion of European influence onto the rest of the world.
After the failed union of Sweden and Norway of 1319–1365, the pan-Scandinavian Kalmar Union was instituted in 1397. The Swedes were reluctant members of the Danish-dominated union from the start. In an attempt to subdue the Swedes, King Christian II of Denmark had large numbers of the Swedish aristocracy killed in the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520. Yet this measure only led to further hostilities, and Sweden broke away for good in 1523. Norway, on the other hand, became an inferior party of the union and remained united with Denmark until 1814.
Bohemia prospered in the 14th century, and the Golden Bull of 1356 made the king of Bohemia first among the imperial electors, but the Hussite revolution threw the country into crisis. The Holy Roman Empire passed to the Habsburgs in 1438, where it remained until its dissolution in 1806. Yet in spite of the extensive territories held by the Habsburgs, the Empire itself remained fragmented, and much real power and influence lay with the individual principalities. In addition, financial institutions, such as the Hanseatic League and the Fugger family, held great power, on both economic and a political levels.
Louis did not leave a son as heir after his death in 1382. Instead, he named as his heir the young prince Sigismund of Luxemburg, who was 11 years old. The Hungarian nobility did not accept his claim, and the result was an internal war. Sigismund eventually achieved total control of Hungary and established his court in Buda and Visegrád. Both palaces were rebuilt and improved, and were considered the richest of the time in Europe. Inheriting the throne of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire, Sigismund continued conducting his politics from Hungary, but he was kept busy fighting the Hussites and the Ottoman Empire, which was becoming a menace to Europe in the beginning of the 15th century.
The Bulgarian Empire was in decline by the 14th century, and the ascendancy of Serbia was marked by the Serbian victory over the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd in 1330. By 1346, the Serbian king Stefan Dušan had been proclaimed emperor. Yet Serbian dominance was short-lived; the Serbian army led by the Lazar Hrebljevanovic was defeated by the Ottomans at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where most of the Serbian nobility was killed and the south of the country came under Ottoman occupation, as much of southern Bulgaria had become Ottoman territory in 1371. Northern remnants of Bulgaria were finally conquered by 1396, Serbia fell in 1459, Bosnia in 1463, and Albania was finally subordinated in 1479 only a few years after the death of Skanderbeg. Belgrade, an Hungarian domain at the time, was the last large Balkan city to fall under Ottoman rule, in 1521. By the end of the medieval period, the entire Balkan peninsula was annexed by, or became vassal to, the Ottomans.
Avignon was the seat of the papacy from 1309 to 1376. With the return of the Pope to Rome in 1378, the Papal State developed into a major secular power, culminating in the morally corrupt papacy of Alexander VI. Florence grew to prominence amongst the Italian city-states through financial business, and the dominant Medici family became important promoters of the Renaissance through their patronage of the arts. Other city states in northern Italy also expanded their territories and consolidated their power, primarily Milan and Venice. The War of the Sicilian Vespers had by the early 14th century divided southern Italy into an Aragon Kingdom of Sicily and an Anjou Kingdom of Naples. In 1442, the two kingdoms were effectively united under Aragonese control.
The 1469 marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon and the 1479 death of John II of Aragon led to the creation of modern-day Spain. In 1492, Granada was captured from the Moors, thereby completing the Reconquista. Portugal had during the 15th century – particularly under Henry the Navigator – gradually explored the coast of Africa, and in 1498, Vasco da Gama found the sea route to India. The Spanish monarchs met the Portuguese challenge by financing the expedition of Christopher Columbus to find a western sea route to India, leading to the discovery of the Americas in 1492.
Around 1300–1350 the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age. The colder climate resulted in agricultural crises, the first of which is known as the Great Famine of 1315-1317. The demographic consequences of this famine, however, were not as severe as the plagues that occurred later in the century, particularly the Black Death. Estimates of the death rate caused by this epidemic range from one third to as much as sixty percent. By around 1420, the accumulated effect of recurring plagues and famines had reduced the population of Europe to perhaps no more than a third of what it was a century earlier. The effects of natural disasters were exacerbated by armed conflicts; this was particularly the case in France during the Hundred Years' War.
As the European population was severely reduced, land became more plentiful for the survivors, and labour consequently more expensive. Attempts by landowners to forcibly reduce wages, such as the English 1351 Statute of Laborers, were doomed to fail. These efforts resulted in nothing more than fostering resentment among the peasantry, leading to rebellions such as the French Jacquerie in 1358 and the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381. The long-term effect was the virtual end of serfdom in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, landowners were able to exploit the situation to force the peasantry into even more repressive bondage.
Up until the mid-14th century, Europe had experienced steadily increasing urbanisation. Cities were also decimated by the Black Death, but the role of urban areas as centres of learning, commerce and government ensured continued growth. By 1500, Venice, Milan, Naples, Paris and Constantinople each probably had more than 100,000 inhabitants. Twenty-two other cities were larger than 40,000; most of these were in Italy and the Iberian peninsula, but there were also some in France, the Empire, the Low Countries, plus London in England.
Changes also took place within the recruitment and composition of armies. The use of the national or feudal levy was gradually replaced by paid troops of domestic retinues or foreign mercenaries. The practice was associated with Edward III of England and the condottieri of the Italian city-states. All over Europe, Swiss soldiers were in particularly high demand. At the same time, the period also saw the emergence of the first permanent armies. It was in Valois France, under the heavy demands of the Hundred Years' War, that the armed forces gradually assumed a permanent nature.
Parallel to the military developments emerged also a constantly more elaborate chivalric code of conduct for the warrior class. This new-found ethos can be seen as a response to the diminishing military role of the aristocracy, and gradually it became almost entirely detached from its military origin. The spirit of chivalry was given expression through the new (secular) type of chivalric orders; the first of these was the Order of St. George, founded by Charles I of Hungary in 1325, while the best known was probably the English Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348.
The French crown's increasing dominance over the Papacy culminated in the transference of the Holy See to Avignon in 1309. When the Pope returned to Rome in 1377, this led to the election of different popes in Avignon and Rome, resulting in the Papal Schism (1378–1417). The Schism divided Europe along political lines; while France, her ally Scotland and the Spanish kingdoms supported the Avignon Papacy, France's enemy England stood behind the Pope in Rome, together with Portugal, Scandinavia and most of the German princes.
Though many of the events were outside the traditional time-period of the Middle Ages, the end of the unity of the Western Church (the Protestant Reformation), was one of the distinguishing characteristics of the medieval period. The Catholic Church had long fought against heretic movements, but during the Late Middle Ages, it started to experience demands for reform from within. The first of these came from Oxford professor John Wycliffe in England. Wycliffe held that the Bible should be the only authority in religious questions, and he spoke out against transubstantiation, celibacy and indulgences. In spite of influential supporters among the English aristocracy, such as John of Gaunt, the movement was not allowed to survive. Though Wycliffe himself was left unmolested, his supporters, the Lollards, were eventually suppressed in England.
The marriage of Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia established contacts between the two nations and brought Lollard ideas to her homeland. The teachings of the Czech priest Jan Hus were based on those of John Wycliffe, yet his followers, the Hussites, were to have a much greater political impact than the Lollards. Hus gained a great following in Bohemia, and in 1414, he was requested to appear at the Council of Constance to defend his cause. When he was burned as a heretic in 1415, it caused a popular uprising in the Czech lands. The subsequent Hussite Wars fell apart due to internal quarrels and did not result in religious or national independence for the Czechs, but both the Catholic Church and the German element within the country were weakened.
Martin Luther, a German monk, started the German Reformation by posting 95 theses on the castle church of Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. The immediate provocation spurring this act was Pope Leo X’s renewal of the indulgence for the building of the new St. Peter's Basilica in 1514. Luther was challenged to recant his heresy at the Diet of Worms in 1521. When he refused, he was placed under the ban of the Empire by Charles V. Receiving the protection of Frederick the Wise, he was then able to translate the Bible into German.
In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a process took place – primarily in Italy but partly also in the Empire – that historians have termed a 'commercial revolution'. Among the innovations of the period were new forms of partnership and the issuing of insurance, both of which contributed to reducing the risk of commercial ventures; the bill of exchange and other forms of credit that circumvented the canonical laws for gentiles against usury, and eliminated the dangers of carrying bullion; and new forms of accounting, in particular double-entry bookkeeping, which allowed for better oversight and accuracy.
With the financial expansion, trading rights became more jealously guarded by the commercial elite. Towns saw the growing power of guilds, while on a national level special companies would be granted monopolies on particular trades, like the English wool Staple. The beneficiaries of these developments would accumulate immense wealth. Families like the Fuggers in Germany, the Medicis in Italy, the de la Poles in England, and individuals like Jacques Coeur in France would help finance the wars of kings, and achieve great political influence in the process.
Though there is no doubt that the demographic crisis of the 14th century caused a dramatic fall in production and commerce in absolute terms, there has been a vigorous historical debate over whether the decline was greater than the fall in population. While the older orthodoxy held that the artistic output of the Renaissance was a result of greater opulence, more recent studies have suggested that there might have been a so-called 'depression of the Renaissance'. In spite of convincing arguments for the case, the statistical evidence is simply too incomplete for a definite conclusion to be made.
The predominant school of thought in the 13th century was the Thomistic reconciliation of the teachings of Aristotle with Christian theology. The Condemnation of 1277, enacted at the University of Paris, placed restrictions on ideas that could be interpreted as heretical; restrictions that had implication for Aristotelian thought. An alternative was presented by William of Ockham, who insisted that the world of reason and the world of faith had to be kept apart. Ockham introduced the principle of parsimony – or Occam's razor – whereby a simple theory is preferred to a more complex one, and speculation on unobservable phenomena is avoided.
This new approach liberated scientific speculation from the dogmatic restraints of Aristotelian science, and paved the way for new approaches. Particularly within the field of theories of motion great advances were made, when such scholars as Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme and the Oxford Calculators challenged the work of Aristotle. Buridan developed the theory of impetus as the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was an important step towards the modern concept of inertia. The works of these scholars anticipated the heliocentric worldview of Nicolaus Copernicus.
Certain technological inventions of the period – whether of Arab or Chinese origin, or unique European innovations – were to have great influence on political and social developments, in particular gunpowder, the printing press and the compass. The introduction of gunpowder to the field of battle affected not only military organisation, but helped advance the nation state. Gutenberg's movable type printing press made possible not only the Reformation, but also a dissemination of knowledge that would lead to a gradually more egalitarian society. The compass, along with other innovations such as the cross-staff, the mariner's astrolabe, and advances in shipbuilding, enabled the navigation of the World Oceans, and the early phases of colonialism. Other inventions had a greater impact on everyday life, such as eyeglasses and the weight-driven clock.
The period saw several important technical innovations, like the principle of linear perspective found in the work of Masaccio, and later described by Brunelleschi. Greater realism was also achieved through the scientific study of anatomy, championed by artists like Donatello. This can be seen particularly well in his sculptures, inspired by the study of classical models. As the centre of the movement shifted to Rome, the period culminated in the High Renaissance masters da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
The ideas of the Italian Renaissance were slow to cross the Alps into northern Europe, but important artistic innovations were made also in the Low Countries. Though not – as previously believed – the inventor of oil painting, Jan van Eyck was a champion of the new medium, and used it to create works of great realism and minute detail. The two cultures influenced each other and learned from each other, but painting in the Netherlands remained more focused on textures and surfaces than the idealized compositions of Italy.
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, written in the early 14th century, merged a medieval world view with classical ideals. Another promoter of the Italian language was Boccaccio with his Decameron. The application of the vernacular did not entail a rejection of Latin, and both Dante and Boccaccio wrote prolifically in Latin as well as Italian, as would Petrarch later (whose Canzoniere also promoted the vernacular and whose contents are considered the first modern lyric poems). Together the three poets established the Tuscan dialect as the norm for the modern Italian language.
Music was an important part of both secular and spiritual culture, and in the universities it made up part of the quadrivium of the liberal arts. From the early 13th century, the dominant sacred musical form had been the motet; a composition with text in several parts. From the 1330s and onwards, emerged the polyphonic style, which was a more complex fusion of independent voices. Polyphony had been common in the secular music of the Provençal troubadours. Many of these had fallen victim to the 13th-century Albigensian Crusade, but their influence reached the papal court at Avignon.
The main representatives of the new style, often referred to as ars nova as opposed to the ars antiqua, were the composers Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut. In Italy, where the Provençal troubadours had also found refuge, the corresponding period goes under the name of trecento, and the leading composers were Giovanni da Cascia, Jacopo da Bologna and Francesco Landini. Prominent reformer of Orthodox Church music from the first half of 14th century was John Kukuzelis; he also introduced a system of notation widely used in the Balkans in the following centuries.
Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished until 1550. The most interesting morality play is The Castle of Perseverance which depicts mankind's progress from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known medieval drama is Everyman. Everyman receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship - only Good Deeds goes with him to the grave.
At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in the Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays, performed during the Christmas season, and court masques. These masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a House of Revels built and an Office of Revels established in 1545.
The end of medieval drama came about due to a number of factors, including the weakening power of the Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation and the banning of religious plays in many countries. Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1558 and the great cycle plays had been silenced by the 1580s. Similarly, religious plays were banned in the Netherlands in 1539, the Papal States in 1547 and in Paris in 1548. The abandonment of these plays destroyed the international theatre that had thereto existed and forced each country to develop its own form of drama. It also allowed dramatists to turn to secular subjects and the reviving interest in Greek and Roman theatre provided them with the perfect opportunity.
After the end of the late Middle Ages period, the Renaissance would spread unevenly over continental Europe from the southern European region. The intellectual transformation of the Renaissance is viewed as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. Europeans would later begin an era of world discovery. Combined with the influx of classical ideas was the invention of printing which facilitated dissemination of the printed word and democratized learning. These two things would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Europeans also discovered new trading routes, as was the case with Columbus’s travel to the Americas in 1492, and Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation of Africa and India in 1498. Their discoveries strengthened the economy and power of European nations.
At the end of the 15th century the Ottoman Empire advanced all over Southeastern Europe, eventually conquering the Byzantine Empire and extending control over the Balkan states. Hungary was the last bastion of the Latin Christian world in the East, and fought to keep its rule over a period of two centuries. After the tragic death of the young king Vladislaus I of Hungary during the Battle of Varna in 1444 against the Ottomans, the Kingdom was placed in the hands of count John Hunyadi, who became Hungary's regent-governor (1446–1453). Hunyadi was considered one of the most relevant military figures of the 15th century: Pope Pius II awarded him the title of Athleta Christi or Champion of Christ for being the only hope of resisting the Ottomans from advancing to Central and Western Europe.
Hunyadi succeeded during the Siege of Belgrade in 1456 against the Ottomans, the biggest victory against that empire in decades. This battle became a real Crusade against the Muslims, as the peasants were motivated by the Franciscan monk Saint John of Capistrano, who came from Italy predicating Holy War. The effect that it created in that time was one of the main factors that helped in achieving the victory. However the premature death of the Hungarian Lord left Pannonia defenseless and in chaos. In an extremely unusual event for the Middle Ages, Hunyadi's son, Matthias, was elected as King of Hungary by the nobility. For the first time, a member of an aristocratic family (and not from a royal family) was crowned.
King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458–1490) was one of the most prominent figures of the period, directing campaigns to the West, conquering Bohemia in answer to the Pope's call for help against the Hussite Protestants. Also, in resolving political hostilities with the German emperor Frederick III of Habsburg, he invaded his western domains. Matthew organized the Black Army of mercenary soldiers; it was considered as the biggest army of its time. Using this powerful tool, the Hungarian king led wars against the Turkish armies and stopped the Ottomans during his reign. After the death of Matthew, and with end of the Black Army, the Ottoman Empire grew in strength and Central Europe was defenseless. At the Battle of Mohács, the forces of the Ottoman Empire annihilated the Hungarian army and Louis II of Hungary drowned in the Csele Creek while trying to escape. The leader of the Hungarian army, Pál Tomori, also died in the battle. This is considered to be one of the final battles of Medieval times.
The changes brought about by these developments have led many scholars to view this period as the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of modern history and early modern Europe. However, the division is somewhat artificial, since ancient learning was never entirely absent from European society. As a result there was developmental continuity between the ancient age (via classical antiquity) and the modern age. Some historians, particularly in Italy, prefer not to speak of the late Middle Ages at all, but rather see the high period of the Middle Ages transitioning to the Renaissance and the modern era.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824, named for wives of the village's founders and the stands of Bur Oak trees. The University of Michigan moved from Detroit to Ann Arbor in 1837, and the city grew at a rapid rate in the early to mid-20th century. During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as a center for left-wing politics. Ann Arbor became a focal point for political activism and served as a hub for the civil-rights movement and anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as various student movements.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824 by land speculators John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey. On 25 May 1824, the town plat was registered with Wayne County as "Annarbour;" this represents the earliest known use of the town's name. Allen and Rumsey decided to name it for their wives, both named Ann, and for the stands of Bur Oak in the 640 acres (260 ha) of land they purchased for $800 from the federal government at $1.25 per acre. The local Ojibwa named the settlement kaw-goosh-kaw-nick, after the sound of Allen's sawmill.
Since the university's establishment in the city in 1837, the histories of the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor have been closely linked. The town became a regional transportation hub in 1839 with the arrival of the Michigan Central Railroad, and a north—south railway connecting Ann Arbor to Toledo and other markets to the south was established in 1878. Throughout the 1840s and the 1850s settlers continued to come to Ann Arbor. While the earlier settlers were primarily of British ancestry, the newer settlers also consisted of Germans, Irish, and African-Americans. In 1851, Ann Arbor was chartered as a city, though the city showed a drop in population during the Depression of 1873. It was not until the early 1880s that Ann Arbor again saw robust growth, with new immigrants coming from Greece, Italy, Russia, and Poland. Ann Arbor saw increased growth in manufacturing, particularly in milling. Ann Arbor's Jewish community also grew after the turn of the 20th century, and its first and oldest synagogue, Beth Israel Congregation, was established in 1916.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as an important center for liberal politics. Ann Arbor also became a locus for left-wing activism and served as a hub for the civil-rights movement and anti-Vietnam War movement, as well as the student movement. The first major meetings of the national left-wing campus group Students for a Democratic Society took place in Ann Arbor in 1960; in 1965, the city was home to the first U.S. teach-in against the Vietnam War. During the ensuing 15 years, many countercultural and New Left enterprises sprang up and developed large constituencies within the city. These influences washed into municipal politics during the early and mid-1970s when three members of the Human Rights Party (HRP) won city council seats on the strength of the student vote. During their time on the council, HRP representatives fought for measures including pioneering antidiscrimination ordinances, measures decriminalizing marijuana possession, and a rent-control ordinance; many of these remain in effect in modified form. Alongside these liberal and left-wing efforts, a small group of conservative institutions were born in Ann Arbor. These include Word of God (established in 1967), a charismatic inter-denominational movement; and the Thomas More Law Center (established in 1999), a religious-conservative advocacy group.
In the past several decades, Ann Arbor has grappled with the effects of sharply rising land values, gentrification, and urban sprawl stretching into outlying countryside. On 4 November 2003, voters approved a greenbelt plan under which the city government bought development rights on agricultural parcels of land adjacent to Ann Arbor to preserve them from sprawling development. Since then, a vociferous local debate has hinged on how and whether to accommodate and guide development within city limits. Ann Arbor consistently ranks in the "top places to live" lists published by various mainstream media outlets every year. In 2008, it was ranked by CNNMoney.com 27th out of 100 "America's best small cities". And in the year 2010, Forbes listed Ann Arbor as one of the most liveable cities in the United States of America.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 28.70 square miles (74.33 km2), of which, 27.83 square miles (72.08 km2) of it is land and 0.87 square miles (2.25 km2) is water, much of which is part of the Huron River. Ann Arbor is about 35 miles (56 km) west of Detroit. Ann Arbor Charter Township adjoins the city's north and east sides. Ann Arbor is situated on the Huron River in a productive agricultural and fruit-growing region. The landscape of Ann Arbor consists of hills and valleys, with the terrain becoming steeper near the Huron River. The elevation ranges from about 750 feet (230 m) along the Huron River to 1,015 feet (309 m) on the city's west side, near the intersection of Maple Road and Pauline Blvd. Generally, the west-central and northwestern parts of the city and U-M's North Campus are the highest parts of the city; the lowest parts are along the Huron River and in the southeast. Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, which is south of the city at 42°13.38′N 83°44.74′W / 42.22300°N 83.74567°W / 42.22300; -83.74567, has an elevation of 839 feet (256 m).
Ann Arbor's "Tree Town" nickname stems from the dense forestation of its parks and residential areas. The city contains more than 50,000 trees along its streets and an equal number in parks. In recent years, the emerald ash borer has destroyed many of the city's approximately 10,500 ash trees. The city contains 157 municipal parks ranging from small neighborhood green spots to large recreation areas. Several large city parks and a university park border sections of the Huron River. Fuller Recreation Area, near the University Hospital complex, contains sports fields, pedestrian and bike paths, and swimming pools. The Nichols Arboretum, owned by the University of Michigan, is a 123-acre (50 ha) arboretum that contains hundreds of plant and tree species. It is on the city's east side, near the university's Central Campus. Located across the Huron River just beyond the university's North Campus is the university's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which contains 300 acres of gardens and a large tropical conservatory.
The Kerrytown Shops, Main Street Business District, the State Street Business District, and the South University Business District are commercial areas in downtown Ann Arbor. Three commercial areas south of downtown include the areas near I-94 and Ann Arbor-Saline Road, Briarwood Mall, and the South Industrial area. Other commercial areas include the Arborland/Washtenaw Avenue and Packard Road merchants on the east side, the Plymouth Road area in the northeast, and the Westgate/West Stadium areas on the west side. Downtown contains a mix of 19th- and early-20th-century structures and modern-style buildings, as well as a farmers' market in the Kerrytown district. The city's commercial districts are composed mostly of two- to four-story structures, although downtown and the area near Briarwood Mall contain a small number of high-rise buildings.
Ann Arbor's residential neighborhoods contain architectural styles ranging from classic 19th-century and early-20th-century designs to ranch-style houses. Among these homes are a number of kit houses built in the early 20th century. Contemporary-style houses are farther from the downtown district. Surrounding the University of Michigan campus are houses and apartment complexes occupied primarily by student renters. Tower Plaza, a 26-story condominium building located between the University of Michigan campus and downtown, is the tallest building in Ann Arbor. The 19th-century buildings and streetscape of the Old West Side neighborhood have been preserved virtually intact; in 1972, the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is further protected by city ordinances and a nonprofit preservation group.
Ann Arbor has a typically Midwestern humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), which is influenced by the Great Lakes. There are four distinct seasons: winters are cold with moderate to heavy snowfall, while summers are very warm and humid, and spring and autumn are short but mild. The area experiences lake effect weather, primarily in the form of increased cloudiness during late fall and early winter. The monthly daily average temperature in July is 72.6 °F (22.6 °C), while the same figure for January is 24.5 °F (−4.2 °C). Temperatures reach or exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on 10 days, and drop to or below 0 °F (−18 °C) on 4.6 nights. Precipitation tends to be the heaviest during the summer months, but most frequent during winter. Snowfall, which normally occurs from November to April but occasionally starts in October, averages 58 inches (147 cm) per season. The lowest recorded temperature was −23 °F (−31 °C) on 11 February 1885 and the highest recorded temperature was 105 °F (41 °C) on 24 July 1934.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 113,394 people, 45,634 households, and 21,704 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,270.33 people per square mile (2653.47/km²). There were 49,982 housing units at an average density of 1,748.0 per square mile (675.0/km²), making it less densely populated than inner-ring Detroit suburbs like Oak Park and Ferndale (and than Detroit proper), but more densely populated than outer-ring suburbs like Livonia or Troy. The racial makeup of the city was 73.0% White (70.4% non-Hispanic White), 7.7% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 14.4% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 1.0% from other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 4.1% of the population.
In 2000, out of 45,693 households, 23.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.8% were married couples living together, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 52.5% were nonfamilies. 35.5% of households were made up of individuals and 6.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.22 and the average family size was 2.90. The age distribution was 16.8% under 18, 26.8% from 18 to 24, 31.2% from 25 to 44, 17.3% from 45 to 64, and 7.9% were 65 or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females there were 97.7 males; while for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.4 males.
The University of Michigan shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly. It employs about 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in the medical center. Other employers are drawn to the area by the university's research and development money, and by its graduates. High tech, health services and biotechnology are other major components of the city's economy; numerous medical offices, laboratories, and associated companies are located in the city. Automobile manufacturers, such as General Motors and Visteon, also employ residents.
High tech companies have located in the area since the 1930s, when International Radio Corporation introduced the first mass-produced AC/DC radio (the Kadette, in 1931) as well as the first pocket radio (the Kadette Jr., in 1933). The Argus camera company, originally a subsidiary of International Radio, manufactured cameras in Ann Arbor from 1936 to the 1960s. Current firms include Arbor Networks (provider of Internet traffic engineering and security systems), Arbortext (provider of XML-based publishing software), JSTOR (the digital scholarly journal archive), MediaSpan (provider of software and online services for the media industries), Truven Health Analytics, and ProQuest, which includes UMI. Ann Arbor Terminals manufactured a video-display terminal called the Ann Arbor Ambassador during the 1980s. Barracuda Networks, which provides networking, security, and storage products based on network appliances and cloud services, opened an engineering office in Ann Arbor in 2008 on Depot St. and recently announced it will move downtown to occupy the building previously used as the Borders headquarters.
Websites and online media companies in or near the city include All Media Guide, the Weather Underground, and Zattoo. Ann Arbor is the home to Internet2 and the Merit Network, a not-for-profit research and education computer network. Both are located in the South State Commons 2 building on South State Street, which once housed the Michigan Information Technology Center Foundation. The city is also home to the headquarters of Google's AdWords program—the company's primary revenue stream. The recent surge in companies operating in Ann Arbor has led to a decrease in its office and flex space vacancy rates. As of 31 December 2012, the total market vacancy rate for office and flex space is 11.80%, a 1.40% decrease in vacancy from one year previous, and the lowest overall vacancy level since 2003. The office vacancy rate decreased to 10.65% in 2012 from 12.08% in 2011, while the flex vacancy rate decreased slightly more, with a drop from 16.50% to 15.02%.
Pfizer, once the city's second largest employer, operated a large pharmaceutical research facility on the northeast side of Ann Arbor. On 22 January 2007, Pfizer announced it would close operations in Ann Arbor by the end of 2008. The facility was previously operated by Warner-Lambert and, before that, Parke-Davis. In December 2008, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved the purchase of the facilities, and the university anticipates hiring 2,000 researchers and staff during the next 10 years. The city is the home of other research and engineering centers, including those of Lotus Engineering, General Dynamics and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other research centers sited in the city are the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory and the Toyota Technical Center. The city is also home to National Sanitation Foundation International (NSF International), the nonprofit non-governmental organization that develops generally accepted standards for a variety of public health related industries and subject areas.
Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1971 with a stock of used books. The Borders chain was based in the city, as was its flagship store until it closed in September 2011. Domino's Pizza's headquarters is near Ann Arbor on Domino's Farms, a 271-acre (110 ha) Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired complex just northeast of the city. Another Ann Arbor-based company is Zingerman's Delicatessen, which serves sandwiches and has developed businesses under a variety of brand names. Zingerman's has grown into a family of companies which offers a variety of products (bake shop, mail order, creamery, coffee) and services (business education). Flint Ink Corp., another Ann Arbor-based company, was the world's largest privately held ink manufacturer until it was acquired by Stuttgart-based XSYS Print Solutions in October 2005. Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuels and services, is also headquartered in Ann Arbor. Aastrom Biosciences, a publicly traded company that develops stem cell treatments for cardiovascular diseases, is headquartered in Ann Arbor.
Several performing arts groups and facilities are on the University of Michigan's campus, as are museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and natural history and sciences. Founded in 1879, the University Musical Society is an independent performing arts organization that presents over 60 events each year, bringing international artists in music, dance, and theater. Since 2001 Shakespeare in the Arb has presented one play by Shakespeare each June, in a large park near downtown. Regional and local performing arts groups not associated with the university include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, the Arbor Opera Theater, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, the Ann Arbor Ballet Theater, the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established in 1954 as Michigan's first chartered ballet company), The Ark, and Performance Network Theatre. Another unique piece of artistic expression in Ann Arbor is the fairy doors. These small portals are examples of installation art and can be found throughout the downtown area.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is located in a renovated and expanded historic downtown fire station. Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably in the downtown area and around the University of Michigan campus. Aside from a large restaurant scene in the Main Street, South State Street, and South University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks first among U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and books sold per capita. The Ann Arbor District Library maintains four branch outlets in addition to its main downtown building. The city is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Several annual events—many of them centered on performing and visual arts—draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such event is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four concurrent juried fairs held on downtown streets. Scheduled on Wednesday through Saturday of the third week of July, the fairs draw upward of half a million visitors. Another is the Ann Arbor Film Festival, held during the third week of March, which receives more than 2,500 submissions annually from more than 40 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award–qualifying festivals in the United States.
Ann Arbor has a long history of openness to marijuana, given Ann Arbor's decriminalization of cannabis, the large number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city (one dispensary, called People's Co-op, was directly across the street from Michigan Stadium until zoning forced it to move one mile to the west), the large number of pro-marijuana residents, and the annual Hash Bash: an event that is held on the first Saturday of April. Until (at least) the successful passage of Michigan's medical marijuana law, the event had arguably strayed from its initial intent, although for years, a number of attendees have received serious legal responses due to marijuana use on University of Michigan property, which does not fall under the City's progressive and compassionate ticketing program.
Ann Arbor is a major scene of college sports, most notably at the University of Michigan, a member of the Big Ten Conference. Several well-known college sports facilities exist in the city, including Michigan Stadium, the largest American football stadium in the world. The stadium was completed in 1927 and cost more than $950,000 to build. It has a 109,901 seating capacity after multiple renovations were made. The stadium is colloquially known as "The Big House". Crisler Center and Yost Ice Arena play host to the school's basketball (both men's and women's) and ice hockey teams, respectively. Concordia University, a member of the NAIA, also fields sports teams.
A person from Ann Arbor is called an "Ann Arborite", and many long-time residents call themselves "townies". The city itself is often called "A²" ("A-squared") or "A2" ("A two") or "AA", "The Deuce" (mainly by Chicagoans), and "Tree Town". With tongue-in-cheek reference to the city's liberal political leanings, some occasionally refer to Ann Arbor as "The People's Republic of Ann Arbor" or "25 square miles surrounded by reality", the latter phrase being adapted from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus's description of Madison, Wisconsin. In A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from Ann Arbor, Garrison Keillor described Ann Arbor as "a city where people discuss socialism, but only in the fanciest restaurants." Ann Arbor sometimes appears on citation indexes as an author, instead of a location, often with the academic degree MI, a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for Michigan. Ann Arbor has become increasingly gentrified in recent years.
Ann Arbor has a council-manager form of government. The City Council has 11 voting members: the mayor and 10 city council members. The mayor and city council members serve two-year terms: the mayor is elected every even-numbered year, while half of the city council members are up for election annually (five in even-numbered and five in odd-numbered years). Two council members are elected from each of the city's five wards. The mayor is elected citywide. The mayor is the presiding officer of the City Council and has the power to appoint all Council committee members as well as board and commission members, with the approval of the City Council. The current mayor of Ann Arbor is Christopher Taylor, a Democrat who was elected as mayor in 2014. Day-to-day city operations are managed by a city administrator chosen by the city council.
Ann Arbor is part of Michigan's 12th congressional district, represented in Congress by Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat. On the state level, the city is part of the 18th district in the Michigan Senate, represented by Democrat Rebekah Warren. In the Michigan House of Representatives, representation is split between the 55th district (northern Ann Arbor, part of Ann Arbor Township, and other surrounding areas, represented by Democrat Adam Zemke), the 53rd district (most of downtown and the southern half of the city, represented by Democrat Jeff Irwin) and the 52nd district (southwestern areas outside Ann Arbor proper and western Washtenaw County, represented by Democrat Gretchen Driskell).
Left-wing politics have been particularly strong in municipal government since the 1960s. Voters approved charter amendments that have lessened the penalties for possession of marijuana (1974), and that aim to protect access to abortion in the city should it ever become illegal in the State of Michigan (1990). In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko's victory in an Ann Arbor city-council race made her the country's first openly homosexual candidate to win public office. In 1975, Ann Arbor became the first U.S. city to use instant-runoff voting for a mayoral race. Adopted through a ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party, which feared a splintering of the liberal vote, the process was repealed in 1976 after use in only one election. As of August 2009, Democrats hold the mayorship and all council seats. The left tilt of politics in the city has earned it the nickname "The People's Republic of Ann Arbor". Nationally, Ann Arbor is located in Michigan's 12th congressional district, represented by Democrat Debbie Dingell.
Other local colleges and universities include Concordia University Ann Arbor, a Lutheran liberal-arts institution; a campus of the University of Phoenix; and Cleary University, a private business school. Washtenaw Community College is located in neighboring Ann Arbor Township. In 2000, the Ave Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law school established by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, opened in northeastern Ann Arbor, but the school moved to Ave Maria, Florida in 2009, and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School acquired the former Ave Maria buildings for use as a branch campus.
Public schools are part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) district. AAPS has one of the country's leading music programs. In September 2008, 16,539 students had been enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. There were 21 elementary schools, five middle schools (Forsythe, Slauson, Tappan, Scarlett, and Clague) three traditional high schools (Pioneer, Huron, and Skyline), and three alternative high schools (Community High, Stone School, and Roberto Clemente) in the district. The district also operates a K-8 open school program, Ann Arbor Open School, out of the former Mack School. This program is open to all families who live within the district. Ann Arbor Public Schools also operates a preschool and family center, with programs for at-risk infants and children before kindergarten. The district has a preschool center with both free and tuition-based programs for preschoolers in the district.
The Ann Arbor News, owned by the Michigan-based Booth Newspapers chain, is the major daily newspaper serving Ann Arbor and the rest of Washtenaw County. The newspaper ended its 174-year print run in 2009, due to economic difficulties. It was replaced by AnnArbor.com, but returned to a limited print publication under its former name in 2013. Another Ann Arbor-based publication that has ceased production was the Ann Arbor Paper, a free monthly. Ann Arbor has been said to be the first significant city to lose its only daily paper. The Ann Arbor Chronicle, an online newspaper, covered local news, including meetings of the library board, county commission, and DDA until September 3, 2014.
Current publications in the city include the Ann Arbor Journal (A2 Journal), a weekly community newspaper; the Ann Arbor Observer, a free monthly local magazine; the Ann Arbor Independent, a locally owned, independent weekly; and Current, a free entertainment-focused alt-weekly. The Ann Arbor Business Review covers local business in the area. Car and Driver magazine and Automobile Magazine are also based in Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan is served by many student publications, including the independent Michigan Daily student newspaper, which reports on local, state, and regional issues in addition to campus news.
Four major AM radio stations based in or near Ann Arbor are WAAM 1600, a conservative news and talk station; WLBY 1290, a business news and talk station; WDEO 990, Catholic radio; and WTKA 1050, which is primarily a sports station. The city's FM stations include NPR affiliate WUOM 91.7; country station WWWW 102.9; and adult-alternative station WQKL 107.1. Freeform station WCBN-FM 88.3 is a local community radio/college radio station operated by the students of the University of Michigan featuring noncommercial, eclectic music and public-affairs programming. The city is also served by public and commercial radio broadcasters in Ypsilanti, the Lansing/Jackson area, Detroit, Windsor, and Toledo.
WPXD channel 31, an affiliate of the ION Television network, is licensed to the city. WHTV channel 18, a MyNetworkTV-affiliated station for the Lansing market, broadcasts from a transmitter in Lyndon Township, west of Ann Arbor. Community Television Network (CTN) is a city-provided cable television channel with production facilities open to city residents and nonprofit organizations. Detroit and Toledo-area radio and television stations also serve Ann Arbor, and stations from Lansing and Windsor, Ontario, can be heard in parts of the area.
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. Originating in 12th-century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as Opus Francigenum ("French work") with the term Gothic first appearing during the later part of the Renaissance. Its characteristics include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress. Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings, such as dorms and rooms.
It is in the great churches and cathedrals and in a number of civic buildings that the Gothic style was expressed most powerfully, its characteristics lending themselves to appeals to the emotions, whether springing from faith or from civic pride. A great number of ecclesiastical buildings remain from this period, of which even the smallest are often structures of architectural distinction while many of the larger churches are considered priceless works of art and are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. For this reason a study of Gothic architecture is largely a study of cathedrals and churches.
The term "Gothic architecture" originated as a pejorative description. Giorgio Vasari used the term "barbarous German style" in his Lives of the Artists to describe what is now considered the Gothic style, and in the introduction to the Lives he attributes various architectural features to "the Goths" whom he holds responsible for destroying the ancient buildings after they conquered Rome, and erecting new ones in this style. At the time in which Vasari was writing, Italy had experienced a century of building in the Classical architectural vocabulary revived in the Renaissance and seen as evidence of a new Golden Age of learning and refinement.

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.