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The easternmost section, about 10 miles (16 km) in width, consists of hilly land that runs along the western bank of the Tennessee River. To the west of this narrow strip of land is a wide area of rolling hills and streams that stretches all the way to the Mississippi River; this area is called the Tennessee Bottoms or bottom land. In Memphis, the Tennessee Bottoms end in steep bluffs overlooking the river. To the west of the Tennessee Bottoms is the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, less than 300 feet (90 m) above sea level. This area of lowlands, flood plains, and swamp land is sometimes referred to as the Delta region. Memphis is the economic center of West Tennessee and the largest city in the state.
Most of the state has a humid subtropical climate, with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as having a mountain temperate climate or a humid continental climate due to cooler temperatures. The Gulf of Mexico is the dominant factor in the climate of Tennessee, with winds from the south being responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year, with highest average monthly precipitation generally in the winter and spring months, between December and April. The driest months, on average, are August to October. On average the state receives 50 inches (130 cm) of precipitation annually. Snowfall ranges from 5 inches (13 cm) in West Tennessee to over 16 inches (41 cm) in the higher mountains in East Tennessee.
Summers in the state are generally hot and humid, with most of the state averaging a high of around 90 °F (32 °C) during the summer months. Winters tend to be mild to cool, increasing in coolness at higher elevations. Generally, for areas outside the highest mountains, the average overnight lows are near freezing for most of the state. The highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) at Perryville on August 9, 1930 while the lowest recorded temperature is −32 °F (−36 °C) at Mountain City on December 30, 1917.
While the state is far enough from the coast to avoid any direct impact from a hurricane, the location of the state makes it likely to be impacted from the remnants of tropical cyclones which weaken over land and can cause significant rainfall, such as Tropical Storm Chris in 1982 and Hurricane Opal in 1995. The state averages around 50 days of thunderstorms per year, some of which can be severe with large hail and damaging winds. Tornadoes are possible throughout the state, with West and Middle Tennessee the most vulnerable. Occasionally, strong or violent tornadoes occur, such as the devastating April 2011 tornadoes that killed 20 people in North Georgia and Southeast Tennessee. On average, the state has 15 tornadoes per year. Tornadoes in Tennessee can be severe, and Tennessee leads the nation in the percentage of total tornadoes which have fatalities. Winter storms are an occasional problem, such as the infamous Blizzard of 1993, although ice storms are a more likely occurrence. Fog is a persistent problem in parts of the state, especially in East Tennessee.
The capital is Nashville, though Knoxville, Kingston, and Murfreesboro have all served as state capitals in the past. Memphis has the largest population of any city in the state. Nashville's 13-county metropolitan area has been the state's largest since c. 1990. Chattanooga and Knoxville, both in the eastern part of the state near the Great Smoky Mountains, each has approximately one-third of the population of Memphis or Nashville. The city of Clarksville is a fifth significant population center, some 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Nashville. Murfreesboro is the sixth-largest city in Tennessee, consisting of some 108,755 residents.
The area now known as Tennessee was first inhabited by Paleo-Indians nearly 12,000 years ago. The names of the cultural groups that inhabited the area between first settlement and the time of European contact are unknown, but several distinct cultural phases have been named by archaeologists, including Archaic (8000–1000 BC), Woodland (1000 BC–1000 AD), and Mississippian (1000–1600 AD), whose chiefdoms were the cultural predecessors of the Muscogee people who inhabited the Tennessee River Valley before Cherokee migration into the river's headwaters.
The first recorded European excursions into what is now called Tennessee were three expeditions led by Spanish explorers, namely Hernando de Soto in 1540, Tristan de Luna in 1559, and Juan Pardo in 1567. Pardo recorded the name "Tanasqui" from a local Indian village, which evolved to the state's current name. At that time, Tennessee was inhabited by tribes of Muscogee and Yuchi people. Possibly because of European diseases devastating the Indian tribes, which would have left a population vacuum, and also from expanding European settlement in the north, the Cherokee moved south from the area now called Virginia. As European colonists spread into the area, the Indian populations were forcibly displaced to the south and west, including all Muscogee and Yuchi peoples, the Chickasaw and Choctaw, and ultimately, the Cherokee in 1838.
The first British settlement in what is now Tennessee was built in 1756 by settlers from the colony of South Carolina at Fort Loudoun, near present-day Vonore. Fort Loudoun became the westernmost British outpost to that date. The fort was designed by John William Gerard de Brahm and constructed by forces under British Captain Raymond Demeré. After its completion, Captain Raymond Demeré relinquished command on August 14, 1757 to his brother, Captain Paul Demeré. Hostilities erupted between the British and the neighboring Overhill Cherokees, and a siege of Fort Loudoun ended with its surrender on August 7, 1760. The following morning, Captain Paul Demeré and a number of his men were killed in an ambush nearby, and most of the rest of the garrison was taken prisoner.
During the American Revolutionary War, Fort Watauga at Sycamore Shoals (in present-day Elizabethton) was attacked (1776) by Dragging Canoe and his warring faction of Cherokee who were aligned with the British Loyalists. These renegade Cherokee were referred to by settlers as the Chickamauga. They opposed North Carolina's annexation of the Washington District and the concurrent settling of the Transylvania Colony further north and west. The lives of many settlers were spared from the initial warrior attacks through the warnings of Dragging Canoe's cousin, Nancy Ward. The frontier fort on the banks of the Watauga River later served as a 1780 staging area for the Overmountain Men in preparation to trek over the Appalachian Mountains, to engage, and to later defeat the British Army at the Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
Three counties of the Washington District (now part of Tennessee) broke off from North Carolina in 1784 and formed the State of Franklin. Efforts to obtain admission to the Union failed, and the counties (now numbering eight) had re-joined North Carolina by 1789. North Carolina ceded the area to the federal government in 1790, after which it was organized into the Southwest Territory. In an effort to encourage settlers to move west into the new territory, in 1787 the mother state of North Carolina ordered a road to be cut to take settlers into the Cumberland Settlements—from the south end of Clinch Mountain (in East Tennessee) to French Lick (Nashville). The Trace was called the "North Carolina Road" or "Avery's Trace", and sometimes "The Wilderness Road" (although it should not be confused with Daniel Boone's "Wilderness Road" through the Cumberland Gap).
Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796 as the 16th state. It was the first state created from territory under the jurisdiction of the United States federal government. Apart from the former Thirteen Colonies only Vermont and Kentucky predate Tennessee's statehood, and neither was ever a federal territory. The state boundaries, according to the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, Article I, Section 31, stated that the beginning point for identifying the boundary was the extreme height of the Stone Mountain, at the place where the line of Virginia intersects it, and basically ran the extreme heights of mountain chains through the Appalachian Mountains separating North Carolina from Tennessee past the Indian towns of Cowee and Old Chota, thence along the main ridge of the said mountain (Unicoi Mountain) to the southern boundary of the state; all the territory, lands and waters lying west of said line are included in the boundaries and limits of the newly formed state of Tennessee. Part of the provision also stated that the limits and jurisdiction of the state would include future land acquisition, referencing possible land trade with other states, or the acquisition of territory from west of the Mississippi River.
During the administration of U.S. President Martin Van Buren, nearly 17,000 Cherokees—along with approximately 2,000 black slaves owned by Cherokees—were uprooted from their homes between 1838 and 1839 and were forced by the U.S. military to march from "emigration depots" in Eastern Tennessee (such as Fort Cass) toward the more distant Indian Territory west of Arkansas. During this relocation an estimated 4,000 Cherokees died along the way west. In the Cherokee language, the event is called Nunna daul Isunyi—"the Trail Where We Cried." The Cherokees were not the only American Indians forced to emigrate as a result of the Indian removal efforts of the United States, and so the phrase "Trail of Tears" is sometimes used to refer to similar events endured by other American Indian peoples, especially among the "Five Civilized Tribes". The phrase originated as a description of the earlier emigration of the Choctaw nation.
In February 1861, secessionists in Tennessee's state government—led by Governor Isham Harris—sought voter approval for a convention to sever ties with the United States, but Tennessee voters rejected the referendum by a 54–46% margin. The strongest opposition to secession came from East Tennessee (which later tried to form a separate Union-aligned state). Following the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops from Tennessee and other states in response, Governor Isham Harris began military mobilization, submitted an ordinance of secession to the General Assembly, and made direct overtures to the Confederate government. The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861. On June 8, 1861, with people in Middle Tennessee having significantly changed their position, voters approved a second referendum calling for secession, becoming the last state to do so.
Many major battles of the American Civil War were fought in Tennessee—most of them Union victories. Ulysses S. Grant and the U.S. Navy captured control of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers in February 1862. They held off the Confederate counterattack at Shiloh in April. Memphis fell to the Union in June, following a naval battle on the Mississippi River in front of the city. The Capture of Memphis and Nashville gave the Union control of the western and middle sections; this control was confirmed at the Battle of Murfreesboro in early January 1863 and by the subsequent Tullahoma Campaign.
Confederates held East Tennessee despite the strength of Unionist sentiment there, with the exception of extremely pro-Confederate Sullivan County. The Confederates, led by General James Longstreet, did attack General Burnside's Fort Sanders at Knoxville and lost. It was a big blow to East Tennessee Confederate momentum, but Longstreet won the Battle of Bean's Station a few weeks later. The Confederates besieged Chattanooga during the Chattanooga Campaign in early fall 1863, but were driven off by Grant in November. Many of the Confederate defeats can be attributed to the poor strategic vision of General Braxton Bragg, who led the Army of Tennessee from Perryville, Kentucky to another Confederate defeat at Chattanooga.
When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, Tennessee was mostly held by Union forces. Thus, Tennessee was not among the states enumerated in the Proclamation, and the Proclamation did not free any slaves there. Nonetheless, enslaved African Americans escaped to Union lines to gain freedom without waiting for official action. Old and young, men, women and children camped near Union troops. Thousands of former slaves ended up fighting on the Union side, nearly 200,000 in total across the South.
In 1864, Andrew Johnson (a War Democrat from Tennessee) was elected Vice President under Abraham Lincoln. He became President after Lincoln's assassination in 1865. Under Johnson's lenient re-admission policy, Tennessee was the first of the seceding states to have its elected members readmitted to the U.S. Congress, on July 24, 1866. Because Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, it was the only one of the formerly secessionist states that did not have a military governor during the Reconstruction period.
After the formal end of Reconstruction, the struggle over power in Southern society continued. Through violence and intimidation against freedmen and their allies, White Democrats regained political power in Tennessee and other states across the South in the late 1870s and 1880s. Over the next decade, the state legislature passed increasingly restrictive laws to control African Americans. In 1889 the General Assembly passed four laws described as electoral reform, with the cumulative effect of essentially disfranchising most African Americans in rural areas and small towns, as well as many poor Whites. Legislation included implementation of a poll tax, timing of registration, and recording requirements. Tens of thousands of taxpaying citizens were without representation for decades into the 20th century. Disfranchising legislation accompanied Jim Crow laws passed in the late 19th century, which imposed segregation in the state. In 1900, African Americans made up nearly 24% of the state's population, and numbered 480,430 citizens who lived mostly in the central and western parts of the state.
In 2002, businessman Phil Bredesen was elected as the 48th governor. Also in 2002, Tennessee amended the state constitution to allow for the establishment of a lottery. Tennessee's Bob Corker was the only freshman Republican elected to the United States Senate in the 2006 midterm elections. The state constitution was amended to reject same-sex marriage. In January 2007, Ron Ramsey became the first Republican elected as Speaker of the State Senate since Reconstruction, as a result of the realignment of the Democratic and Republican parties in the South since the late 20th century, with Republicans now elected by conservative voters, who previously had supported Democrats.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2015, Tennessee had an estimated population of 6,600,299, which is an increase of 50,947, from the prior year and an increase of 254,194, or 4.01%, since the year 2010. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 142,266 people (that is 493,881 births minus 351,615 deaths), and an increase from net migration of 219,551 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 59,385 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 160,166 people. Twenty percent of Tennesseans were born outside the South in 2008, compared to a figure of 13.5% in 1990.
In 2000, the five most common self-reported ethnic groups in the state were: American (17.3%), African American (13.0%), Irish (9.3%), English (9.1%), and German (8.3%). Most Tennesseans who self-identify as having American ancestry are of English and Scotch-Irish ancestry. An estimated 21–24% of Tennesseans are of predominantly English ancestry. In the 1980 census 1,435,147 Tennesseans claimed "English" or "mostly English" ancestry out of a state population of 3,221,354 making them 45% of the state at the time.
Tennessee is home to several Protestant denominations, such as the National Baptist Convention (headquartered in Nashville); the Church of God in Christ and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (both headquartered in Memphis); the Church of God and The Church of God of Prophecy (both headquartered in Cleveland). The Free Will Baptist denomination is headquartered in Antioch; its main Bible college is in Nashville. The Southern Baptist Convention maintains its general headquarters in Nashville. Publishing houses of several denominations are located in Nashville.
Major outputs for the state include textiles, cotton, cattle, and electrical power. Tennessee has over 82,000 farms, roughly 59 percent of which accommodate beef cattle. Although cotton was an early crop in Tennessee, large-scale cultivation of the fiber did not begin until the 1820s with the opening of the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. The upper wedge of the Mississippi Delta extends into southwestern Tennessee, and it was in this fertile section that cotton took hold. Soybeans are also heavily planted in West Tennessee, focusing on the northwest corner of the state.
Major corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include FedEx, AutoZone and International Paper, all based in Memphis; Pilot Corporation and Regal Entertainment Group, based in Knoxville; Eastman Chemical Company, based in Kingsport; the North American headquarters of Nissan Motor Company, based in Franklin; Hospital Corporation of America and Caterpillar Financial, based in Nashville; and Unum, based in Chattanooga. Tennessee is also the location of the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, a $2 billion polysilicon production facility by Wacker Chemie in Bradley County, and a $1.2 billion polysilicon production facility by Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville.
The Tennessee income tax does not apply to salaries and wages, but most income from stock, bonds and notes receivable is taxable. All taxable dividends and interest which exceed the $1,250 single exemption or the $2,500 joint exemption are taxable at the rate of 6%. The state's sales and use tax rate for most items is 7%. Food is taxed at a lower rate of 5.25%, but candy, dietary supplements and prepared food are taxed at the full 7% rate. Local sales taxes are collected in most jurisdictions, at rates varying from 1.5% to 2.75%, bringing the total sales tax to between 8.5% and 9.75%, one of the highest levels in the nation. Intangible property is assessed on the shares of stock of stockholders of any loan company, investment company, insurance company or for-profit cemetery companies. The assessment ratio is 40% of the value multiplied by the tax rate for the jurisdiction. Tennessee imposes an inheritance tax on decedents' estates that exceed maximum single exemption limits ($1,000,000 for deaths in 2006 and thereafter).
Tourism contributes billions of dollars each year to the state's economy and Tennessee is ranked among the Top 10 destinations in the US. In 2014 a record 100 million people visited the state resulting in $17.7 billion in tourism related spending within the state, an increase of 6.3% over 2013; tax revenue from tourism equaled $1.5 billion. Each county in Tennessee saw at least $1 million from tourism while 19 counties received at least $100 million (Davidson, Shelby, and Sevier counties were the top three). Tourism-generated jobs for the state reached 152,900, a 2.8% increase. International travelers to Tennessee accounted for $533 million in spending.
In 2013 tourism within the state from local citizens accounted for 39.9% of tourists, the second highest originating location for tourists to Tennessee is the state of Georgia, accounting for 8.4% of tourists.:17 Forty-four percent of stays in the state were "day trips", 25% stayed one night, 15% stayed two nights, and 11% stayed 4 or more nights. The average stay was 2.16 nights, compared to 2.03 nights for the US as a whole.:40 The average person spent $118 per day: 29% on transportation, 24% on food, 17% on accommodation, and 28% on shopping and entertainment.:44
Interstate 40 crosses the state in a west-east orientation. Its branch interstate highways include I-240 in Memphis; I-440 in Nashville; I-140 from Knoxville to Alcoa and I-640 in Knoxville. I-26, although technically an east-west interstate, runs from the North Carolina border below Johnson City to its terminus at Kingsport. I-24 is an east-west interstate that runs cross-state from Chattanooga to Clarksville. In a north-south orientation are highways I-55, I-65, I-75, and I-81. Interstate 65 crosses the state through Nashville, while Interstate 75 serves Chattanooga and Knoxville and Interstate 55 serves Memphis. Interstate 81 enters the state at Bristol and terminates at its junction with I-40 near Dandridge. I-155 is a branch highway from I-55. The only spur highway of I-75 in Tennessee is I-275, which is in Knoxville. When completed, I-69 will travel through the western part of the state, from South Fulton to Memphis. A branch interstate, I-269 also exists from Millington to Collierville.
Tennessee politics, like that of most U.S. states, are dominated by the Republican and the Democratic parties. Historian Dewey W. Grantham traces divisions in the state to the period of the American Civil War: for decades afterward, the eastern third of the state was Republican and the western two thirds voted Democrat. This division was related to the state's pattern of farming, plantations and slaveholding. The eastern section was made up of yeoman farmers, but Middle and West Tennessee cultivated crops, such as tobacco and cotton, that were dependent on the use of slave labor. These areas became defined as Democratic after the war.
During Reconstruction, freedmen and former free people of color were granted the right to vote; most joined the Republican Party. Numerous African Americans were elected to local offices, and some to state office. Following Reconstruction, Tennessee continued to have competitive party politics. But in the 1880s, the white-dominated state government passed four laws, the last of which imposed a poll tax requirement for voter registration. These served to disenfranchise most African Americans, and their power in the Republican Party, the state, and cities where they had significant population was markedly reduced. In 1900 African Americans comprised 23.8 percent of the state's population, concentrated in Middle and West Tennessee. In the early 1900s, the state legislature approved a form of commission government for cities based on at-large voting for a few positions on a Board of Commission; several adopted this as another means to limit African-American political participation. In 1913 the state legislature enacted a bill enabling cities to adopt this structure without legislative approval.
After disenfranchisement of blacks, the GOP in Tennessee was historically a sectional party supported by whites only in the eastern part of the state. In the 20th century, except for two nationwide Republican landslides of the 1920s (in 1920, when Tennessee narrowly supported Warren G. Harding over Ohio Governor James Cox, and in 1928, when it more decisively voted for Herbert Hoover over New York Governor Al Smith, a Catholic), the state was part of the Democratic Solid South until the 1950s. In that postwar decade, it twice voted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Allied Commander of the Armed Forces during World War II. Since then, more of the state's voters have shifted to supporting Republicans, and Democratic presidential candidates have carried Tennessee only four times.
By 1960 African Americans comprised 16.45% of the state's population. It was not until after the mid-1960s and passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that they were able to vote in full again, but new devices, such as at-large commission city governments, had been adopted in several jurisdictions to limit their political participation. Former Gov. Winfield Dunn and former U.S. Sen. Bill Brock wins in 1970 helped make the Republican Party competitive among whites for the statewide victory. Tennessee has selected governors from different parties since 1970. Increasingly the Republican Party has become the party of white conservatives.
In the early 21st century, Republican voters control most of the state, especially in the more rural and suburban areas outside of the cities; Democratic strength is mostly confined to the urban cores of the four major cities, and is particularly strong in the cities of Nashville and Memphis. The latter area includes a large African-American population. Historically, Republicans had their greatest strength in East Tennessee before the 1960s. Tennessee's 1st and 2nd congressional districts, based in the Tri-Cities and Knoxville, respectively, are among the few historically Republican districts in the South. Those districts' residents supported the Union over the Confederacy during the Civil War; they identified with the GOP after the war and have stayed with that party ever since. The 1st has been in Republican hands continuously since 1881, and Republicans (or their antecedents) have held it for all but four years since 1859. The 2nd has been held continuously by Republicans or their antecedents since 1859.
In the 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore, a former Democratic U.S. Senator from Tennessee, failed to carry his home state, an unusual occurrence but indicative of strengthening Republican support. Republican George W. Bush received increased support in 2004, with his margin of victory in the state increasing from 4% in 2000 to 14% in 2004. Democratic presidential nominees from Southern states (such as Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton) usually fare better than their Northern counterparts do in Tennessee, especially among split-ticket voters outside the metropolitan areas.
The Baker v. Carr (1962) decision of the US Supreme Court established the principle of "one man, one vote", requiring state legislatures to redistrict to bring Congressional apportionment in line with decennial censuses. It also required both houses of state legislatures to be based on population for representation and not geographic districts such as counties. This case arose out of a lawsuit challenging the longstanding rural bias of apportionment of seats in the Tennessee legislature. After decades in which urban populations had been underrepresented in many state legislatures, this significant ruling led to an increased (and proportional) prominence in state politics by urban and, eventually, suburban, legislators and statewide officeholders in relation to their population within the state. The ruling also applied to numerous other states long controlled by rural minorities, such as Alabama, Vermont, and Montana.
The Highway Patrol is the primary law enforcement entity that concentrates on highway safety regulations and general non-wildlife state law enforcement and is under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wildlife, boating, and fisheries regulations outside of state parks. The TBI maintains state-of-the-art investigative facilities and is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. Tennessee State Park Rangers are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system.
Local law enforcement is divided between County Sheriff's Offices and Municipal Police Departments. Tennessee's Constitution requires that each County have an elected Sheriff. In 94 of the 95 counties the Sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in the county and has jurisdiction over the county as a whole. Each Sheriff's Office is responsible for warrant service, court security, jail operations and primary law enforcement in the unincorporated areas of a county as well as providing support to the municipal police departments. Incorporated municipalities are required to maintain a police department to provide police services within their corporate limits.
Capital punishment has existed in Tennessee at various times since statehood. Before 1913 the method of execution was hanging. From 1913 to 1915 there was a hiatus on executions but they were reinstated in 1916 when electrocution became the new method. From 1972 to 1978, after the Supreme Court ruled (Furman v. Georgia) capital punishment unconstitutional, there were no further executions. Capital punishment was restarted in 1978, although those prisoners awaiting execution between 1960 and 1978 had their sentences mostly commuted to life in prison. From 1916 to 1960 the state executed 125 inmates. For a variety of reasons there were no further executions until 2000. Since 2000, Tennessee has executed six prisoners and has 73 prisoners on death row (as of April 2015).
In Knoxville, the Tennessee Volunteers college team has played in the Southeastern Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association since 1932. The football team has won 13 SEC championships and 25 bowls, including four Sugar Bowls, three Cotton Bowls, an Orange Bowl and a Fiesta Bowl. Meanwhile, the men's basketball team has won four SEC championships and reached the NCAA Elite Eight in 2010. In addition, the women's basketball team has won a host of SEC regular-season and tournament titles along with 8 national titles.
Post-punk is a heterogeneous type of rock music that emerged in the wake of the punk movement of the 1970s. Drawing inspiration from elements of punk rock while departing from its musical conventions and wider cultural affiliations, post-punk music was marked by varied, experimentalist sensibilities and its "conceptual assault" on rock tradition. Artists embraced electronic music, black dance styles and the avant-garde, as well as novel recording technology and production techniques. The movement also saw the frequent intersection of music with art and politics, as artists liberally drew on sources such as critical theory, cinema, performance art and modernist literature. Accompanying these musical developments were subcultures that produced visual art, multimedia performances, independent record labels and fanzines in conjunction with the music.
The term "post-punk" was first used by journalists in the late 1970s to describe groups moving beyond punk's sonic template into disparate areas. Many of these artists, initially inspired by punk's DIY ethic and energy, ultimately became disillusioned with the style and movement, feeling that it had fallen into commercial formula, rock convention and self-parody. They repudiated its populist claims to accessibility and raw simplicity, instead seeing an opportunity to break with musical tradition, subvert commonplaces and challenge audiences. Artists moved beyonds punk's focus on the concerns of a largely white, male, working class population and abandoned its continued reliance on established rock and roll tropes, such as three-chord progressions and Chuck Berry-based guitar riffs. These artists instead defined punk as "an imperative to constant change", believing that "radical content demands radical form".
Though the music varied widely between regions and artists, the post-punk movement has been characterized by its "conceptual assault" on rock conventions and rejection of aesthetics perceived of as traditionalist, hegemonic or rockist in favor of experimentation with production techniques and non-rock musical styles such as dub, electronic music, disco, noise, jazz, krautrock, world music and the avant-garde. While post-punk musicians often avoided or intentionally obscured conventional influences, previous musical styles did serve as touchstones for the movement, including particular brands of glam, art rock and "[the] dark undercurrent of '60s music".[nb 1] According to Reynolds, artists once again approached the studio as an instrument, using new recording methods and pursuing novel sonic territories. Author Matthew Bannister wrote that post-punk artists rejected the high cultural references of 1960s rock artists like the Beatles and Bob Dylan as well as paradigms that defined "rock as progressive, as art, as 'sterile' studio perfectionism ... by adopting an avant-garde aesthetic".
Nicholas Lezard described post-punk as "a fusion of art and music". The era saw the robust appropriation of ideas from literature, art, cinema, philosophy, politics and critical theory into musical and pop cultural contexts. Artists sought to refuse the common distinction between high and low culture and returned to the art school tradition found in the work of artists such as Captain Beefheart and David Bowie. Among major influences on a variety of post-punk artists were writers such as William S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard, avant-garde political scenes such as Situationism and Dada, and intellectual movements such as postmodernism. Many artists viewed their work in explicitly political terms. Additionally, in some locations, the creation of post-punk music was closely linked to the development of efficacious subcultures, which played important roles in the production of art, multimedia performances, fanzines and independent labels related to the music. Many post-punk artists maintained an anti-corporatist approach to recording and instead seized on alternate means of producing and releasing music. Journalists also became an important element of the culture, and popular music magazines and critics became immersed in the movement.
The scope of the term "post-punk" has been subject to controversy. While some critics, such as AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, have employed the term "post-punk" to denote "a more adventurous and arty form of punk", others have suggested it pertains to a set of artistic sensibilities and approaches rather than any unifying style. Music journalist and post-punk scholar Simon Reynolds has advocated that post-punk be conceived as "less a genre of music than a space of possibility", suggesting that "what unites all this activity is a set of open-ended imperatives: innovation; willful oddness; the willful jettisoning of all things precedented or 'rock'n'roll'". Nicholas Lezard, problematizing the categorization of post-punk as a genre, described the movement as "so multifarious that only the broadest use of the term is possible".
Generally, post-punk music is defined as music that emerged from the cultural milieu of punk rock in the late 1970s, although many groups now categorized as post-punk were initially subsumed under the broad umbrella of punk or new wave music, only becoming differentiated as the terms came to signify more narrow styles. Additionally, the accuracy of the term's chronological prefix "post" has been disputed, as various groups commonly labeled post-punk in fact predate the punk rock movement. Reynolds defined the post-punk era as occurring loosely between 1978 and 1984.
During the initial punk era, a variety of entrepreneurs interested in local punk-influenced music scenes began founding independent record labels, including Rough Trade (founded by record shop owner Geoff Travis) and Factory (founded by Manchester-based television personality Tony Wilson). By 1977, groups began pointedly pursuing methods of releasing music independently , an idea disseminated in particular by the Buzzcocks' release of their Spiral Scratch EP on their own label as well as the self-released 1977 singles of Desperate Bicycles. These DIY imperatives would help form the production and distribution infrastructure of post-punk and the indie music scene that later blossomed in the mid-1980s.
In late 1977, music writers for Sounds first used the terms "New Musick" and "post punk" to describe British acts such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Wire, who began experimenting with sounds, lyrics and aesthetics that differed significantly from their punk contemporaries. Writer Jon Savage described some of these early developments as exploring "harsh urban scrapings [,] controlled white noise" and "massively accented drumming". In January 1978, singer John Lydon (then known as Johnny Rotten) announced the break-up of his pioneering punk band the Sex Pistols, citing his disillusionment with punk's musical predictability and cooption by commercial interests, as well as his desire to explore more diverse interests.
As the initial punk movement dwindled, vibrant new scenes began to coalesce out of a variety of bands pursuing experimental sounds and wider conceptual territory in their work. Many of these artists drew on backgrounds in art and viewed their music as invested in particular political or aesthetic agendas. British music publications such as the NME and Sounds developed an influential part in this nascent post-punk culture, with writers like Jon Savage, Paul Morley and Ian Penman developing a dense (and often playful) style of criticism that drew on critical theory, radical politics and an eclectic variety of other sources.
Weeks after ending the Sex Pistols, Lydon formed the experimental group Public Image Ltd and declared the project to be "anti music of any kind". Public Image and other acts such as the Pop Group and the Slits had begun experimenting with dance music, dub production techniques and the avant-garde, while punk-indebted Manchester acts such as Joy Division, The Fall and A Certain Ratio developed unique styles which drew on a similarly disparate range of influences across music and modernist literature. Bands such as Scritti Politti, Gang of Four and This Heat incorporated Leftist political philosophy and their own art school studies in their work.
The innovative production techniques devised by post-punk producers such as Martin Hannett and Dennis Bovell during this period would become an important element of the emerging music, with studio experimentation taking a central role. A variety of groups that predated punk, such as Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, experimented with crude production techniques and electronic instruments in tandem with performance art methods and influence from transgressive literature, ultimately helping to pioneer industrial music. Throbbing Gristle's independent label Industrial Records would become a hub for this scene and provide it with its namesake.
In the mid 1970s, various American groups (some with ties to Downtown Manhattan's punk scene, including Television and Suicide) had begun expanding on the vocabulary of punk music. Midwestern groups such as Pere Ubu and Devo drew inspiration from the region's derelict industrial environments, employing conceptual art techniques, musique concrète and unconventional verbal styles that would presage the post-punk movement by several years. A variety of subsequent groups, including New York-based Talking Heads and Boston-based Mission of Burma, combined elements of punk with art school sensibilities. In 1978, the former band began a series of collaborations with British ambient pioneer and ex-Roxy Music member Brian Eno, experimenting with Dada-influenced lyrical techniques, dance music, and African polyrhythms. San Francisco's vibrant post-punk scene was centered around such groups as Chrome, the Residents and Tuxedomoon, who incorporated multimedia experimentation, film and ideas from Antonin Artaud's Theater of Cruelty.
Also emerging during this period was New York's no wave movement, a short-lived art and music scene that began in part as a reaction against punk's recycling of traditionalist rock tropes and often reflected an abrasive, confrontational and nihilistic worldview. No wave musicians such as the Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, DNA, Theoretical Girls and Rhys Chatham instead experimented with noise, dissonance and atonality in addition to non-rock styles. The former four groups were included on the Eno-produced No New York compilation, often considered the quintessential testament to the scene. The no wave-affiliated label ZE Records was founded in 1978, and would also produce acclaimed and influential compilations in subsequent years.
British post-punk entered the 1980s with support from members of the critical community—American critic Greil Marcus characterised "Britain's postpunk pop avant-garde" in a 1980 Rolling Stone article as "sparked by a tension, humour and sense of paradox plainly unique in present day pop music"—as well as media figures such as BBC DJ John Peel, while several groups, such as PiL and Joy Division, achieved some success in the popular charts. The network of supportive record labels that included Industrial, Fast, E.G., Mute, Axis/4AD and Glass continued to facilitate a large output of music, by artists such as the Raincoats, Essential Logic, Killing Joke, the Teardrop Explodes, and the Psychedelic Furs.
However, during this period, major figures and artists in the scene began leaning away from underground aesthetics. In the music press, the increasingly esoteric writing of post-punk publications soon began to alienate their readerships; it is estimated that within several years, NME suffered the loss of half its circulation. Writers like Paul Morley began advocating "overground brightness" instead of the experimental sensibilities promoted in early years. Morley's own musical collaboration with engineer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, the Art of Noise, would attempt to bring sampled and electronic sounds to the pop mainstream. A variety of more pop-oriented groups, including ABC, the Associates, Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow (the latter two managed by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren) emerged in tandem with the development of the New Romantic subcultural scene. Emphasizing glamour, fashion, and escapism in distinction to the experimental seriousness of earlier post-punk groups, the club-oriented scene drew some suspicion from denizens of the movement.
Artists such as Gary Numan, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synthpop style that drew more heavily from electronic and synthesizer music and benefited from the rise of MTV. Post-punk artists such as Scritti Politti's Green Gartside and Josef K's Paul Haig, previously engaged in avant-garde practices, turned away from these approaches and pursued mainstream styles and commercial success. These new developments, in which post-punk artists attempted to bring subversive ideas into the pop mainstream, began to be categorized under the marketing term new pop.
In the early 1980s, Downtown Manhattan's no wave scene transitioned from its abrasive origins into a more dance-oriented sound, with compilations such as ZE's Mutant Disco (1981) highlighting a newly playful sensibility borne out of the city's clash of hip hop, disco and punk styles, as well as dub reggae and world music influences. Artists such as Liquid Liquid, the B-52s, Cristina, Arthur Russell, James White and the Blacks and Lizzy Mercier Descloux pursued a formula described by Luc Sante as "anything at all + disco bottom". The decadent parties and art installations of venues such as Club 57 and the Mudd Club became cultural hubs for musicians and visual artists alike, with figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Michael Holman frequenting the scene. Other no wave-indebted groups such as Swans, Glenn Branca, the Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras and Sonic Youth instead continued exploring the early scene's forays into noise and more abrasive territory.
In Germany, groups such as Einstürzende Neubauten developed a unique style of industrial music, utilizing avant-garde noise, homemade instruments and found objects. Members of that group would later go on to collaborate with members of the Birthday Party. In Brazil, the post-punk scene grew after the generation of Brasilia rock with bands such as Legião Urbana, Capital Inicial and Plebe Rude and then the opening of the music club Madame Satã in São Paulo, with acts like Cabine C, Titãs, Patife Band, Fellini and Mercenárias, as documented on compilations like The Sexual Life of the Savages and the Não Wave/Não São Paulo series, released in the UK, Germany and Brazil, respectively.[citation needed]
The original post-punk movement ended as the bands associated with the movement turned away from its aesthetics, often in favor of more commercial sounds. Many of these groups would continue recording as part of the new pop movement, with entryism becoming a popular concept. In the United States, driven by MTV and modern rock radio stations, a number of post-punk acts had an influence on or became part of the Second British Invasion of "New Music" there. Some shifted to a more commercial new wave sound (such as Gang of Four), while others were fixtures on American college radio and became early examples of alternative rock. Perhaps the most successful band to emerge from post-punk was U2, who combined elements of religious imagery together with political commentary into their often anthemic music.
Until recently, in most critical writing the post-punk era was "often dismissed as an awkward period in which punk's gleeful ructions petered out into the vacuity of the Eighties". Contemporary scholars have argued to the contrary, asserting that the period produced significant innovations and music on its own. Simon Reynolds described the period as "a fair match for the sixties in terms of the sheer amount of great music created, the spirit of adventure and idealism that infused it, and the way that the music seemed inextricably connected to the political and social turbulence of its era". Nicholas Lezard wrote that the music of the period "was avant-garde, open to any musical possibilities that suggested themselves, united only in the sense that it was very often cerebral, concocted by brainy young men and women interested as much in disturbing the audience, or making them think, as in making a pop song".
Post-punk was an eclectic genre which resulted in a wide variety of musical innovations and helped merge white and black musical styles. Out of the post-punk milieu came the beginnings of various subsequent genres, including new wave, dance-rock, New Pop, industrial music, synthpop, post-hardcore, neo-psychedelia alternative rock and house music. Bands such as Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and the Cure played in a darker, more morose style of post-punk that lead to the development of the gothic rock genre.
At the turn of the 21st century, a post-punk revival developed in British and American alternative and indie rock, which soon started appearing in other countries, as well. The earliest sign of a revival was the emergence of various underground bands in the mid-'90s. However, the first commercially successful bands – the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Neils Children and Editors – surfaced in the late 1990s to early 2000s, as did several dance-oriented bands such as the Rapture, Radio 4 and LCD Soundsystem. Additionally, some darker post-punk bands began to appear in the indie music scene in the 2010s, including Cold Cave, She Wants Revenge, Eagulls, the Soft Moon, She Past Away and Light Asylum, who were also affiliated with the darkwave revival, as well as A Place to Bury Strangers, who combined early post-punk and shoegaze. These bands tend to draw a fanbase who are a combination of the indie music subculture, older post-punk fans and the current goth subculture. In the 2010s, Savages played a music reminiscent of early British post-punk bands of the late '70s.
In Canada, the term "football" may refer to Canadian football and American football collectively, or to either sport specifically, depending on context. The two sports have shared origins and are closely related but have significant differences. In particular, Canadian football has 12 players on the field per team rather than 11; the field is roughly 10 yards wider, and 10 yards longer between end-zones that are themselves 10 yards deeper; and a team has only three downs to gain 10 yards, which results in less offensive rushing than in the American game. In the Canadian game all players on the defending team, when a down begins, must be at least 1 yard from the line of scrimmage. (The American game has a similar "neutral zone" but it is only the length of the football.)
Canadian football is also played at the high school, junior, collegiate, and semi-professional levels: the Canadian Junior Football League, formed May 8, 1974, and Quebec Junior Football League are leagues for players aged 18–22, many post-secondary institutions compete in Canadian Interuniversity Sport for the Vanier Cup, and senior leagues such as the Alberta Football League have grown in popularity in recent years. Great achievements in Canadian football are enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
The first written account of a game played was on October 15, 1862, on the Montreal Cricket Grounds. It was between the First Battalion Grenadier Guards and the Second Battalion Scots Fusilier Guards resulting in a win by the Grenadier Guards 3 goals, 2 rouges to nothing.[citation needed] In 1864, at Trinity College, Toronto, F. Barlow Cumberland, Frederick A. Bethune, and Christopher Gwynn, one of the founders of Milton, Massachusetts, devised rules based on rugby football. The game gradually gained a following, with the Hamilton Football Club formed on November 3, 1869, (the oldest football club in Canada). Montreal formed a team April 8, 1872, Toronto was formed on October 4, 1873, and the Ottawa FBC on September 20, 1876.
The first attempt to establish a proper governing body and adopted the current set of Rugby rules was the Foot Ball Association of Canada, organized on March 24, 1873 followed by the Canadian Rugby Football Union (CRFU) founded June 12, 1880, which included teams from Ontario and Quebec. Later both the Ontario and Quebec Rugby Football Union (ORFU and QRFU) were formed (January 1883), and then the Interprovincial (1907) and Western Interprovincial Football Union (1936) (IRFU and WIFU). The CRFU reorganized into an umbrella organization forming the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU) in 1891. The original forerunners to the current Canadian Football League, was established in 1956 when the IRFU and WIFU formed an umbrella organization, The Canadian Football Council (CFC). And then in 1958 the CFC left The CRFU to become The CFL.
The Burnside rules closely resembling American Football that were incorporated in 1903 by The ORFU, was an effort to distinguish it from a more rugby-oriented game. The Burnside Rules had teams reduced to 12 men per side, introduced the Snap-Back system, required the offensive team to gain 10 yards on three downs, eliminated the Throw-In from the sidelines, allowed only six men on the line, stated that all goals by kicking were to be worth two points and the opposition was to line up 10 yards from the defenders on all kicks. The rules were an attempt to standardize the rules throughout the country. The CIRFU, QRFU and CRU refused to adopt the new rules at first. Forward passes were not allowed in the Canadian game until 1929, and touchdowns, which had been five points, were increased to six points in 1956, in both cases several decades after the Americans had adopted the same changes. The primary differences between the Canadian and American games stem from rule changes that the American side of the border adopted but the Canadian side did not (originally, both sides had three downs, goal posts on the goal lines and unlimited forward motion, but the American side modified these rules and the Canadians did not). The Canadian field width was one rule that was not based on American rules, as the Canadian game played in wider fields and stadiums that were not as narrow as the American stadiums.
The Grey Cup was established in 1909 after being donated by Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, The Governor General of Canada as the championship of teams under the CRU for the Rugby Football Championship of Canada. Initially an amateur competition, it eventually became dominated by professional teams in the 1940s and early 1950s. The Ontario Rugby Football Union, the last amateur organization to compete for the trophy, withdrew from competition in 1954. The move ushered in the modern era of Canadian professional football.
Canadian football has mostly been confined to Canada, with the United States being the only other country to have hosted a high-level Canadian football game. The CFL's controversial "South Division" as it would come to be officially known attempted to put CFL teams in the United States playing under Canadian rules between 1992 and 1995. The move was aborted after three years; the Baltimore Stallions were the most successful of the numerous Americans teams to play in the CFL, winning the 83rd Grey Cup. Continuing financial losses, a lack of proper Canadian football venues, a pervasive belief that the American teams were simply pawns to provide the struggling Canadian teams with expansion fee revenue, and the return of the NFL to Baltimore prompted the end of Canadian football on the American side of the border.
Amateur football is governed by Football Canada. At the university level, 26 teams play in four conferences under the auspices of Canadian Interuniversity Sport; the CIS champion is awarded the Vanier Cup. Junior football is played by many after high school before joining the university ranks. There are 20 junior teams in three divisions in the Canadian Junior Football League competing for the Canadian Bowl. The Quebec Junior Football League includes teams from Ontario and Quebec who battle for the Manson Cup.
The Canadian football field is 150 yards (137 m) long and 65 yards (59 m) wide with end zones 20 yards (18 m) deep, and goal lines 110 yards (101 m) apart. At each goal line is a set of 40-foot-high (12 m) goalposts, which consist of two uprights joined by an 18 1⁄2-foot-long (5.6 m) crossbar which is 10 feet (3 m) above the goal line. The goalposts may be H-shaped (both posts fixed in the ground) although in the higher-calibre competitions the tuning-fork design (supported by a single curved post behind the goal line, so that each post starts 10 feet (3 m) above the ground) is preferred. The sides of the field are marked by white sidelines, the goal line is marked in white, and white lines are drawn laterally across the field every 5 yards (4.6 m) from the goal line. These lateral lines are called "yard lines" and often marked with the distance in yards from and an arrow pointed toward the nearest goal line. In previous decades, arrows were not used and every yard line was usually marked with the distance to the goal line, including the goal line itself which was marked with a "0"; in most stadiums today, the 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-, and 50-yard lines are marked with numbers, with the goal line sometimes being marked with a "G". The centre (55-yard) line usually is marked with a "C". "Hash marks" are painted in white, parallel to the yardage lines, at 1 yard (0.9 m) intervals, 24 yards (21.9 m) from the sidelines. On fields that have a surrounding running track, such as Commonwealth Stadium, Molson Stadium, and many universities, the end zones are often cut off in the corners to accommodate the track. In 2014, Edmonton placed turf over the track to create full end zones. This was particularly common among U.S.-based teams during the CFL's American expansion, where few American stadiums were able to accommodate the much longer and noticeably wider CFL field.
At the beginning of a match, an official tosses a coin and allows the captain of the visiting team call heads or tails. The captain of the team winning the coin toss is given the option of having first choice, or of deferring first choice to the other captain. The captain making first choice may either choose a) to kick off or receive the kick and the beginning of the half, or b) which direction of the field to play in. The remaining choice is given to the opposing captain. Before the resumption of play in the second half, the captain that did not have first choice in the first half is given first choice. Teams usually choose to defer, so it is typical for the team that wins the coin toss to kick to begin the first half and receive to begin the second.
Play stops when the ball carrier's knee, elbow, or any other body part aside from the feet and hands, is forced to the ground (a tackle); when a forward pass is not caught on the fly (during a scrimmage); when a touchdown (see below) or a field goal is scored; when the ball leaves the playing area by any means (being carried, thrown, or fumbled out of bounds); or when the ball carrier is in a standing position but can no longer move forwards (called forward progress). If no score has been made, the next play starts from scrimmage.
Before scrimmage, an official places the ball at the spot it was at the stop of clock, but no nearer than 24 yards from the sideline or 1 yard from the goal line. The line parallel to the goal line passing through the ball (line from sideline to sideline for the length of the ball) is referred to as the line of scrimmage. This line is similar to "no-man's land"; players must stay on their respective sides of this line until the play has begun again. For a scrimmage to be valid the team in possession of the football must have seven players, excluding the quarterback, within one yard of the line of scrimmage. The defending team must stay a yard or more back from the line of scrimmage.
On the field at the beginning of a play are two teams of 12 (unlike 11 in American football). The team in possession of the ball is the offence and the team defending is referred to as the defence. Play begins with a backwards pass through the legs (the snap) by a member of the offensive team, to another member of the offensive team. This is usually the quarterback or punter, but a "direct snap" to a running back is also not uncommon. If the quarterback or punter receives the ball, he may then do any of the following:
Each play constitutes a down. The offence must advance the ball at least ten yards towards the opponents' goal line within three downs or forfeit the ball to their opponents. Once ten yards have been gained the offence gains a new set of three downs (rather than the four downs given in American football). Downs do not accumulate. If the offensive team completes 10 yards on their first play, they lose the other two downs and are granted another set of three. If a team fails to gain ten yards in two downs they usually punt the ball on third down or try to kick a field goal (see below), depending on their position on the field. The team may, however use its third down in an attempt to advance the ball and gain a cumulative 10 yards.
There are many rules to contact in this type of football. First, the only player on the field who may be legally tackled is the player currently in possession of the football (the ball carrier). Second, a receiver, that is to say, an offensive player sent down the field to receive a pass, may not be interfered with (have his motion impeded, be blocked, etc.) unless he is within one yard of the line of scrimmage (instead of 5 yards (4.6 m) in American football). Any player may block another player's passage, so long as he does not hold or trip the player he intends to block. The kicker may not be contacted after the kick but before his kicking leg returns to the ground (this rule is not enforced upon a player who has blocked a kick), and the quarterback, having already thrown the ball, may not be hit or tackled.
Infractions of the rules are punished with penalties, typically a loss of yardage of 5, 10 or 15 yards against the penalized team. Minor violations such as offside (a player from either side encroaching into scrimmage zone before the play starts) are penalized five yards, more serious penalties (such as holding) are penalized 10 yards, and severe violations of the rules (such as face-masking) are typically penalized 15 yards. Depending on the penalty, the penalty yardage may be assessed from the original line of scrimmage, from where the violation occurred (for example, for a pass interference infraction), or from where the ball ended after the play. Penalties on the offence may, or may not, result in a loss of down; penalties on the defence may result in a first down being automatically awarded to the offence. For particularly severe conduct, the game official(s) may eject players (ejected players may be substituted for), or in exceptional cases, declare the game over and award victory to one side or the other. Penalties do not affect the yard line which the offence must reach to gain a first down (unless the penalty results in a first down being awarded); if a penalty against the defence results in the first down yardage being attained, then the offence is awarded a first down.
Penalties never result in a score for the offence. For example, a point-of-foul infraction committed by the defence in their end zone is not ruled a touchdown, but instead advances the ball to the one-yard line with an automatic first down. For a distance penalty, if the yardage is greater than half the distance to the goal line, then the ball is advanced half the distance to the goal line, though only up to the one-yard line (unlike American football, in Canadian football no scrimmage may start inside either one-yard line). If the original penalty yardage would have resulted in a first down or moving the ball past the goal line, a first down is awarded.
In most cases, the non-penalized team will have the option of declining the penalty; in which case the results of the previous play stand as if the penalty had not been called. One notable exception to this rule is if the kicking team on a 3rd down punt play is penalized before the kick occurs: the receiving team may not decline the penalty and take over on downs. After the kick is made, change of possession occurs and subsequent penalties are assessed against either the spot where the ball is caught, or the runback.
During the last three minutes of a half, the penalty for failure to place the ball in play within the 20-second play clock, known as "time count" (this foul is known as "delay of game" in American football), is dramatically different from during the first 27 minutes. Instead of the penalty being 5 yards with the down repeated, the base penalty (except during convert attempts) becomes loss of down on first or second down, and 10 yards on third down with the down repeated. In addition, as noted previously, the referee can give possession to the defence for repeated deliberate time count violations on third down.
The clock does not run during convert attempts in the last three minutes of a half. If the 15 minutes of a quarter expire while the ball is live, the quarter is extended until the ball becomes dead. If a quarter's time expires while the ball is dead, the quarter is extended for one more scrimmage. A quarter cannot end while a penalty is pending: after the penalty yardage is applied, the quarter is extended one scrimmage. Note that the non-penalized team has the option to decline any penalty it considers disadvantageous, so a losing team cannot indefinitely prolong a game by repeatedly committing infractions.
In the CFL, if the game is tied at the end of regulation play, then each team is given an equal number of chances to break the tie. A coin toss is held to determine which team will take possession first; the first team scrimmages the ball at the opponent's 35-yard line and advances through a series of downs until it scores or loses possession. If the team scores a touchdown, starting with the 2010 season, it is required to attempt a 2-point conversion. The other team then scrimmages the ball at the same 35-yard line and has the same opportunity to score. After the teams have completed their possessions, if one team is ahead, then it is declared the winner; otherwise, the two teams each get another chance to score, scrimmaging from the other 35-yard line. After this second round, if there is still no winner, during the regular season the game ends as a tie. In a playoff or championship game, the teams continue to attempt to score from alternating 35-yard lines, until one team is leading after both have had an equal number of possessions.
The Seven Years' War was fought between 1755 and 1764, the main conflict occurring in the seven-year period from 1756 to 1763. It involved every great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire, and affected Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. Considered a prelude to the two world wars and the greatest European war since the Thirty Years War of the 17th century, it once again split Europe into two coalitions, led by Great Britain on one side and France on the other. For the first time, aiming to curtail Britain and Prussia's ever-growing might, France formed a grand coalition of its own, which ended with failure as Britain rose as the world's predominant power, altering the European balance of power.
Realizing that war was imminent, Prussia preemptively struck Saxony and quickly overran it. The result caused uproar across Europe. Because of Prussia's alliance with Britain, Austria formed an alliance with France, seeing an opportunity to recapture Silesia, which had been lost in a previous war. Reluctantly, by following the imperial diet, most of the states of the empire joined Austria's cause. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states (especially Hanover). Sweden, fearing Prussia's expansionist tendencies, went to war in 1757 to protect its Baltic dominions, seeing its chance when virtually all of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France and together they launched an utterly unsuccessful invasion of Portugal in 1762. The Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, fearing Prussia's ambition on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762.
Many middle and small powers in Europe, unlike in the previous wars, tried to steer clear away from the escalating conflict, even though they had interests in the conflict or with the belligerents, like Denmark-Norway. The Dutch Republic, long-time British ally, kept its neutrality intact, fearing the odds against Britain and Prussia fighting the great powers of Europe, even tried to prevent Britain's domination in India. Naples, Sicily, and Savoy, although sided with Franco-Spanish party, declined to join the coalition under the fear of British power. The taxation needed for war caused the Russian people considerable hardship, being added to the taxation of salt and alcohol begun by Empress Elizabeth in 1759 to complete her addition to the Winter Palace. Like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia.
The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, and superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent. The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement; a subsequent conflict, known as Pontiac's War, was also unsuccessful in returning them to their pre-war status. In Europe, the war began disastrously for Prussia, but a combination of good luck and successful strategy saw King Frederick the Great manage to retrieve the Prussian position and retain the status quo ante bellum. Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia (its original goal) its military prowess was also noted by the other powers. The involvement of Portugal, Spain and Sweden did not return them to their former status as great powers. France was deprived of many of its colonies and had saddled itself with heavy war debts that its inefficient financial system could barely handle. Spain lost Florida but gained French Louisiana and regained control of its colonies, e.g., Cuba and the Philippines, which had been captured by the British during the war. France and other European powers avenged their defeat in 1778 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, with hopes of destroying Britain's dominance once and for all.
The war has been described as the first "world war", although this label was also given to various earlier conflicts like the Eighty Years' War, the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession, and to later conflicts like the Napoleonic Wars. The term "Second Hundred Years' War" has been used in order to describe the almost continuous level of world-wide conflict during the entire 18th century, reminiscent of the more famous and compact struggle of the 14th century.
Realizing that war was imminent, Prussia preemptively struck Saxony and quickly overran it. The result caused uproar across Europe. Because of Prussia's alliance with Britain, Austria formed an alliance with France, seeing an opportunity to recapture Silesia, which had been lost in a previous war. Reluctantly, by following the imperial diet, most of the states of the empire joined Austria's cause. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states (especially Hanover). Sweden, fearing Prussia's expansionist tendencies, went to war in 1757 to protect its Baltic dominions, seeing its chance when virtually all of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France and together they launched a disastrous invasion of Portugal in 1762. The Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, fearing Prussia's ambition on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762.
Many middle and small powers in Europe, unlike in the previous wars, tried to steer clear away from the escalating conflict, even though they had interests in the conflict or with the belligerents, like Denmark-Norway. The Dutch Republic, long-time British ally, kept its neutrality intact, fearing the odds against Britain and Prussia fighting the great powers of Europe, even tried to prevent Britain's domination in India. Naples, Sicily, and Savoy, although sided with Franco-Spanish party, declined to join the coalition under the fear of British power. The taxation needed for war caused the Russian people considerable hardship, being added to the taxation of salt and alcohol begun by Empress Elizabeth in 1759 to complete her addition to the Winter Palace. Like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia.
The war was successful for Great Britain, which gained the bulk of New France in North America, Spanish Florida, some individual Caribbean islands in the West Indies, the colony of Senegal on the West African coast, and superiority over the French trading outposts on the Indian subcontinent. The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement; a subsequent conflict, known as Pontiac's War, was also unsuccessful in returning them to their pre-war status. In Europe, the war began disastrously for Prussia, but a combination of good luck and successful strategy saw King Frederick the Great manage to retrieve the Prussian position and retain the status quo ante bellum. Prussia emerged as a new European great power. The involvement of Portugal, Spain and Sweden did not return them to their former status as great powers. France was deprived of many of its colonies and had saddled itself with heavy war debts that its inefficient financial system could barely handle. Spain lost Florida but gained French Louisiana and regained control of its colonies, e.g., Cuba and the Philippines, which had been captured by the British during the war. France and other European powers will soon avenge their defeat in 1778 when American Revolutionary War broke out, with hopes of destroying Britain's dominance once and for all.
The War of the Austrian Succession had seen the belligerents aligned on a time-honoured basis. France’s traditional enemies, Great Britain and Austria, had coalesced just as they had done against Louis XIV. Prussia, the leading anti-Austrian state in Germany, had been supported by France. Neither group, however, found much reason to be satisfied with its partnership: British subsidies to Austria had produced nothing of much help to the British, while the British military effort had not saved Silesia for Austria. Prussia, having secured Silesia, had come to terms with Austria in disregard of French interests. Even so, France had concluded a defensive alliance with Prussia in 1747, and the maintenance of the Anglo-Austrian alignment after 1748 was deemed essential by the Duke of Newcastle, British secretary of state in the ministry of his brother Henry Pelham. The collapse of that system and the aligning of France with Austria and of Great Britain with Prussia constituted what is known as the “diplomatic revolution” or the “reversal of alliances.”
In 1756 Austria was making military preparations for war with Prussia and pursuing an alliance with Russia for this purpose. On June 2, 1746, Austria and Russia concluded a defensive alliance that covered their own territory and Poland against attack by Prussia or the Ottoman Empire. They also agreed to a secret clause that promised the restoration of Silesia and the countship of Glatz (now Kłodzko, Poland) to Austria in the event of hostilities with Prussia. Their real desire, however, was to destroy Frederick’s power altogether, reducing his sway to his electorate of Brandenburg and giving East Prussia to Poland, an exchange that would be accompanied by the cession of the Polish Duchy of Courland to Russia. Aleksey Petrovich, Graf (count) Bestuzhev-Ryumin, grand chancellor of Russia under Empress Elizabeth, was hostile to both France and Prussia, but he could not persuade Austrian statesman Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz to commit to offensive designs against Prussia so long as Prussia was able to rely on French support.
The Hanoverian king George II of Great Britain was passionately devoted to his family’s continental holdings, but his commitments in Germany were counterbalanced by the demands of the British colonies overseas. If war against France for colonial expansion was to be resumed, then Hanover had to be secured against Franco-Prussian attack. France was very much interested in colonial expansion and was willing to exploit the vulnerability of Hanover in war against Great Britain, but it had no desire to divert forces to central Europe for Prussia's interest.
French policy was, moreover, complicated by the existence of the le Secret du roi—a system of private diplomacy conducted by King Louis XV. Unbeknownst to his foreign minister, Louis had established a network of agents throughout Europe with the goal of pursuing personal political objectives that were often at odds with France’s publicly stated policies. Louis’s goals for le Secret du roi included an attempt to win the Polish crown for his kinsman Louis François de Bourbon, prince de Conti, and the maintenance of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey as French client states in opposition to Russian and Austrian interests.
Frederick saw Saxony and Polish west Prussia as potential fields for expansion but could not expect French support if he started an aggressive war for them. If he joined the French against the British in the hope of annexing Hanover, he might fall victim to an Austro-Russian attack. The hereditary elector of Saxony, Augustus III, was also elective King of Poland as Augustus III, but the two territories were physically separated by Brandenburg and Silesia. Neither state could pose as a great power. Saxony was merely a buffer between Prussia and Austrian Bohemia, whereas Poland, despite its union with the ancient lands of Lithuania, was prey to pro-French and pro-Russian factions. A Prussian scheme for compensating Frederick Augustus with Bohemia in exchange for Saxony obviously presupposed further spoliation of Austria.
In the attempt to satisfy Austria at the time, Britain gave their electoral vote in Hanover for the candidacy of Maria Theresa's son, Joseph, as the Holy Roman Emperor, much to the dismay of Frederick and Prussia. Not only that, Britain would soon join the Austro-Russian alliance, but complications arose. Britain's basic framework for the alliance itself was to protect Hanover's interests against France. While at the same time, Kaunitz kept approaching the French in the hope of establishing such alliance with Austria. Not only that, France had no intention to ally with Russia, who meddled with their affairs in Austria's succession war, years earlier, and saw the complete dismemberment of Prussia as unacceptable to the stability of Central Europe.
Years later, Kaunitz kept trying to establish France's alliance with Austria. He tried as hard as he could for Austria to not get entangled in Hanover's political affairs, and was even willing to trade Austrian Netherlands for France's aid in recapturing Silesia. Frustrated by this decision and by the Dutch Republic's insistence on neutrality, Britain soon turned to Russia. On September 30, 1755, Britain pledged financial aid to Russia in order to station 50,000 troops on the Livonian-Lithunian border, so they could defend Britain's interests in Hanover immediately. Besthuzev, assuming the preparation was directed against Prussia, was more than happy to obey the request of the British. Unbeknownst to the other powers, King George II also made overtures to the Prussian king; Frederick, who began fearing the Austro-Russian intentions, and was excited to welcome a rapprochement with Britain. On January 16, 1756, the Convention of Westminster was signed wherein Britain and Prussia promised to aid one another in order to achieve lasting peace and stability in Europe.
The carefully coded word in the agreement proved no less catalytic for the other European powers. The results were absolute chaos. Empress Elizabeth of Russia was outraged at the duplicity of Britain's position. Not only that France was so enraged, and terrified, by the sudden betrayal of its only ally. Austria, particularly Kaunitz, used this situation to their utmost advantage. The now-isolated France was forced to accede to the Austro-Russian alliance or face ruin. Thereafter, on May 1, 1756, the First Treaty of Versailles was signed, in which both nations pledged 24.000 troops to defend each other in the case of an attack. This diplomatic revolution proved to be an important cause of the war; although both treaties were self-defensive in nature, the actions of both coalitions made the war virtually inevitable.
The most important French fort planned was intended to occupy a position at "the Forks" where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio River (present day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Peaceful British attempts to halt this fort construction were unsuccessful, and the French proceeded to build the fort they named Fort Duquesne. British colonial militia from Virginia were then sent to drive them out. Led by George Washington, they ambushed a small French force at Jumonville Glen on 28 May 1754 killing ten, including commander Jumonville. The French retaliated by attacking Washington's army at Fort Necessity on 3 July 1754 and forced Washington to surrender.
News of this arrived in Europe, where Britain and France unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate a solution. The two nations eventually dispatched regular troops to North America to enforce their claims. The first British action was the assault on Acadia on 16 June 1755 in the Battle of Fort Beauséjour, which was immediately followed by their expulsion of the Acadians. In July British Major General Edward Braddock led about 2,000 army troops and provincial militia on an expedition to retake Fort Duquesne, but the expedition ended in disastrous defeat. In further action, Admiral Edward Boscawen fired on the French ship Alcide on 8 June 1755, capturing it and two troop ships. In September 1755, French and British troops met in the inconclusive Battle of Lake George.

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