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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Sisulu#:~:text=Max%20Vuyisile%20Sisulu%20(born%2023%20August%201945) | Max Sisulu | Max Vuyisile Sisulu (born 23 August 1945) is a South African politician and businessman who was Speaker of the National Assembly from May 2009 to May 2014. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), he was a member of the party's National Executive Committee from December 1994 to December 2017.
Born in Soweto, Sisulu is the son of anti-apartheid activists Albertina and Walter Sisulu. Between 1963 and 1990, at the height of apartheid, he lived outside of South Africa with the exiled ANC and its military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe. An economist by training, he was the ANC's head of economic planning from 1986 to 1990, and he remained influential in ANC economic policymaking in subsequent decades.
In April 1994, in South Africa's first democratic elections, Sisulu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament. For much of the First Parliament, he was the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). Then, from February 1997 to November 1998, he served as Chief Whip of the Majority Party. However, he resigned from his seat in November 1998 to work in business, first at Denel and later at Sasol.
He did not return to Parliament until the April 2009 general election, pursuant to which he was elected as the Speaker. He was the first man to serve as Speaker since the end of apartheid, and the first black man ever to serve as Speaker in the South African Parliament. He served in the office throughout the Fourth Parliament but was replaced by Baleka Mbete after the May 2014 general election.
== Early life ==
Sisulu was born on 23 August 1945 in Soweto. He was the eldest of five children born to Albertina and Walter Sisulu, who were prominent anti-apartheid activists in the African National Congress; his younger siblings were Mlungisi, Zwelakhe, Lindiwe, and Nonkululeko. In 1963, when he was aged 19, he and his mother were arrested and detained after his father went into hiding. Shortly after his release, he left South Africa for exile; his father, meanwhile, was apprehended by police later that year and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Rivonia Trial.
== Exile and early career ==
Leaving South Africa via Gaborone, Botswana, Sisulu travelled to Tanzania, where he joined Umkhonto we Sizwe. Over the next decade, he spent stints in various regions of Africa and Europe. Among other things, he completed a master's degree in political economy from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow in 1969, a senior military training course in Skhodnya, Soviet Union in 1972, and a one year-research fellowship at the University of Amsterdam in 1985. He also spent a period as the ANC's representative in Budapest. From 1986 to 1990, he was stationed at the ANC's headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, where he was head of the ANC's Department of Economic Planning.
In 1990, Sisulu returned to South Africa amid the negotiations to end apartheid. The following year, he became the founding director of the Director of the National Institute of Economic Policies, an ANC think-tank based in Johannesburg. In addition, in 1993, he completed Master of Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
== First Parliament: 1994–1998 ==
In South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in April 1994, Sisulu was elected to represent the ANC in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament. He was also appointed as the inaugural chairperson of the portfolio committee that was tasked with oversight of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the ANC's flagship economic and social policy; Sisulu had helped draft the policy itself. During the same period, Sisulu rose in the ANC: he was elected to the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) for the first time at the party's congress in 1994, and in 1997 he was elected both to the NEC and to the smaller National Working Committee (NWC) at the next congress in 1997.
In February 1997, he was appointed as the second Chief Whip of the Majority Party, succeeding Arnold Stofile. Upon taking office, he announced a plan to restore and upgrade the status of Parliament's RDP committee. He also introduced academic training programmes for Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff. However, his tenure as whip was brief: he resigned from Parliament in November 1998 to enter the corporate world.
== Corporate hiatus: 1998–2009 ==
He was deputy chief executive officer of Denel from 1998 to 2001 and then group general manager of Sasol from 2003 to 2006. Thereafter he held various directorships, including at African Rainbow Minerals.
During this period, Sisulu remained active in the ANC; he was re-elected to the NEC, and re-appointed to the NWC, both in December 2002 and then in December 2007. He was particularly prominent as the chairperson of the NEC's Subcommittee on Economic Transformation, and the Mail & Guardian said that he brought "serious business nous" and "much-needed technical expertise" to the NWC.
== Fourth Parliament: 2009–2014 ==
In the April 2009 general election, Sisulu returned to the National Assembly, ranked 39th on the ANC's party list. When Parliament opened on 6 May, he was elected unopposed to replace Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde as the Speaker of the National Assembly, with Nomaindia Mfeketo as his deputy. He was nominated to the position by Andrew Mlangeni. The first man to hold the office since 1994, he used his acceptance speech to urge members to "resist the urge" to call him Madam Speaker. He served as Speaker throughout the Fourth Parliament, during which time he was "widely respected" for his fairness and levity. He also oversaw the establishment of the parliamentary budget office.
Simultaneously, Sisulu continued to serve as chairperson of the ANC NEC's Subcommittee on Economic Transformation until after the party's 53rd National Conference in December 2012, when Enoch Godongwana was elected to take over the position. The same conference re-elected Sisulu to his fifth term on the NEC, though he did not return to the NWC.
=== Nkandlagate ===
The end of Sisulu's term as Speaker was partly consumed by the so-called Nkandlagate scandal, which concerned state-funded upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead. In March 2014, shortly before the end of the parliamentary term, the Public Protector released a report which concluded that Zuma had benefitted unduly from the upgrades and should be required to repay the state. Opposition parties said that Sisulu was responsive to their requests for the Public Protector's report to be tabled in the National Assembly, and Sisulu ultimately announced that he would establish an ad hoc parliamentary committee to consider the report. Opposition politician Lindiwe Mazibuko welcomed his decision as a "bold move" and "a victory for Parliament, the constitution and accountability".
There were later reports – disputed by the ANC – that Sisulu had been rebuked by the party for establishing the committee. Although the ad hoc committee initially intended to complete its work before the end of the parliamentary term, it did not do so.
=== Departure ===
In the May 2014 general election, Sisulu was ranked 14th on the ANC's party list, but the ANC announced that Baleka Mbete would replace him as Speaker. Steven Friedman and others suggested that the move indicated that the ANC wanted to exert stricter partisan control of the Speaker's office and of Parliament. Sisulu was sworn in as an ordinary Member of Parliament on 21 May, but he resigned from his seat eight days later when he failed to gain appointment to Zuma's cabinet. Observers were surprised by his exclusion, but the ANC strenuously denied rumours that he was being punished for having instigated the Nkandla investigation.
== Retirement ==
After leaving Parliament, Sisulu remained active in the ANC. In 2016, he emerged as a critic of President Zuma, first expressing public dissatisfaction in April in the aftermath of the Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker judgment. Later that year he called – both in public and during an ANC NEC meeting – for Zuma's resignation. He also said publicly that Zuma's failure to support Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was "bloody foolish", and he attended a civil society march in support of Gordhan in Pretoria. Sisulu served the remainder of his five-year term as a member of the NEC, but he was not re-elected at the next national conference in December 2017.
On 31 January 2018, he was appointed as an independent non-executive director of Harmony Gold.
== Personal life ==
In 1966, Sisulu married Mercy Vutela, the daughter of activist Greta Ncapayi; she had been his high school sweetheart and reunited with him in exile in Moscow. Their son, Mlungisi, became a diplomat in the South African embassies to Khartoum and Prague; he died of cerebral malaria in London, England in January 2008, aged 40. Sisulu's first marriage was shortlived. His second child, Shaka, was born in 1979 to Makhosazana Msimang, Mendi Msimang's daughter, and went on to become an activist and media personality.
In September 1986, he married Elinor Sisulu, a writer whom he had met in Amsterdam in 1985. She later published a biography of her parents-in-law.
== References ==
== External links ==
Mr Max Vuyisile Sisulu at People's Assembly
Appearances on C-SPAN |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Rosen | Saul Rosen | Saul Rosen (February 8, 1922 – June 9, 1991) was an American computer science pioneer.
He is known for designing the software of the first transistor-based computer Philco Transac S-2000, and for his work on programming language design which influenced the ALGOL language.
In 1947, he was involved in establishing the Association for Computing Machinery; in particular he was the first editor of its journal Communications of the ACM.
In 1979 he co-founded the journal Annals of the History of Computing, then published by AFIPS.
== Selected publications ==
Saul Rosen (1953). "Modular transformation of certain series". Duke Mathematical Journal. 20 (4): 593–599. doi:10.1215/s0012-7094-53-02060-2.
Saul Rosen (Jan 1967). Programming Systems and Languages. McGraw Hill Computer Science Series. New York/NY: McGraw Hill. ISBN 0070537089.
Saul Rosen (Jul 1968). Electronic Computers —- A Historical Survey in Print (Computer Science Technical Report). Purdue University Department.
Saul Rosen (1990). The Origins of Modern Computing (Computer Science Technical Report / Purdue e-Pubs). Purdue University.
Saul Rosen (Sep 1990). "The Origins of Modern Computing". Computing Reviews. 31 (9): 449–481.
Saul Rosen (Jun 1991). PHILCO: Some Recollections of the PHILCO TRANSAC S-2000 (Computer Science Technical Reports / Purdue e-Pubs). Purdue University.
== See also ==
List of pioneers in computer science
== References ==
== External links ==
Saul Rosen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Vita at rcac.purdue.edu
Publications at DBLP
Pictures of Rosen via cs.purdue.edu:
5 Apr 1966, handling a magnetic tape
5 Apr 1966, at the typewriter
30 Jul 1968, portrait |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi%C8%99tea_Mare#:~:text=Vi%C8%99tea%20Mare%20(Romanian%20pronunciation%3A%20%5B,Negoiu%20Peak%20(2%2C535%20m). | Viștea Mare | Viștea Mare (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈviʃte̯a ˈmare]) is a mountain peak in the Făgăraș Mountains of the Southern Carpathians of Brașov County in Romania. With an elevation of 2,527 metres (8,291 ft), it is the third highest peak in Romania after Moldoveanu Peak (2,544 m) and Negoiu Peak (2,535 m).
== External links ==
Vistea Mare Peak and many other photos from the Romanian Carpathians Archived 2009-06-18 at the Wayback Machine
(in Romanian and English) Salvamontvictoria.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinia_pinifolia | Darwinia pinifolia | Darwinia pinifolia is a species of flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is a low, spreading to prostrate shrub with linear leaves and dense heads of erect, red to purple flowers.
== Description ==
Darwinia pinifolia is a low, spreading to prostrate shrub that typically grows to height of 10–50 cm (3.9–19.7 in) and has many branches. Its leaves are linear, more or less round to triangular in cross-section, about 12 mm (0.47 in) long and more or less sessile. The flowers are erect, red to purple, arranged in dense heads on the ends of branches, surrounded by egg-shaped or spatula-shaped bracteoles that are shorter than the flowers. The sepal tube is nearly 6.5 mm (0.26 in) long with broadly egg-shaped lobes about as long as the petals. Flowering occurs from September to February.
== Taxonomy ==
This species was first formally described in 1839 by John Lindley who gave it the name Hedaroma pinifolium in A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony. In 1865, George Bentham changed the name to Pimelea pinifolia in Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany. The specific epithet (pinifolia) means "pine-leaved".
== Distribution and habitat ==
Darwinia pinifolia is typically found in sandy soils in winter-wet areas in the Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-western Western Australia.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanothamnus_ramosus | Cyanothamnus ramosus | Cyanothamnus ramosus is a species of plant in the citrus family Rutaceae and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is an erect, mostly glabrous shrub with pinnate leaves with up to seven leaflets, and white, four-petalled flowers with blue or pale green backs.
== Description ==
Cyanothamnus ramosus is a slender, erect, mostly glabrous, woody shrub which grows to a height of 30 cm (10 in). The leaves are pinnate, 10–30 mm (0.4–1 in) long and have between three and seven leaflets on a petiole 1–11 mm (0.039–0.433 in) long. The leaflets are 5–15 mm (0.20–0.59 in) long. There are up to three flowers arranged in the leaf axils on pedicels 2–15 mm (0.079–0.591 in) long. The four sepals are thick, glabrous and egg-shaped, 1.5–5 mm (0.059–0.20 in) long. The petals are white with blue or pale green backs, broadly elliptic, 3–5 mm (0.12–0.20 in) long and prominently glandular. Flowering occurs from May to October.
== Taxonomy and naming ==
This species was first formally described in 1839 by John Lindley who gave it the name Cyanothamnus ramosus and published the description in A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony. In 1863, George Bentham changed the name to Boronia ramosa. In a 2013 paper in the journal Taxon, Marco Duretto and others restored Lindley's name Cyanothamnus ramosus on the basis of cladistic analysis. The specific epithet (ramosus) is a Latin word meaning "full of branches".
In 1971 and 1998, Paul Wilson described three subspecies in the journal Nuytsia. The names have subsequently been changed to reflect the change in the genus name:
Cyanothamnus ramosus subsp. anethifolius (Bartl.) Duretto & Heslewood has pedicels that are 2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) long and shorter than the leaves, with cylindrical leaflets that are channelled on the upper surface;
Cyanothamnus ramosus subsp. lesueuranus (Paul G.Wilson) Duretto & Heslewood has pedicels that are 2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) long and shorter than the leaves, with linear to narrow oblong leaflets that are concave on the upper surface;
Cyanothamnus ramosus (Lindl.) Benth. subsp. ramosus (the autonym) has pedicels that are 6–15 mm (0.24–0.59 in) long and longer than the leaves.
== Distribution and habitat ==
Cyanothamnus ramosus grows on slopes and hillsides, sometimes in disused gravel pits and is widespread in the southwest from near Shark Bay to near Esperance. Subspecies anethifolius occurs between the Murchison River, the Stirling Range and Cape Le Grand, subspecies lesueuranus is only known from near Mt Lesueur and subspecies ramosus mainly from the Darling Range.
== Conservation status ==
Cyanothamnus ramosus is classed as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife, but subspecies lesueuranus is listed as "Priority Two" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado | Panavia Tornado | The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (interdictor/strike) fighter-bomber, the Tornado ECR (electronic combat/reconnaissance) SEAD aircraft and the Tornado ADV (air defence variant) interceptor aircraft.
The Tornado was developed and built by Panavia Aircraft GmbH, a tri-national consortium consisting of British Aerospace (previously British Aircraft Corporation), MBB of West Germany, and Aeritalia of Italy. It first flew on 14 August 1974 and was introduced into service in 1979–1980. Due to its multirole design, it was able to replace several different types of aircraft in the adopting air forces. The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) became the only export operator of the Tornado, in addition to the three original partner nations. A training and evaluation unit operating from RAF Cottesmore, the Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment, maintained a level of international co-operation beyond the production stage. It is the only non-American-developed aircraft currently approved to carry United States nuclear weapons under NATO's Nuclear Planning Group.
The Tornado was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), Italian Air Force, and RSAF during the Gulf War of 1991, in which the Tornado conducted many low-altitude penetrating strike missions. The Tornados of various services were also used in the Bosnian War, Kosovo War, Iraq War, in Libya during the 2011 Libyan civil war, as well as smaller roles in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria. Including all variants, 990 aircraft were built.
== Development ==
=== Origins ===
During the 1960s, aeronautical designers looked to variable-geometry wing designs to gain the maneuverability and efficient cruise of straight wings with the speed of swept wing designs. The United Kingdom had cancelled the procurement of the BAC TSR-2 tactical strike and reconnaissance aircraft in 1965 and then—in 1967—the US General Dynamics F-111K aircraft that was supposed to fulfil the same role, and was still looking for a replacement for its Avro Vulcan strategic bomber and Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft. Britain and France had initiated the BAC/Dassault AFVG (from "Anglo-French Variable Geometry") project in 1965, but this had ended with French withdrawal in 1967. Britain continued to develop a variable-geometry aircraft similar to the proposed AFVG, and sought new partners to achieve this. West German EWR with Boeing then with Fairchild-Hiller and Republic Aviation had been developing design studies of the swing-wing EWR-Fairchild-Hiller A400 AVS Advanced Vertical Strike (which has a similar configuration to the Tornado) from 1964 to 1968.
In 1968, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Canada formed a working group to examine replacements for the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter multi-role fighter-bomber, initially called the Multi Role Aircraft (MRA), later renamed as the Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA). As the partner nations' requirements were so diverse, it was decided to develop a single aircraft that could perform a variety of missions that were previously undertaken by a fleet of different aircraft. Britain joined the MRCA group in 1968, represented by Air Vice-Marshal Michael Giddings, and a memorandum of agreement was drafted between Britain, West Germany, and Italy in May 1969.
By the end of 1968, the prospective purchases from the six countries amounted to 1,500 aircraft. Canada and Belgium had departed before any long-term commitments had been made to the programme; Canada had found the project politically unpalatable; there was a perception in political circles that much of the manufacturing and specifications were focused on Western Europe. France had made a favourable offer to Belgium on the Dassault Mirage 5.
=== Panavia Aircraft GmbH ===
On 26 March 1969, four partner nations – United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, agreed to form a multinational company, Panavia Aircraft GmbH, to develop and manufacture the MRCA. The project's aim was to produce an aircraft capable of undertaking missions in the tactical strike, reconnaissance, air defence, and maritime roles. Various concepts, including alternative fixed-wing and single-engine designs, were studied while defining the aircraft. The Netherlands pulled out of the project in 1970, citing that the aircraft was too complicated and technical for the RNLAF's preferences, which had sought a simpler aircraft with outstanding manoeuvrability. An additional blow was struck when the German requirement reduced from an initial 600 aircraft to 324 in 1972. It has been suggested that Germany deliberately placed an unrealistically high initial order to secure the company headquarters and initial test flight in Germany rather than the UK, to have a bigger design influence.
When the agreement was finalised, the United Kingdom and West Germany each had a 42.5% stake of the workload, with the remaining 15% going to Italy; this division of the production work was heavily influenced by international political bargaining. The front fuselage and tail assembly was assigned to BAC (now BAE Systems) in the United Kingdom; the centre fuselage to MBB (now part of Airbus) in West Germany; and the wings to Aeritalia (now Leonardo) in Italy. Similarly, tri-national worksharing was used for engines and equipment. A separate multinational company, Turbo-Union, was formed in June 1970 to develop and build the RB199 engines for the aircraft, with ownership split 40% Rolls-Royce, 40% MTU, and 20% FIAT.
At the conclusion of the project definition phase in May 1970, the concepts were reduced to two designs; a single seat Panavia 100 which West Germany initially preferred, and the twin-seat Panavia 200 which the RAF preferred. The aircraft was briefly called the Panavia Panther, and the project soon coalesced towards the two-seat option. In September 1971, the three governments signed an Intention to Proceed (ITP) document, at which point the aircraft was intended solely for the low-level strike mission, where it was viewed as a viable threat to Soviet defences in that role. It was at this point that Britain's Chief of the Defence Staff announced, "two-thirds of the fighting front line will be composed of this single, basic aircraft type".
=== Prototypes and testing ===
The first of fifteen development aircraft (nine prototypes, P01 to P09, and six pre-series, PS11 to PS 16) flew on 14 August 1974 at Manching, Germany; the pilot, Paul Millett described his experience: "Aircraft handling was delightful... the actual flight went so smoothly that I did begin to wonder whether this was not yet another simulation". Flight testing led to the need for minor modifications. Airflow disturbances were corrected by re-profiling the engine intakes and the fuselage to minimise surging and buffeting at supersonic speeds.
According to Jim Quinn, programmer of the Tornado development simulation software and engineer on the Tornado engine and engine controls, the prototype was safely capable of reaching supercruise, but the engines had severe safety issues at high altitude while trying to decelerate. At high altitude and low turbine speed the compressor did not provide enough pressure to hold back the combustion pressure and would result in a violent vibration as the combustion pressure backfired into the intake. To avoid this effect the engine controls would automatically increase the minimum idle setting as altitude increased, until at very high altitudes the idle setting was so high, however, that it was close to maximum dry thrust. This resulted in one of the test aircraft being stuck in a mach 1.2 supercruise at high altitude and having to reduce speed by turning the aircraft, because the idle setting at that altitude was so high that the aircraft could not decelerate.
Testing revealed that a nose-wheel steering augmentation system, connecting with the yaw damper, was necessary to counteract the destabilising effect produced by deploying the thrust reverser during the landing roll.
From 1967 until 1984 Soviet KGB agents were provided details on the Tornado by the head of the West German Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm planning department, Manfred Rotsch.
Two prototypes were lost in accidents, both of which had been caused by pilot error leading to two ground collision incidents; a third Tornado prototype was seriously damaged by an incident involving pilot-induced pitch oscillation. During the type's development, aircraft designers of the era were beginning to incorporate features such as more sophisticated stability augmentation systems and autopilots. Aircraft such as the Tornado and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon made use of these new technologies. Failure testing of the Tornado's triplex analogue command and stability augmentation system (CSAS) was conducted on a series of realistic flight control rigs; the variable-sweep wings in combination with varying, and frequently very heavy, payloads complicated the clearance process.
=== Production ===
The contract for the Batch 1 aircraft was signed on 29 July 1976. The first flight of a production aircraft was on 10 July 1979 by ZA319 at BAe Warton. The first aircraft were delivered to the RAF and German Air Force on 5 and 6 June 1979 respectively. The first Italian Tornado was delivered on 25 September 1981. On 29 January 1981, the Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment (TTTE) officially opened at RAF Cottesmore, remaining active in training pilots from all operating nations until 31 March 1999. The 500th Tornado to be produced was delivered to West Germany on 19 December 1987.
Export customers were sought after West Germany withdrew its objections to exporting the aircraft; Saudi Arabia was the only export customer of the Tornado. The agreement to purchase the Tornado was part of the Al-Yamamah arms deal between British Aerospace and the Saudi government. Oman had committed to purchasing eight Tornado F2s and the equipment to operate them for a total value of £250 million in August 1985, but cancelled the order in 1990 due to financial difficulties.
During the 1970s, Australia considered joining the MRCA programme to find a replacement for their ageing Dassault Mirage IIIs; ultimately the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet was selected to meet the requirement. Canada similarly opted for the F/A-18 after considering the Tornado. Japan considered the Tornado in the 1980s, along with the F-16 and F/A-18, before selecting the Mitsubishi F-2. In the 1990s, both Taiwan and South Korea expressed interest in acquiring a small number of Tornado ECR aircraft. In 2001, EADS proposed a Tornado ECR variant with a greater electronic warfare capability for Australia.
Production came to an end in 1998; the last batch of aircraft produced going to the Royal Saudi Air Force, who had ordered a total of 96 IDS Tornados. In June 2011, it was announced that the Tornado fleet had flown collectively over one million flying hours. Aviation author Jon Lake noted that "The Trinational Panavia Consortium produced just short of 1,000 Tornados, making it one of the most successful postwar bomber programs". In 2008, AirForces Monthly called the Tornado: "For more than a quarter of a century ... the most important military aircraft in Western Europe."
== Design ==
=== Overview ===
The Panavia Tornado is a multirole, twin-engined aircraft designed to excel at low-level penetration of enemy defences. The mission envisaged during the Cold War was the delivery of conventional and nuclear weapons on the invading forces of the Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe; this dictated several significant features of the design. Variable wing geometry allowed for minimal drag during the low-level dash towards a well-prepared enemy. Advanced navigation and flight computers, including the then-innovative fly-by-wire system, greatly reduced the workload of the pilot during low-level flight and eased control of the aircraft. For long range missions, the Tornado has a retractable refuelling probe.
As a multirole aircraft, the Tornado is capable of undertaking more mission profiles than the anticipated strike mission; various operators replaced multiple aircraft types with the Tornado as a common type – the use of dedicated single role aircraft for specialist purposes such as battlefield reconnaissance, maritime patrol duties, or dedicated electronic countermeasures (ECM) were phased out – either by standard Tornados or modified variants, such as the Tornado ECR. The most extensive modification from the base Tornado design was the Tornado ADV, which was stretched and armed with long range anti-aircraft missiles to serve in the interceptor role.
Tornado operators have undertaken various life extension and upgrade programmes to keep their Tornado fleets as viable frontline aircraft. With these upgrades it is projected that the Tornado shall be in service until 2025, more than 50 years after the first prototype took flight.
=== Variable-sweep wing ===
In order for the Tornado to perform well as a low-level supersonic strike aircraft, it was considered necessary for it to possess good high-speed and low-speed flight characteristics. To achieve high-speed performance, a swept or delta wing is typically adopted, but these wing designs are inefficient at low speeds. To operate at both high and low speeds with great effectiveness, the Tornado uses a variable-sweep wing. The swing-wing was also used by the older American General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark strike fighter, and the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter. The smaller Tornado has many similarities with the F-111, however the Tornado differs in being a multi-role aircraft with more advanced onboard systems and avionics.
The amount of wing sweep (i.e. the angle of the wings in relation to the fuselage) is selected in flight by the pilot. Sweep angles can be chosen between 25 degrees and 67 degrees with a speed range for each angle. Some Tornado ADVs were outfitted with an automatic wing-sweep system to reduce pilot workload. When the wings are swept back, the exposed wing area is lowered and drag is significantly decreased, which is conducive to performing high-speed low-level flight. The weapons pylons pivot with the angle of the variable-sweep wings so that the stores point in the direction of flight and do not hinder any wing positions.
In development, significant attention was given to the Tornado's short-field take-off and landing (STOL) performance. Germany, in particular, encouraged this design aspect. For shorter take-off and landing distances, the Tornado can sweep its wings forwards to the 25-degree position, and deploy its full-span flaps and leading edge slats to allow the aircraft to fly at lower speeds. These features, in combination with the thrust reverser-equipped engines, give the Tornado excellent low-speed handling and landing characteristics.
=== Avionics ===
The Tornado features a tandem-seat cockpit, crewed by a pilot and a navigator/weapons officer; both electromechanical and electro-optical controls are used to fly the aircraft and manage its systems. An array of dials and switches are mounted on either side of a centrally placed CRT monitor, controlling the navigational, communications, and weapons-control computers. BAE Systems developed the Tornado Advanced Radar Display Information System (TARDIS), a 32.5-centimetre (12.8 in) multi-function display, to replace the rear cockpit's Combined Radar and Projected Map Display; the RAF began installing TARDIS on the GR4 fleet in 2004.
The primary flight controls of the Tornado are a fly-by-wire hybrid, consisting of an analogue quadruplex Command and Stability Augmentation System (CSAS) connected to a digital Autopilot & Flight Director System (AFDS). In addition a level of mechanical reversion capacity was retained to safeguard against potential failure. To enhance pilot awareness, artificial feel was built into the flight controls, such as the centrally located stick. Because the Tornado's variable wings enable the aircraft to drastically alter its flight envelope, the artificial responses adjust automatically to wing profile changes and other changes to flight attitude. As a large variety of munitions and stores can be outfitted, the resulting changes to the aircraft's flight dynamics are routinely compensated for by the flight stability system.
The Tornado incorporates a combined navigation/attack Doppler radar that simultaneously scans for targets and conducts fully automated terrain-following for low-level flight operations. Being able to conduct all-weather hands-off low-level flight was considered one of the core advantages of the Tornado. The Tornado ADV had a different radar system to other variants, designated AI.24 Foxhunter, as it is designed for air defence operations. It was capable of tracking up to 20 targets at ranges of up to 160 kilometres (100 mi). The Tornado was one of the earliest aircraft to be fitted with a digital data bus for data transmission. A Link 16 JTIDS integration on the F3 variant enabled the exchange of radar and other sensory information with nearby friendly aircraft.
Some Tornado variants carry different avionics and equipment, depending on their mission. The Tornado ECR operated by Germany and Italy is devoted to Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) missions. The Tornado ECR is equipped with an emitter-locator system (ELS) to detect radar use. German ECRs have a Honeywell infrared imaging system for reconnaissance flights. RAF and RSAF Tornados have the Laser Range Finder and Marked Target Seekers (LRMTS) for targeting laser-guided munitions. In 1991, the RAF introduced the Thermal Imaging and Laser Designator (TIALD), allowing Tornado GR1s to laser-designate their own targets.
The GR1A and GR4A reconnaissance variants were equipped with the Tornado Infrared Reconnaissance System (TIRRS), consisting of one SLIR (Sideways Looking Infra Red) sensor on each side of the fuselage forward of the engine intakes to capture oblique images, and a single IRLS (InfrarRed LineScan) sensor mounted on the fuselage's underside to provide vertical images. TIRRS recorded images on six S-VHS video tapes. The newer RAPTOR reconnaissance pod replaced the built-in TIRRS system.
=== Armament and equipment ===
The Tornado is cleared to carry the majority of air-launched weapons in the NATO inventory, including various unguided and laser-guided bombs, anti-ship and anti-radiation missiles, as well as specialised weapons such as anti-personnel mines and anti-runway munitions. To improve survivability in combat, the Tornado is equipped with onboard countermeasures, ranging from flare and chaff dispensers to electronic countermeasure pods that can be mounted under the wings. Underwing fuel tanks and a buddy store aerial refuelling system that allows one Tornado to refuel another are available to extend the aircraft's range.
In the decades since the Tornado's introduction, all of the Tornado operators have undertaken various upgrade and modification programmes to allow new weapons to be used by their squadrons. Amongst the armaments that the Tornado has been adapted to deploy are the Enhanced Paveway and Joint Direct Attack Munition bombs, and modern cruise missiles such as the Taurus and Storm Shadow missiles. These upgrades have increased the Tornado's capabilities and combat accuracy. Precision weapons such as cruise missiles have replaced older munitions such as cluster bombs.
Strike variants have a limited air-to-air capability with AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-132 ASRAAM air-to-air missiles (AAMs). The Tornado ADV was outfitted with beyond visual range AAMs such as the Skyflash and AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The Tornado is armed with two 27 mm (1.063 in) Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon internally mounted underneath the fuselage; the Tornado ADV was only armed with one cannon. When the RAF GR1 aircraft were converted to GR4, the FLIR sensor replaced the left hand cannon, leaving only one; the GR1A reconnaissance variant gave up both its guns to make space for the sideways looking infra-red sensors. The Mauser BK-27 was developed specifically for the Tornado, but has since been used on several other European fighters, such as the Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet, Saab JAS 39 Gripen, and Eurofighter Typhoon.
The Tornado is capable of delivering air-launched nuclear weapons. In 1979, Britain considered replacing its Polaris submarines with either the Trident submarines or the Tornado as the main bearer of its nuclear deterrent. Although the UK proceeded with Trident, several Tornado squadrons based in Germany were assigned to SACEUR to deter a major Soviet offensive with both conventional and nuclear weapons, namely the WE.177 nuclear bomb, which was retired in 1998. German and Italian Tornados are capable of delivering US B61 nuclear bombs, which are made available through NATO.
=== Engine ===
Britain considered the selection of Rolls-Royce to develop the advanced engine for the MRCA to be essential, and was strongly opposed to adopting an engine from an American manufacturer, to the point where the UK might have withdrawn over the issue. In September 1969, Rolls-Royce's RB199 engine was selected to power the MRCA. One advantage over the US competition was that a technology transfer between the partner nations had been agreed; the engine was to be developed and manufactured by a joint company, Turbo-Union. The programme was delayed by Rolls-Royce's entry into receivership in 1971. however the nature of the multinational collaboration process helped avoid major disruption of the Tornado programme. Research from the supersonic airliner Concorde contributed to the development and final design of the RB199 and of the engine control units.
Variable intake ramps are used in front of the engine to raise the pressure of the air entering the engine as much as possible at all speeds up to Mach 2. An electrical generator, hydraulic pump and fuel boost pump is mounted on each of two airframe gearboxes, each driven by one engine. The gearboxes are connected so both generators and hydraulic pumps can be driven by a single engine. In case of double-engine, or double-generator, failure, the Tornado has an emergency battery for operating one fuel and one hydraulic pump for up to 13 minutes.
The RB199 is fitted with a thrust reverser to decrease the distance required to land. When the thrust reverser is used a yaw damper is connected to the steering of the nosewheel to provide greater stability.
The first flight of an RB199 took place underneath a Vulcan in April 1973. The maiden flight of the first Tornado prototype, P01, was made in August 1974 and the engine completed its qualification tests in late 1978. The final production standard engine met both reliability and performance standards, though the development cost had been higher than predicted, in part due to the ambitious performance requirements. At the time of the Tornado's introduction to service, the turbine blades had a shorter life than desired, which was rectified by the implementation of design revisions upon early-production engines. Several uprated engines were developed and used on both the majority of Tornado ADVs and Germany's Tornado ECRs. The DECU (Digital Engine Control Unit) is the current engine control unit for RB199 engines superseding the analogue MECU (Main Engine Control Unit) also known as CUE.
=== Upgrades ===
Being designed for low-level operations, the Tornado required modification to perform in medium level operations that the RAF adopted in the 1990s. The RAF's GR1 fleet was extensively re-manufactured as Tornado GR4s. Upgrades on Tornado GR4s included a forward looking infrared, a wide-angle HUD (head-up display), improved cockpit displays, NVG (night vision devices) capabilities, new avionics, and a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The upgrade eased the integration of new weapons and sensors which were purchased in parallel, including the Storm Shadow cruise missile, the Brimstone anti-tank missile, Paveway III laser-guided bombs and the RAPTOR reconnaissance pod. The first flight of a Tornado GR4 was on 4 April 1997. The RAF accepted its first delivery on 31 October 1997 and deliveries were completed in 2003. In 2005, the RSAF opted to have their Tornado IDSs undergo a series of upgrades to become equivalent to the RAF's GR4 configuration. On 21 December 2007 BAE signed a £210m contract for CUSP, the Capability Upgrade Strategy (Pilot). This project would see RAF GR4/4A improved in two phases, starting with the integration of the Paveway IV bomb and a communications upgrade, followed by a new tactical datalink in Phase B.
Beginning in 2000, German IDS and ECR Tornados received the ASSTA 1 (Avionics System Software Tornado in Ada) upgrade. ASSTA 1 involved a replacement weapons computer, new GPS and Laser Inertial navigation systems. The new computer allowed the integration of the HARM missiles and Taurus KEPD 350 missiles, the Rafael Litening II laser designator pod and Paveway III laser-guided bombs. The ASSTA 2 upgrade began in 2005, primarily consisting of several new digital avionics systems and a new ECM suite; these upgrades are to be only applied to 85 Tornados (20 ECRs and 65 IDSs), as the Tornado is being replaced in part by the Eurofighter Typhoon. The ASSTA 3 upgrade programme, started in 2008, will introduce support for the laser-targeted Joint Direct Attack Munition along with further software changes.
In January 2016, Bild newspaper stated that the newest upgrade of the ASSTA suite to version 3.1, which includes colour multifunctional LCD screens in place of monochrome CRT displays, is interfering with helmet-mounted night-vision optical displays worn by pilots, rendering German Tornado bombers deployed to Syria useless for night missions. The defence ministry admitted that bright cockpit lights could be a distraction for pilots, and said that the solution will be implemented in a few weeks, but denied the need to fly night missions in Syria.
The TV TAB displays are used for route planning, the forward-looking infra-red (FLIR) sensors, targeting pods such as TIALD and CLDP (Convertible Laser Designator Pod). The original MRCA TV TAB DU navigation display (part number V22.498.90) has a green CRT as the picture source. The original price for one CRT display version was €33,852.64. Due to the light environment, the picture tube was pushed to the limit due to the high brightness levels causing wear of the picture tube. An Active Matrix Liquid Crystal Displays (AMLCD) drop fit replacement with a digital screen TV TAB (NSN 5895-99-597-1323) was developed to replace the 'old' wear-sensitive CRT versions. The CRT versions are mainly recognisable by the two white domes at the top of the display containing the light sensors for automatic brightness regulation and the white buttons. The newer digital version is mainly recognisable by the black buttons with big white dots on them. The replacement AMLCD version has a color display instead of the original green monochrome display. A new feature is that the AMLCD has a bezel that reduces the angle of view. The main goal of the AMLCD upgrade was the intended significant reduction in life cycle costs. But it's said that the newer AMLCD version fail rather quickly due to the more sensitive and complex digital electronics compared to the much simpler design of the original CRT display. For example there's a diagnostic connector at the back panel for quick troubleshooting. The display unit is eventually a rather 'dumb' device. The original display unit is 'just' a display and a keypad. To show a picture, the separate video signal, vertical and horizontal synchronisation signals have to be fed into the display unit since there's no internal electronics for synchronisation separation of the video signal. The additional waveform generator (WFG) is needed to 'create' the desired images for use in the airplane. To power the display unit, a three phase 115 VAC 400 Hz including neutral and a 28 VDC signal have to be supplied to the display unit. The CRT version has a Low Voltage Power Supply (LVPS) for creating the needed low voltage signals. There's also a High Voltage Power Supply (HVPS) for creating the desired high voltage for the CRT picture tube. Since the newer AMLCD has no CRT picture tube, the high voltages are not needed and the mechanical and electrical design is completely different except for the connections, mounting points and functionality. The newer AMLCD version 'only' needs 28 VDC for functionality. But since a drop fit replacement is mandatory, the AMLCD version has a built in three phase 115VAC 400 Hz conversion to 28 VDC. The AMLCD has a built in menu for selecting the airplane type: GR1, GR4 or F3, a self test and a display test like a grid pattern and color bars shown in the picture.
BAE Systems announced that, in December 2013, it had test-flown a Tornado equipped with parts made by 3D printing. The parts included a protective cover for the radio, a landing-gear guard and air-intake door support struts. The test demonstrated the feasibility of making replacement parts quickly and cheaply at the air base hosting the Tornado. The company claimed that, with some costing less than £100 to make, 3D printing of parts had saved more than £300,000 which potentially could reach more than £1.2 million by 2017.
== Operational history ==
=== German Air Force (Luftwaffe) ===
The first Tornado prototype made its first flight on 14 August 1974 from Ingolstadt Manching Airport, in West Germany. Deliveries of production Tornados began on 27 July 1979. The total number of Tornados delivered to the German Air Force was 247, including 35 ECR variants. Originally Tornados equipped five fighter-bomber wings (Geschwader), with one tactical conversion unit and four front-line wings, replacing the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. When one of the two Tornado wings of the German Navy was disbanded in 1994, its aircraft were used to re-equip a Luftwaffe's reconnaissance wing formerly equipped with McDonnell Douglas RF-4E Phantoms.
14 German Tornados undertook combat operations as a part of NATO's campaign during the Bosnian War. The Tornados, operating from Piacenza, Italy, flew reconnaissance missions to survey damage inflicted by previous strikes and to scout new targets. These reconnaissance missions were reportedly responsible for a significant improvement in target selection throughout the campaign.
In 1999, German Tornados participated in Operation Allied Force, NATO airstrikes against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. This was Germany's first offensive air mission since World War II. The ECR aircraft escorted various allies' aircraft while carrying several AGM-88 HARM missiles to counter attempted use of radar against the allied aircraft. During the Kosovo hostilities, Germany's IDS Tornados routinely conducted reconnaissance flights to identify both enemy ground forces and civilian refugees within Yugoslavia. The German Tornados flew 2108 hours and 446 sorties, firing 236 HARM missiles at hostile targets.
In June 2007, a pair of Luftwaffe Tornados flew reconnaissance missions over an anti-globalisation demonstration during the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm. Following the mission, the German Defence Ministry admitted one aircraft had broken the minimum flying altitude and that mistakes were made in the handling of security of the summit.
In 2007, a detachment of six Tornados of the Aufklärungsgeschwader 51 "Immelmann" (51st reconnaissance wing) were deployed to Mazar-i-Sharif, Northern Afghanistan, to support NATO forces. The decision to send Tornados to Afghanistan was controversial: one political party launched an unsuccessful legal bid to block the deployment as unconstitutional. In support of the Afghanistan mission, improvements in the Tornado's reconnaissance equipment were accelerated; enhancing the Tornado's ability to detect hidden improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The German Tornados were withdrawn from Afghanistan in November 2010.
Defence cuts announced in March 2003 resulted in the decision to retire 90 Tornados from service with the Luftwaffe. This led to a reduction in its Tornado strength to four wings by September 2005. On 13 January 2004, the then German Defence Minister Peter Struck announced further major changes to the German armed forces. A major part of this announcement was the plan to cut the German fighter fleet from 426 in early 2004 to 265 by 2015. The German Tornado force was to be reduced to 85, with the type expected to remain in service with the Luftwaffe until 2025. The aircraft being retained have been undergoing a service life extension programme. Currently, the Luftwaffe operates Tornados with Tactical Wings Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 33 in Cochem/Büchel Air Base, Rhineland-Palatinate and with Taktisches Luftwaffengeschwader 51 "Immelmann" in Jagel, Schleswig-Holstein.
German Tornado aircrew training took place at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, US from January 1996 at the Taktische Ausbildungskommando der Luftwaffe USA (TaktAusbKdoLw USA Tactical Training Command of the Luftwaffe USA) which was responsible for training both German F-4 Phantom and Tornado crews. In 1999 the training command was renamed as Fliegerisches Ausbildungszentrum der Luftwaffe (FlgAusbZLw Luftwaffe Training Center). In March 2015, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen decided to continue this training in Germany. In September 2017, flight training in Holloman for the Tornado was discontinued and transferred to Taktischen Luftwaffengeschwader 51 in Jagel with the US location command dissolved in 2019.
In April 2020, it was reported that the German defence ministry planned to replace its Tornado aircraft with a purchase of 30 Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, 15 EA-18G Growlers, and 55 Eurofighter Typhoons. The Super Hornet was selected due to its compatibility with nuclear weapons and availability of an electronic attack version. In March 2020, the Super Hornet was not certified for the B61 nuclear bombs, but Dan Gillian, head of Boeing's Super Hornet program, previously stated "We certainly think that we, working with the U.S. government, can meet the German requirements there on the [required] timeline."
In 2021, Airbus offered to replace Luftwaffe's 90 ageing Tornado Interdiction and Strike (IDS) and Electronic Combat Reconnaissance (ECR) aircraft with 85 new Eurofighter Tranche 5 standard from 2030. In 2022, the German defence ministry announced that 35 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs will replace the Tornado fleet for nuclear sharing instead of the discussed 30 Boeing Super Hornets.
=== German Navy (Marineflieger) ===
In addition to the order made by the Luftwaffe, the German Navy's Marineflieger also received 112 of the IDS variant in the anti-ship and marine reconnaissance roles, again replacing the Starfighter. These Tornados equipped two wings, each with a nominal strength of 48 aircraft. The principal anti-ship weapon was the AS.34 Kormoran anti-ship missile, which were initially supplemented by unguided bombs and BL755 cluster munitions, and later by AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles. Pods fitted with panoramic optical cameras and an infrared line scan were carried for the reconnaissance mission.
The end of the Cold War and the signing of the CFE Treaty led Germany to reduce the size of its armed forces, including the number of combat aircraft. To meet this need, one of the Marineflieger's Tornado wings was disbanded on 1 January 1994; its aircraft replaced the Phantoms of a Luftwaffe reconnaissance wing. The second wing was enlarged and continued in the anti-shipping, reconnaissance and anti-radar roles until it was disbanded in 2005 with its aircraft and duties passed on to the Luftwaffe.
=== Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare) ===
The first Italian prototype made its maiden flight on 5 December 1975 from Turin. The Aeronautica Militare received 100 Tornado IDSs (known as the A-200 in Italian service). 16 A-200s were subsequently converted to the ECR configuration; the first Italian Tornado ECR (known as the EA-200) was delivered on 27 February 1998. As a stop-gap measure for 10 years the Aeronautica Militare additionally operated 24 Tornado ADVs in the air defence role, which were leased from the RAF to cover the service gap between the retirement of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and the introduction of the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Italian Tornados, along with RAF Tornados, took part in the first Gulf War in 1991. Operazione Locusta saw eight Tornado IDS interdictors deployed from Gioia del Colle, Italy, to Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi, as part of Italy's contribution to the coalition. During the conflict, one aircraft was lost to Iraqi anti-aircraft fire; the pilots ejected safely and were captured by Iraqi forces. A total of 22 Italian Tornados were deployed in the NATO-organised Operation Allied Force over Kosovo in 1999; the A-200s served in the bombing role while the EA-200s patrolled the combat region, acting to suppress enemy anti-aircraft radars, firing 115 AGM-88 HARM missiles.
In 2000, with delays to the Eurofighter, the Aeronautica Militare began a search for another interim fighter. While the Tornado was considered, any long term extension to the lease would have involved upgrade to RAF CSP standard and thus was not considered cost effective. In February 2001, Italy announced its arrangement to lease 35 F-16s from the United States under the PEACE CAESAR programme. The Aeronautica Militare returned its Tornado ADVs to the RAF, with the final aircraft arriving at RAF St Athan on 7 December 2004. One aircraft was retained for static display purposes at the Italian Air Force Museum.
In July 2002, Italy signed a contract with the Tornado Management Agency (NETMA) and Panavia for the upgrading of 18 A-200s, the first of which was received in 2003. The upgrade introduced improved navigation systems (integrated GPS and laser INS) and the ability to carry new weapons, including the Storm Shadow cruise missile, Joint Direct Attack Munition and Paveway III laser-guided bombs.
In response to anticipated violence during the 2010 Afghanistan elections, Italy, along with several other nations, increased its military commitment in Afghanistan, dispatching four A-200 Tornados to the region. Italy has opted to extend the Tornado's service life at the expense of alternative ground-attack aircraft such as the AMX International AMX; in 2010 a major upgrade and life extension programme was initiated, to provide new digital displays, Link 16 communications capability, night-vision goggles compatibility, and several other upgrades. In the long term, it is planned to replace the Tornado IDS/ECR fleet in Italian service with the F-35 Lightning II, with the final Italian Tornado scheduled to be phased out in 2025. The Aeronautica Militare received its first of an eventual 15 upgraded Tornado EA-200s on 15 June 2013.
Italian Tornado A-200 and EA-200 aircraft participated in the enforcement of a UN no-fly zone during the 2011 military intervention in Libya. Various coalition aircraft operated from bases in Italy, including RAF Tornados. Italian military aircraft delivered a combined 710 guided bombs and missiles during the strikes against Libyan targets. Of these Aeronautica Militare Tornados and AMX fighter-bombers released 550 guided bombs and missiles, and Italian Navy AV-8Bs delivered 160 guided bombs. Italian Tornados launched 20 to 30 Storm Shadow cruise missiles with the rest consisting of Paveway and JDAM guided bombs.
On 19 August 2014, two Aeronautica Militare Tornados collided in mid-air during a training mission near Ascoli. On 14 November 2014, Italy announced it was sending four Tornado aircraft with 135 support staff to Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base and to two other bases in Kuwait in participation of coalition operations against the Islamic State. The four aircraft will be used for reconnaissance missions only.
In October 2018, it was announced that the EA-200 Tornado had successfully completed operational testing of the AGM-88E AARGM, providing capabilities of an "expanded target set, counter-shutdown capability, advanced signals processing for improved detection and locating, geographic specificity, and a weapon impact-assessment broadcast capability."
=== Royal Air Force ===
Nicknamed the "Tonka" by the British, their first prototype (XX946) made its maiden flight on 30 October 1974 from BAC Warton. The first full production Tornado GR1 (ZA319) flew on 10 July 1979 from Warton. The first RAF Tornados (ZA320 and ZA322) were delivered to the TTTE at RAF Cottesmore on 1 July 1980. Crew that qualified from the TTTE went onto the Tornado Weapons Conversion Unit (TWCU), which formed on 1 August 1981 at RAF Honington, before being posted to a front-line squadron. No. IX (B) Squadron became the first front-line squadron in the world to operate the Tornado when it reformed on 1 June 1982, having received its first Tornado GR1 ZA586 on 6 January 1982. No. IX (B) Squadron was declared strike combat ready to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in January 1983. Two more squadrons were formed at RAF Marham in 1983 – No. 617 Squadron on 1 January and No. 27 Squadron on 12 August. The first RAF Tornado GR1 loss was on 27 September 1983 when ZA586 suffered complete electrical failure and crashed. Navigator Flt. Lt. Nigel Nickles ejected but the pilot Sqn. Ldr. Michael Stephens died in the crash after ordering ejection. In January 1984, the TWCU became No. 45 (Reserve) Squadron.
RAF Germany (RAFG) began receiving Tornados after the formation of No. XV (Designate) Squadron on 1 September 1983 at RAF Laarbruch followed by No. 16 (Designate) Squadron in January 1984 (both Buccaneer squadrons). They were then joined by No. 20 (Designate) Squadron in May 1984 (who were operating the SEPECAT Jaguar GR1 from RAF Brüggen). Unlike the Tornado squadrons based in the UK which were under control of the British military, those stationed in RAFG were under the control of SACEUR, with the aircraft on Quick Reaction Alert (Nuclear), "QRA (N)", being equipped with the WE.177 nuclear bomb. In the event of the Cold War going 'hot', the majority of RAFG Tornado squadrons were tasked with destroying Warsaw Pact airfields and surface-to-air missile (SAM) sites in East Germany. While No. 20 Squadron was given a separate responsibility of destroying bridges over the rivers Elbe and Weser to prevent Warsaw Pact forces from advancing. By early 1985, Nos. XV, 16 and 20 Squadrons at RAF Laarbruch had been declared strike combat ready to SACEUR.
Tornados began to arrive at RAF Brüggen in September 1984 with the formation of No. 31 (Designate) Squadron. No. 17 (Designate) Squadron was formed in December 1984, and these two squadrons were joined by No. 14 (Designate) Squadron in mid-1985. No. IX (B) Squadron relocated from RAF Honington to RAF Brüggen on 1 October 1986, arriving in a diamond formation. The outcome of the Reykjavík Summit in October 1986 led to the end of QRA (Nuclear) for the Tornado force. By the end of 1986, the Tornado GR1 fleet had been equipped with a Laser Ranger and Marked Target Seeker (LRMTS) under the nose, and had begun to be equipped with the BOZ-107 chaff and flare dispenser.
The Tornado made its combat debut as part of Operation Granby, the British contribution to the Gulf War in 1991. This saw 49 RAF Tornado GR1s deploy to Muharraq Airfield in Bahrain and to Tabuk Air Base and Dhahran Airfield in Saudi Arabia. 18 Tornado F3s were deployed to provide air cover, the threat of their long range missiles being a deterrent to Iraqi pilots, who would avoid combat when approached. Early on in the conflict, the GR1s targeted military airfields across Iraq, deploying a mixture of 450 kg (1,000 lb) unguided bombs in loft-bombing attacks and specialised JP233 runway denial weapons. On 17 January 1991, the first Tornado to be lost was shot down by an Iraqi SA-16 missile following a failed low-level bombing run. On 19 January, another RAF Tornado was shot down during an intensive raid on Tallil Air Base. The impact of the Tornado strikes upon Iraqi airfields is difficult to determine. A total of six RAF Tornados were lost in the conflict, four while delivering unguided bombs, one after delivering JP233, and one trying to deliver laser-guided bombs.
The UK sent a detachment of Buccaneer aircraft equipped with Pave Spike laser designators, allowing Tornado GR1s to drop precision guided weapons guided by the Buccaneers. A planned programme to fit GR1s with the TIALD laser designation system was accelerated to give the Tornado force the ability to self-designate targets. Author Claus-Christian Szejnmann declared that the TIALD pod enabled the GR1 to "achieve probably the most accurate bombing in the RAF's history". Although laser designation proved effective in the Gulf War, only 23 TIALD pods had been purchased by 2000; shortages hindered combat operations over Kosovo.
After the war's opening phase, the GR1s switched to medium-level strike missions; typical targets included munition depots and oil refineries. Only the reconnaissance Tornado GR1As continued flying the low-altitude high-speed profile, emerging unscathed despite the inherent danger in conducting pre-attack reconnaissance. After the conflict, Britain maintained a military presence in the Gulf. Around six GR1s were based at Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait, contributing the southern no-fly zone as part of Operation Southern Watch. Six additional GR1s participated in Operation Provide Comfort over Northern Iraq.
The upgraded Tornado GR4 made its operational debut in Operation Southern Watch; patrolling Iraq's southern airspace from bases in Kuwait. Both Tornado GR1s and GR4s based at Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, took part in coalition strikes at Iraq's military infrastructure during Operation Desert Fox in 1998. In December 1998, an Iraqi anti-aircraft battery fired six to eight missiles at a patrolling Tornado. The battery was later attacked in retaliation, and no aircraft were lost during the incident. It was reported that during Desert Fox RAF Tornados had successfully destroyed 75% of their targets, and out of the 36 missions planned, 28 had been successfully completed.
The GR1 participated in the Kosovo War in 1999. Tornados initially operated from RAF Brüggen, Germany and later from Solenzara Air Base, Corsica. Experiences from Kosovo led to the RAF procuring AGM-65 Maverick missiles and Enhanced Paveway smart bombs for the Tornado. Following the Kosovo War, the GR1 was phased out as aircraft were upgraded to GR4 standard; the final upgrade was returned to the RAF on 10 June 2003.
The GR4 was used in Operation Telic, Britain's contribution to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. RAF Tornados flew alongside American aircraft in the opening phase of the war, striking Iraqi targets. Aiming to minimise civilian casualties, Tornados deployed the Storm Shadow cruise missile for the first time. Whilst 25% of the UK's air-launched weapons in Kosovo were precision-guided, four years later in Iraq this ratio increased to 85%.
On 23 March 2003, a Tornado GR4 was shot down over Iraq by friendly fire from a US Patriot missile battery, killing both crew members. In July 2003, a US board of inquiry exonerated the battery's operators, observing the Tornado's "lack of functioning IFF (Identification Friend or Foe)" as a factor in the incident. Problems with Patriot were also suggested as a factor, multiple incidents of mis-identification of friendly aircraft have occurred, including the fatal shootdown of a US Navy F/A-18 a few weeks after the Tornado's loss. Britain withdrew the last of its Tornados from Iraq in June 2009.
In early 2009, several GR4s arrived at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan to replace the Harrier GR7/9 aircraft which had been deployed there since November 2004. In 2009, Paveway IV guided bombs were brought into service on the RAF's Tornados, having been previously used in Afghanistan by the Harrier fleet. In Summer 2010, extra Tornados were dispatched to Kandahar for the duration of the 2010 Afghan election. British Tornados ended operations in Afghanistan in November 2014, having flown over 5,000 pairs sorties over 33,500 hours, including 600 "shows of force" to deter Taliban attacks. During more than 70 engagements, 140 Brimstone missiles and Paveway IV bombs were deployed, and over 3,000 27 mm cannon shells fired.
Prior to the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)'s publication, the Tornado's retirement was under consideration with savings of £7.5 billion anticipated. The SDSR announced the Tornado would be retained at the expense of the Harrier GR7/9, although numbers would decline in the transition to the Eurofighter Typhoon and the F-35 Lightning II. By July 2013, 59 RAF GR4s were receiving the CUSP avionics upgrade, which achieved Initial Service Date (ISD) in March 2013.
On 18 March 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that Tornados and Typhoons would enforce a no-fly zone in Libya. In March 2011, several Tornados flew 3,000-mile (4,800 km) strike missions against targets inside Libya in what were "the longest range bombing mission conducted by the RAF since the Falklands conflict". A variety of munitions were used during Tornado operations over Libya, including laser-guided bombs and Brimstone missiles.
In August 2014, Tornado GR4s were deployed to RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus to support refugees sheltering from Islamic State militants in northern Iraq. The decision came three days after the United States began conducting air attacks against the Islamic State. Tornados were pre-positioned to gather situational awareness in the region. On 27 September 2014, after Parliament approved airstrikes against Islamic State forces inside Iraq, two Tornados conducted their first armed reconnaissance mission in conjunction with coalition aircraft. The next day, two Tornados made the first airstrike on a heavy weapons post and an armoured vehicle, supporting Kurdish forces in northwest Iraq.
By 1 March 2015, eight RAF Tornados had been deployed to Akrotiri and conducted 159 airstrikes against IS targets in Iraq. On 2 December 2015, Parliament approved air strikes in Syria as well as Iraq to combat the growing threat of ISIL; Tornados began bombing that evening. On 14 April 2018, four Tornado GR4s from RAF Akrotiri struck a Syrian military facility with Storm Shadow cruise missiles in response to a suspected chemical attack on Douma by the Syrian regime the previous week.
On 10 July 2018, nine Tornado GR4s from RAF Marham flew over London to celebrate 100 years of the RAF. During late 2018, the RAF commemorated the Tornado's service with three special schemes: ZG752 paid homage to its early years with a green/grey wraparound camouflage; ZG775 and ZD716 both wore schemes commemorating the final units to operate the type – No. IX (B) Squadron and No. 31 Squadron respectively. On 31 January 2019, the Tornado GR4 flew its last operational sorties in Operation Shader. The eight Tornados formerly stationed at RAF Akrotiri returned to RAF Marham in early February 2019, their duties assumed by six Typhoons. Between September 2014 and January 2019, RAF Tornados accounted for 31% of the estimated 4,315 casualties inflicted upon ISIL by the RAF during the operation.
To celebrate 40 years of service and to mark the type's retirement, several flypasts were carried out on 19, 20 and 21 February 2019 over locations such as BAE Warton, RAF Honington and RAF Lossiemouth. On 28 February, nine Tornados flew out of RAF Marham for a diamond nine formation flypast over a graduation parade at RAF Cranwell before returning and carrying out a series of passes over RAF Marham. On 14 March 2019 the final flight of an RAF Tornado was carried out by Tornado GR4 ZA463, the oldest remaining Tornado, over RAF Marham during the disbandment parade of No. IX (B) Squadron and No. 31 Squadron. The Tornado GR4 was officially retired from RAF service on 1 April 2019, the 101st anniversary of the force. Post-retirement, five Tornados returned to RAF Honington via road for the Complex Air Ground Environment (CAGE), which simulates a Tornado flight line for training purposes.
On 2 July 2023, it was reported that pylons from decommissioned RAF Panavia Tornado GR4s had been fitted to Ukrainian Su-24s, so that they could launch the Storm Shadow missile. These Su-24s can carry at least two Storm Shadows. Unlike missiles carried by the Tornado, it was reported that missiles carried by the Su-24 required the coordinates of targets to be entered before takeoff.
=== Royal Saudi Air Force ===
In 1984, Royal Saudi Air Force pilots visited RAF Honington to fly and evaluate the Tornado GR1. On 25 September 1985, the UK and Saudi Arabia signed the Al Yamamah I contract which included the sale of 48 IDS and 24 ADV Tornadoes. In October 1985, four RSAF crews joined the Tri-National Tornado Training Establishment at RAF Cottesmore. The first flight of a Saudi Tornado IDS (701) was on 17 February 1986, and the first four IDS were delivered to King Abdul Aziz Air Base, Dharan in 26 March 1986. The first Saudi Tornado squadron formed was No. 7 Squadron, which had received 20 aircraft by 8 October 1987. The first Saudi ADV (2905) flew on 1 December 1988, and the first deliveries arrived in Saudi Arabia on 20 March 1989. The first two RSAF ADV squadrons, Nos. 29 and 34 Squadrons, were formed and reached their full strength of 12 aircraft each by 1990.
In the run-up to the Gulf War, the RSAF began to pool its Tornado squadrons together, with the joint 24 aircraft strong ADV unit flying missions as part of Operation Desert Shield. Saudi Tornados took part in the Gulf War, with No. 7 Squadron carrying out their first mission on the night of 17 January 1991. In total, the RSAF flew 665 Tornado IDS sorties and 451 ADV sorties, seeing the loss of one IDS (765) on the night of 19/20 January. In June 1993, the Al Yamamah II contract was signed, the main element of which was 48 additional IDSs.
Following experience with both the Tornado and the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle, the RSAF discontinued low-level mission training in the F-15E in light of the Tornado's superior low-altitude flight performance. Ten of the Saudi Tornados were fitted with equipment for performing reconnaissance missions. The 22 Tornado ADVs were replaced by the Eurofighter Typhoon; the retired aircraft were purchased back by the UK.
By 2007, both the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile and the ALARM anti-radiation missile that previously equipped the RSAF's Tornados had been withdrawn from service. As of 2010, Saudi Arabia has signed several contracts for new weapon systems to be fitted to their Tornado and Typhoon fleets, such as the short range air-to-air IRIS-T missile, and the Brimstone and Storm Shadow missiles.
In September 2006, the Saudi government signed a contract worth £2.5 billion (US$4.7 billion) with BAE Systems to upgrade up to 80 RSAF Tornado IDS aircraft to keep them in service until 2020. The first RSAF Tornado was returned to BAE Systems Warton in December 2006 for upgrade under the "Tornado Sustainment Programme" (TSP) to "equip the IDS fleet with a range of new precision-guided weapons and enhanced targeting equipment, in many cases common with those systems already fielded by the UK's Tornado GR4s." In December 2007, the first RSAF aircraft to complete modernisation was returned to Saudi Arabia.
Starting from the first week of November 2009, RSAF Tornados, along with Saudi F-15s performed air raids during the Shia insurgency in north Yemen. It was the first time since Operation Desert Storm in 1991 that the RSAF had participated in a military operation over hostile territory. RSAF Tornados are playing a central role in Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen.
On 7 January 2018, Houthi fighters claimed to have shot down a Saudi warplane which was conducting air-raids over northern Yemen. According to Saudi reports, the downed aircraft was an RSAF Tornado which was on a combat mission over Saada province in northern Yemen, it was lost for 'technical reasons' and both crew were rescued.
On 12 July 2018, another RSAF Tornado crashed in Asir region after returning from Saada, Yemen due to a technical malfunction. On 14 February 2020, a Saudi Tornado was shot down during close air support mission in support of Saudi allied Yemeni forces in the Yemeni Al Jouf governorate by Houthis. On the day after, the Saudi command confirmed the loss of a Tornado, while a video was released showing the downing using a two-stage surface to air missile. Both pilots ejected and were captured by Houthis.
== Variants ==
=== Tornado IDS ===
Tornado GR1
RAF IDS (interdictor/strike) variants were initially designated the Tornado GR1 with later modified aircraft designated Tornado GR1A, Tornado GR1B, Tornado GR4 and Tornado GR4A. The first of 228 GR1s was delivered on 5 June 1979, and the type entered service in the early 1980s.
Tornado GR1B
The Tornado GR1B was a specialised anti-shipping variant of the GR1, replacing the Buccaneer. 26 aircraft were converted and were based at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland. Each aircraft was equipped to carry up to four Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles. At first the GR1B lacked the radar capability to track shipping, instead relying on the missile's seeker for target acquisition; later updates allowed target data to be passed from aircraft to missile.
Tornado GR1P
A single Tornado GR1 (ZA326, the eighth production aircraft) was re-designated GR1P after being partially rebuilt using parts from different production batches following a fire during engine testing. This aircraft served with the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Empire Test Pilot's School until 2005, when it was retired, being the last GR1 in service anywhere in the world.
Tornado GR4
The UK Ministry of Defence began studies for a GR1 Mid-Life Update (MLU) in 1984. The update to GR4 standard, approved in 1994, would improve capability in the medium-altitude role based on lessons learned from the GR1's performance in the 1991 Gulf War. British Aerospace (later BAE Systems) upgraded 142 Tornado GR1s to GR4 standard, beginning in 1996 and finished in 2003. 59 RAF aircraft later received the CUSP avionics package which integrated the Paveway IV bomb and installed a new secure communications module from Cassidian in Phase A, followed by the Tactical Information Exchange (TIE) datalink from General Dynamics in Phase B.
Tornado GR1A/GR4A
The GR1A is the reconnaissance variant operated by the RAF and RSAF, fitted with the TIRRS (Tornado Infra-Red Reconnaissance System), replacing the cannon. The RAF ordered 30 GR1As, 14 as GR1 rebuilds and 16 new aircraft. When the Tornado GR1s were upgraded to become GR4s, GR1A aircraft were upgraded to GR4A standard. The switch from low-level operations to medium/high-level operations means that the internal TIRRS was no longer used. As the GR4A's internal sensors are no longer essential, the RAF's Tactical Reconnaissance Wing operated both GR4A and GR4 aircraft.
=== Tornado ECR ===
Operated by Germany and Italy, the ECR (Electronic Combat / Reconnaissance) is a Tornado variant devoted to Suppression of Enemy Air Defences missions. It was first delivered on 21 May 1990. The ECR has sensors to detect radar usage and is equipped with anti-radiation AGM-88 HARM missiles. The Luftwaffe's 35 ECRs were delivered new, while Italy received 16 converted IDSs. Italian Tornado ECRs differ from the Luftwaffe aircraft as they lack built-in reconnaissance capability and use RecceLite reconnaissance pods. Only Luftwaffe ECRs are equipped with the RB199 Mk.105 engine, which has a higher thrust rating. The German ECRs do not carry a cannon. The RAF used the IDS version in the SEAD role instead of the ECR and also modified several of its Tornado F.3s to undertake the mission.
=== Tornado ADV ===
The Tornado ADV (air defence variant) was an interceptor variant of the Tornado, developed for the RAF (designated Tornado F2 or F3) and also operated by Saudi Arabia and Italy. The ADV had inferior agility to fighters like the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, but was not intended as a dogfighter, rather as a long-endurance interceptor to counter the threat from Cold War bombers. Although the ADV had 80% parts commonality with the Tornado IDS, the ADV had greater acceleration, improved RB199 Mk.104 engines, a stretched body, greater fuel capacity, the AI.24 Foxhunter radar, and software changes. It had only one cannon to accommodate a retractable inflight refuelling probe.
== Operators ==
Germany
Luftwaffe: 210 IDS and 35 ECR Tornados delivered. By December 2018, 94 IDS and 28 ECR aircraft remained in service.
Marineflieger: 112 IDS Tornados delivered, retired in June 2005 with some aircraft being reallocated to the Luftwaffe.
Italy
Aeronautica Militare: 100 IDS A-200 Tornados delivered (18 converted to ECR EA-200s), 24 ADV F3 aircraft later leased from the RAF between 1995 and 2004. By December 2018, 70 A-200 and 5 EA-200 aircraft remained in service.
Saudi Arabia
Royal Saudi Air Force: 96 IDS and 24 ADV Tornados delivered, ADVs retired in 2006. By December 2018, 81 IDS aircraft remained in service.
=== Former operators ===
United Kingdom
Royal Air Force: 385 IDS GR1 and ADV F2/F3 Tornados delivered, including 230 GR1s (142 later upgraded to GR4s), 18 F2s and 147 F3s (retired in 2011). GR4 was retired on 1 April 2019.
== Aircraft on display ==
Australia
ZG791 Tornado GR4 on display at Aviation Heritage Museum, Bull Creek, Western Australia.
Austria
44+66 Tornado IDS on display at Groß-Siegharts, Lower Austria.
Bulgaria
44+13 Tornado IDS on display at the National Museum of Military History, Sofia.
Estonia
ZE256 Tornado F3 on display at the Estonian Aviation Museum, Lange.
Germany
D-9591 Tornado Prototype P.01 on display at Militärhistorisches Museum Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow.
XX948 Tornado Prototype P.06 on display at Hermeskeil.
43+55 Tornado IDS on display at Aeronauticum, Nordholz.
43+70 Tornado IDS on display at Büchel Air Base, Cochem.
43+86 Tornado IDS (MTU corporate design paint scheme) at MTU Aero Engines, Munich.
43+96 Tornado IDS on display at Wengerohr, Wittlich.
44+31 Tornado IDS (Blue Lightning paint scheme) of the 31st Fighter Bomber Wing "Boelcke" at Nörvenich AB.
44+35 Tornado IDS on display at the Cologne Bonn Airport, Cologne.
44+56 Tornado IDS on display at Fliegergeschichtliche Museum TG JaboG 34, Memmingen.
44+68 Tornado IDS on display at the Militärhistorisches Museum Flugplatz Berlin-Gatow.
44+84 Tornado IDS on display at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, Fürstenfeldbruck.
44+96 Tornado IDS gate guard at Schleswig Air Base in Jagel, near Schleswig.
44+97 Tornado IDS of the Einsatzgeschwader (Expeditionary Air Wing) Mazar-i-Sharif at the Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleissheim, Oberschleißheim.
45+30 Tornado IDS on display at Aeronauticum, Nordholz.
45+44 Tornado IDS gate guard at Büchel Air Base, Cochem.
Italy
MM7001 Pre-production Tornado P.14 on display at Cameri Air Base, Cameri.
MM7046 Tornado A-200 gate guard at Ghedi Air Base, Brescia.
MM7080 Tornado A-200 gate guard at Aviano Air Base, Pordenone.
MM7210 (ex-ZE836) Tornado F3 on display at the Italian Air Force Museum, Vigna di Valle.
Netherlands
XX947 Tornado Prototype P.03 on display at PS Aero, Baarlo, painted as 98+08 of the German Air Force.
Saudi Arabia
765 Tornado IDS on display at King Abdul-Aziz Air Base, Dhahran.
2915 Tornado ADV on display at the Royal Saudi Air Force Museum in Riyadh.
United Kingdom
XX946 Tornado Prototype P.02 on display at the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands, England.
XZ630 Pre-production Tornado P.12 on display as a GR4 on the parade ground at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, England.
XZ631 Tornado GR4 Prototype P.15 on display at Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, England.
ZA267 Tornado F2T on display at RAF Syerston, Nottinghamshire, England.
ZA319 Tornado GR1T on display at the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection, Wiltshire, England.
ZA326 Tornado GR1P on display at South Wales Aviation Museum, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales.
ZA354 Tornado GR1 on display at Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, England.
ZA357 Tornado GR1 on display at RAF Syerston, Nottinghamshire, England.
ZA398 Tornado GR4A on display at Cornwall Aviation Heritage Centre, Cornwall, England
ZA399 Tornado GR1 on display in Knutsford, Cheshire, England.
ZA452 Tornado GR4 on display at Midland Air Museum, Coventry, England.
ZA457 Tornado GR1B on display at Royal Air Force Museum London, Hendon, England.
ZA463 Tornado GR4 on the gate at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland
ZA465 Tornado GR1 on display at Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England.
ZA469 Tornado GR4 on display at Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England.
ZA556 Tornado GR4 on display at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, England.
ZA607 Tornado GR4 on the gate at MoD Sealand, Wales.
ZA614 Tornado GR4 on the gate at RAF Marham, Norfolk, England.
ZD744 Tornado GR4 on display at Montrose Air Station Museum, Angus, Scotland.
ZE204 Tornado F3 on display at the North East Land, Sea and Air Museums, Tyne and Wear, England.
ZE760 Tornado F3 on the gate at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, England.
ZE887 Tornado F3 currently in storage at RAF Shawbury with plans to go on display at Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, England (currently planned for 2027).
ZE934 Tornado F3 on display at National Museum of Flight, East Fortune, Scotland.
ZE966 Tornado F3 on display at Tornado Heritage Centre, Hawarden Airport, Wales.
ZE967 Tornado F3 on the gate at Leuchars Station, Fife, Scotland.
ZG771 Tornado GR4 on display at Ulster Aviation Society, Lisburn, Northern Ireland.
ZH552 Tornado F3 on display at RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire, England.
United States
ZA374 Tornado GR1 on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio.
43+74 Tornado IDS of the German Navy, Marinefliegergeschwader 1 at the Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson, Arizona.
43+75 Tornado IDS on display at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico.
45+11 Tornado IDS on display at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, New Mexico.
== Specifications (Tornado GR4) ==
Data from International Warbirds: An Illustrated Guide to World Military Aircraft, 1914–2000, Tornado, Modern Fighting AircraftGeneral characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 16.72 m (54 ft 10 in)
Wingspan: 13.91 m (45 ft 8 in) at 25° sweep
Swept wingspan: 8.60 m (28 ft 3 in) swept at 67° sweep
Height: 5.95 m (19 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 26.6 m2 (286 sq ft)
Empty weight: 13,890 kg (30,622 lb)
Gross weight: 20,410 kg (44,996 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 27,215 kg (59,999 lb)
Fuel capacity: 6,350 kg (14,000 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × Turbo-Union RB199-34R Mk 103 afterburning 3-spool turbofan, 43.8 kN (9,800 lbf) thrust each dry, 76.8 kN (17,300 lbf) with afterburner
Performance
Maximum speed: 2,400 km/h (1,500 mph, 1,300 kn) at 9,000 m (30,000 ft)
1,482 km/h (921 mph; 800 kn) IAS near sea level
Maximum speed: Mach 2.2
Combat range: 3,148 km (1,956 mi, 1,700 nmi) Combat radius Hi-Lo-Hi >850 nmi (>1574 km), combat radius Lo-Lo-Lo >500 nmi (>926 km), Hi-Hi-Hi with 1 hour loiter >700 nmi (> 1296 km).
Ferry range: 3,890 km (2,420 mi, 2,100 nmi)
Service ceiling: 15,240 m (50,000 ft)
Time to altitude: 30,000 ft in less than 2 minutes from brake release
Wing loading: 767 kg/m2 (157 lb/sq ft)
Thrust/weight: 0.77
Armament
Guns: 1 × 27 mm (1.06 in) Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon internally mounted under starboard side of fuselage with 180 rounds
Hardpoints: 3 × under-fuselage and 4 × under-wing pylon stations with a capacity of 9,000 kg (19,800 lb), with provisions to carry combinations of:
Missiles:
2 × AIM-9 Sidewinder (AIM-9B / AIM-9G / AIM-9L) (GR.1) or AIM-132 ASRAAM air-to-air missiles for self-defence (GR.4)
12 × Brimstone air-to-surface missile; or
2 × Storm Shadow cruise missile
9 × ALARM anti-radiation missile
Bombs:
5 × 500 lb (230 kg) Paveway IV; or
3 × 1,000 lb (450 kg) (UK Mk 20) Paveway II/Enhanced Paveway II; or
2 × 2,000 lb (910 kg) Paveway III (GBU-24)/Enhanced Paveway III (EGBU-24); or
BL755 cluster bombs; or
Up to 2 × JP233 or MW-1 munitions dispensers (for runway cratering operations)
Up to 4 × B61 or WE.177 tactical nuclear weapons
Other: Up to 4 × drop tanks for ferry flight/extended range/flight time
Avionics
RAPTOR aerial reconnaissance pod
Rafael LITENING targeting pod; or
TIALD laser designator pod
GEC Sky Shadow electronic countermeasure pod
BOZ counter-measures pod
== Popular culture ==
== See also ==
Future Combat Air System
Wild Weasel
Related development
Panavia Tornado ADV
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
Dassault Mirage 2000
General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark
Grumman F-14 Tomcat
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle
Mikoyan MiG-27
Sukhoi Su-24
Xian JH-7
Related lists
List of military aircraft of Germany
List of active Italian military aircraft
List of aircraft of the Royal Air Force
== References ==
=== Notes ===
=== Citations ===
=== Bibliography ===
== External links ==
Panavia – Managing Tornado |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Evans_(pastor)#Personal_life | Tony Evans (pastor) | Anthony Tyrone Evans Sr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American evangelical pastor, speaker, and author. From 1976 to 2024, Evans served as senior pastor at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas. Evans' evangelist show airs on various radio stations across the United States on the Christian Satellite Network (CSN).
== Early life and education ==
In 1973, at the age of 24, Tony Evans was contacted by a radio show producer from Houston (KHCB). The producer contacted Dallas Theological Seminary, where Evans was a junior in the Th.M. program, requesting high-quality preaching content to include in his program for free. One of Evans' professors recommended him. Recorded in a tiny studio on the seminary campus, Evans spent the next few years faithfully preaching into a microphone for a crowd unseen in Houston.
Nearly a decade later, The Urban Alternative was formed in 1981 when requests for Dr. Evans' sermons came in so frequently from his Houston and Dallas radio broadcasts that Lois Evans, co-founder of the ministry, began fulfilling orders. Lois Evans utilized her business skills to organize, develop, and expand the ministry's outreach and growth.
In 1986, Evans was invited to preach at the National Religious Broadcasters annual conference. This drew enormous attention and encouragement to expand the ministry.
Not too long after that appearance at NRB, radio stations began to air Evans' program. Under the leadership of Lois Evans, Senior Vice President of TUA, the radio ministry expanded both nationally and internationally. The reach of Evans' preaching now spans the world, with his broadcasts airing on over 1,400 radio stations and in more than 130 countries, reaching millions each week.
Evans earned a BA at Carver College in 1972, a Th.M. in 1976, and a Th.D. at Dallas Theological Seminary in 1982.
== Career ==
Evans founded the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, in 1976 with 10 members meeting at his home. He also founded The Urban Alternative. This national organization seeks to restore hope and transform lives through the proclamation and the application of the Word of God. The Urban Alternative radio broadcast, "The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans," can be heard daily on over 1,400 outlets throughout the U.S. and in more than 130 countries worldwide.
Evans has served as chaplain for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and is a former NBA chaplain with the Dallas Mavericks.
He taught evangelism, homiletics, and black church studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, and serves on its Board of Incorporate Members.
Evans was named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University.
In 2017, Evans launched the Tony Evans Training Center, an online learning platform providing seminary-style courses to equip Christian leaders who cannot attend a seminary.
Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. He is also the author of over 100 books, including Oneness Embraced, The Kingdom Agenda, Kingdom Man, The Tony Evans Study Bible, and The Tony Evans Bible Commentary.
In June 2024, Evans resigned as senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship due to an undisclosed sin he committed many years ago, though he clarified that the sin was not criminal in nature.
== Personal life ==
Evans was married to Lois Irene Evans until she died in 2019. Their marriage produced four children: Chrystal, Priscilla, Anthony Jr., and Jonathan. They also have 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
His oldest child, Chrystal Hurst, is a worship leader, Christian speaker, and writer. She co-authored the book Kingdom Woman with her father. She has also written books titled She's Still There and Show Up For Your Life.
His daughter Priscilla Shirer is a New York Times Best-Selling Author, Christian speaker, and founder of Going Beyond Ministries.
His son, Anthony Jr., is a contemporary Christian musical artist. He has collaborated with Grammy Award-winning singer Kirk Franklin and was a contestant on season two of The Voice.
Evans' son Jonathan was a professional football player in the National Football League. He played fullback for the Buffalo Bills, the Washington Redskins, and the Dallas Cowboys. Jonathan is the current chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys.
Evans is a registered Republican in Texas. In 2012, he publicly criticized President Barack Obama for his support of same-sex marriage.
In September 2023, Evans, along with his children, announced his engagement to Carla Crummie. Later that year, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship formally announced their marriage.
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Smith#:~:text=Henry%20Franklin%20%22Buster%22%20Smith%20(,and%20mentor%20to%20Charlie%20Parker. | Buster Smith | Henry Franklin "Buster" Smith (August 24, 1904 – August 10, 1991), also known as Professor Smith, was an American jazz alto saxophonist and mentor to Charlie Parker. Smith was instrumental in instituting the Texas Sax Sound with Count Basie and Lester Young in the 1930s.
Smith played saxophone for a number of prominent band leaders including Duke Ellington and Earl Hines as well as vocalist Ella Fitzgerald. He recorded his only album as leader in 1959 and despite intending to record a follow-up, he was injured in an accident and nothing else was released.
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Smith was born and raised in Alsdorf, Texas, a small township near Telico in the outskirts of Dallas, where he attended school as a child. Smith earned the name "Buster" from his parents as a baby, as he was born as an overweight child. Buster was the third of five boys and had no sisters, though both of his older brothers died in childhood of measles.
Smith's early musical influences were his mother, and his father, who played guitar. At the age of four years, Buster was playing the organ with his brother, pianist Boston Smith; Buster played the keys and Boston stepped on the pedals. Soon thereafter, his grandfather gave away the family organ because he believed it would only direct Buster to a life of sin.
=== Early career ===
In 1919, Smith picked cotton for a week to earn himself the money to buy a $3.50 clarinet. Smith learned to play several instruments by the time he was eighteen years old. In 1922, Smith and his family moved to Dallas. He joined the Voodie White Trio, playing Alto saxophone and clarinet. In 1923, he began his professional music career playing alto saxophone with the medicine shows, though he had to play very loudly to draw in more customers. This experience led to Smith defining his own musical style, known for being loud. The time with the medicine shows also led to Oran "Hot Lips" Page inviting Smith to join his group, the Oklahoma City Blue Devils, in 1925. Over the next few years, Smith wrote much of the group's music, learning from banjo player Johnny Clark, writing lyrics with co-workers from the bank that he worked in.
=== Peak success ===
When Smith joined the Blue Devils, the line-up consisted of Walter Page, Oran Page, Lester Young, Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing, and Emir "Bucket" Coleman. They toured the Kansas City area and the Midwest, playing jazz for a year, bringing all of its members into prominence. Basie and Page both left the group; however Smith decided to stay on, though this was very short lived and soon after he left also. After leaving the group, he and Basie formed the Buster Smith-Count Basie Band of Rhythm, where the two innovated a louder style of Jazz. Buster's contribution to the unique sound was by using a tenor saxophone reed in his alto saxophone to achieve a louder, "fatter" sound. Lester Young also joined the band and, to complement Smith's louder sound, he also opted for a harder reed, using a baritone saxophone reed on his tenor saxophone. This sound was later labelled the Texas Sax Sound. Smith gained a great amount of influence in the Texan music community and industry. Smith mentored legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker during the 1930s, developing a "father-son relationship" through mentoring Parker.
In 1941, Smith decided to return to Dallas and to cease touring, though he remained active in the local music scene. In the following years, he wrote for jazz and blues bands, played often, and taught many young Texan musicians, including Aaron "T-Bone" Walker and Red Garland among others. He also performed session work with artists such as Pete Johnson's Boogie-Woogie Boys, Eddie Durham, Leo "Snub" Mosley, Bon and His Buddies, and the Don Redman Orchestra.
=== Solo career ===
In 1959, Buster led his first solo recording session in Fort Worth, as prompted by Atlantic Records. From these sessions, released by Atlantic with the title The Legendary Buster Smith, Smith's notable songs included "Kansas City Riffs," "Buster's Tune," "E Flat Boogie," and Kurt Weill's "September Song." For the sessions, Buster enlisted his brother Boston Smith to play piano, along with musicians spanning his career to date.
=== Later life ===
In the 1960s, Smith was involved in an auto accident, in which he was injured and no longer able to play the saxophone. In order to continue playing music, he started to play the bass guitar throughout Dallas and continued to participate in the Dallas musical community. Buster led a dance music band until 1980, and played in the Legendary Revelations in the mid-1980s. Smith died in Dallas on August 10, 1991, of a heart attack.
== Discography ==
The Legendary Buster Smith, Atlantic Records, 1959 (Reissued by Koch Records, 1999)
== References ==
=== Further reading ===
Who's Who of Jazz: Storyville to Swing Street by John Chilton (First published 1970).
Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians by Eileen Southern (First edition 1982).
Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop - A History by Frank Driggs & Chuck Haddix (First published Oxford 2005; ISBN 0-19-530712-7, Page 165).
=== Footnotes === |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mob_Psycho_100_episodes | List of Mob Psycho 100 episodes | Mob Psycho 100 is a Japanese anime series based on the manga series created by One. The anime adaptation was produced by Bones and directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa. Hiroshi Seko wrote the scripts, Yoshimichi Kameda designed the characters, and Kenji Kawai composed the music. The series aired between July 12 and September 27, 2016, on Tokyo MX. For season 1, the opening theme song, titled "99", was performed by Mob Choir, while the ending theme song, titled "Refrain Boy" (リフレインボーイ, Rifurein Bōi), was performed by All Off. The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll, while Funimation broadcast the show's simuldub. The English dub was produced by Bang Zoom! Entertainment. On April 18, 2019, Funimation and Crunchyroll confirmed that season 2 would simuldub on April 25.
A second season of the anime series was announced, with the staff and cast returning to reprise their roles. Mob Psycho 100 II aired from January 7 to April 1, 2019, with the series being simulcast on Crunchyroll.
A third season, titled Mob Psycho 100 III, was confirmed to be in production in October 2021. It aired from October 6 to December 22, 2022. The third season's simuldub was slated to be produced by Crunchyroll rather than Bang Zoom! with some roles recast, due to the choice to move dub production to in-person recording sessions at their Dallas based studio, rather than remote recordings, after largely relying on the latter at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the planned recastings was the voice of Mob, Kyle McCarley, who stated that he would likely not be reprising the role as Crunchyroll had refused to negotiate a potential union contract for future anime dubbing productions with McCarley's union SAG-AFTRA. McCarley had offered to work non-union on season 3 under the condition that Crunchyroll have a discussion with SAG-AFTRA, but since this did not proceed, McCarley did not return. This news prompted much backlash and criticism of Crunchyroll on social media.
== Series overview ==
== Episodes ==
=== Season 1 (2016) ===
=== Season 2 (2019) ===
=== Season 3 (2022) ===
== OVAs ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Mob Psycho 100 official anime website (in Japanese) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWV | SWV | SWV (Sisters with Voices) is an American R&B vocal trio from New York City whose members are Cheryl "Coko" Gamble, Tamara "Taj" George, and Leanne "Lelee" Lyons. Formed in 1988 as a gospel group, SWV became one of the most successful R&B groups of the 1990s. They had a series of hits, including the Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Weak", as well as the top-ten songs "Right Here (Human Nature Remix)", "I'm So into You", and "You're the One". The group disbanded in 1998 to pursue solo projects and reunited in 2005.
== Biography ==
=== Early life and big break ===
SWV was formed by founding members Cheryl "Coko" Gamble and Leanne "Lelee" Lyons, with Gamble later recruiting Tamara "Taj" Johnson to join the group along with a fourth member named Samantha, who would eventually leave for unknown reasons. After getting their demo together, their manager at the time, Maureen Singleton sent out demo tapes along with bottles of Perrier ("We couldn't afford champagne", says Taj) to catch the attention of record execs all over America. In 1991, after being invited to sing live in front of RCA executives, SWV was signed to an eight-album record deal.
=== 1992–1995: It's About Time and The Remixes ===
It's About Time, the debut studio album by SWV, was released by RCA Records on October 27, 1992. It was certified multi-platinum by the RIAA for more than two million copies shipped to store.
SWV's first single, "Right Here", was released in the fall of 1992, reaching No. 13 on the R&B charts. Their second single, "I'm So into You", peaked at No. 2 on R&B and reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The third single, "Weak", reached No. 1 on both the R&B and Hot 100 charts. "Right Here/Human Nature", the fourth single and a remix of their first single, "Right Here", featured samples of Michael Jackson's hit "Human Nature". Pharrell Williams performed a small rap solo on "Right Here (UK Remix)". "Right Here/Human Nature" peaked at No. 1 on R&B and No. 2 on the Hot 100 and it stayed at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts for 7 weeks, making it one of the longest-running singles of 1993. It was followed up with the additional Top10 R&B hits, "Downtown" (No. 2), and "You're Always on My Mind" (No. 8). The album peaked at 8 on the US Billboard 200. Following the success of their first album, SWV appeared on the soundtrack for the 1994 film Above the Rim. The single, "Anything", became a top ten R&B hit and reached No. 18 on the Hot 100 in the spring of 1994. That same year, SWV released The Remixes, which went gold by the end of the year. In the summer of 1995, the trio lent vocal harmonies to Blackstreet's Top 40 R&B hit "Tonight's the Night". SWV also recorded the track, "All Night Long", which appeared on the Waiting to Exhale: Original Soundtrack Album in late 1995.
=== 1996–1997: New Beginning, Release Some Tension and A Special Christmas ===
Released on April 23, 1996, New Beginning was the second album from SWV. The first single, "You're the One", became one of their signature songs peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart. The second single, "Use Your Heart", saw the debut of the super producers The Neptunes. This song peaked at twenty-two on the Hot 100 and number six on the R&B chart. The last single, "It's All About U", found Taj taking most of the lead as opposed to Coko. The album was certified platinum for shipping 1,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone.
Release Some Tension is SWV's third album. It arrived on July 29, 1997. Guest appearances are made by E-40, Puff Daddy, Missy Elliott, Foxy Brown, Lil' Cease, Lil' Kim, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Redman. The album features hits like "Rain" (which samples Jaco Pastorius's classic "Portrait of Tracy"), "Someone", "Can We" (which was originally included on the soundtrack for the Jamie Foxx film Booty Call), and canceled single "Lose My Cool". "Someone", although featuring one of the biggest producers/artists of the year, Puff Daddy, only reached No. 19 on the Billboard charts which sampled The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ten Crack Commandment's and Les McCann's "Valantra". "When U Cry" also sampled Tyrone Davis' "In The Mood". The album was certified gold for shipping 500,000 copies in the U.S. alone. A Special Christmas, a holiday album featuring both cover versions and original material, was released in the United States on November 18, 1997, by RCA Records. A Special Christmas would be the penultimate album the trio recorded together before they disbanded the following year.
=== 1998–2010: Hiatus and reuniting of SWV ===
The group split in 1998. Shortly after SWV disbanded, the members began leading their own careers. Coko went on to release her first solo album under RCA, titled Hot Coko, in August 1999. The first single, "Sunshine", which was dedicated to her son Jazz, reached the Top 40 position in the R&B charts that summer. However, neither the album nor the singles gathered the same mainstream success as Coko did with SWV. Coko began working on a second solo album titled Music Doll in early 2001, but RCA closed the black music division and the project was shelved. Since then, she has concentrated more on her family. She eventually married gospel producer and drummer for Israel and New Breed, Mike "Big Mike" Clemmons, the father of her second son, Jaylen. She currently resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In 2001, Coko and her mother, Lady "Clyde" Tibba Gamble, did a remake of the song "Tears in Heaven" (originally recorded by Eric Clapton) on the album Rhythm and Spirit: "Love Can Build a Bridge". The album featured other artists such as Jennifer Holliday, Patti LaBelle, and Tramaine Hawkins. Clemons sang on the Brent Jones & TP Mobb single "Midnite" in 2002. She also appeared on Youthful Praise's 2003 gospel album Thank You for the Change singing lead on "Up There".
Coko's full gospel solo debut, Grateful, was released in the United States on October 31, 2006 and debuted at No. 5 on Billboard's Top Independent albums chart. Grateful includes an all-star cover of The Clark Sisters' "Endow Me" which features R&B singers Faith Evans, Fantasia Barrino and Lil Mo. An alternate version, minus Faith Evans was performed on BET's Celebration of Gospel '07. A special edition of Grateful only available through Wal-Mart includes two bonus tracks "I Wish" and Brent Jones' "Midnite" featuring Coko on lead vocals. Coko was reported to have joined an all-black touring cast performing the critically acclaimed play The Vagina Monologues, along with Sherri Shepherd, Star Jones, Vanessa L. Williams, and others. Coko performed in Japan for the Billboard Live Tour. She sang some of her solo hits "Sunshine", "Clap Your Hands", and the SWV song "Right Here/Human Nature".
In 2005, SWV reunited and announced plans to record a new album the following year, which did not materialize. In 2007, the group performed dates with After 7, Bobby Brown, New Edition, and Blackstreet. Also in 2007, Taj appeared in the TV One reality series I Married a Baller which documented her life with husband Eddie George, former NFL player and present Nashville entrepreneur. SWV members Coko and Lelee (who sing the theme song along with Taj) appear in a couple of the show's episodes. On June 24, 2008, during a performance by Alicia Keys at the BET Awards 2008, SWV made a special appearance with the original line up from En Vogue and TLC. SWV sang "Weak" with Alicia and later performed "Waterfalls" with the two other R&B girl groups. Taj was a contestant on Survivor: Tocantins, in which she came in fourth place. She was blindsided by her former alliance of J.T. Thomas and Stephen Fishbach. She became the sixth Jury Member. She participated in a 2009 national tour of The Vagina Monologues with an all-black cast, most of whom are also former reality show contestants. SWV appeared on The Mo'Nique Show on February 2, 2010, performing Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew". Lelee and Coko provided the lead vocals.
=== 2011–present: I Missed Us, reality show and Still ===
In 2011, SWV signed a record deal with Mass Appeal Entertainment and E1 Entertainment. On June 10, SWV was featured on the official remix of Chris Brown's remake of their "Right Here/Human Nature" song, "She Ain't You". SWV released "Co-Sign" on December 15, 2011, via iTunes as the first single from their fourth studio album, I Missed Us. VH1 ranked SWV No. 88 on their 100 Greatest: Women in Music list. Billboard named SWV the No. 7 R&B Act and the No. 2 Top Selling/Airplay R&B Female Group of the 1990s. The track listing for SWV's I Missed Us was released on Amazon.com. The album was released on April 17, 2012, via eOne Music and Mass Appeal Entertainment.
SWV appeared on the television talk show The Wendy Williams Show on April 17, 2012, to promote the release of I Missed Us and to perform the hit song "Co-Sign". The album then went to No. 1 on the iTunes R&B albums chart. On June 1, 2012, SWV announced that their next single from I Missed Us would be "Love Unconditionally". On June 28, 2012, the song "I'm So into You" from the triple-platinum album It's About Time was ranked at No. 18 on VH1's 40 Greatest R&B Songs of the '90s.
On November 4, 2012, SWV performed on Black Girls Rock!, an organization founded to inspire young black girls, on BET. On July 7, 2013, during the Essence Music Festival, SWV announced that We TV green-lit a reality series that would detail their lives as a group and individually, professionally and personally. It would also address their 1998 breakup and their subsequent reunion. SWV Reunited premiered on January 16, 2014, with a six-episode season. A twelve-episode second season followed later that August. As promised, the show has documented the trust issues the groupmates have with one another from their acrimonious split and their attempt to rebuild their friendships and their brand. It also showcased their professional endeavors and struggles, including touring and recording a comeback album, trying to get out of a record contract and disputes with their road manager, Cory Taylor. Subplots included Coko's reluctance to record secular music after her foray into gospel, Taj's health issues and Lelee's tumultuous relationship with her daughter. A song that the group was shown recording on SWV Reunited, titled "Ain't No Man", was released to iTunes as a promotional single on August 7, 2015.
On November 6, 2015, it was officially announced via Coko's official Instagram account that SWV Reunited had been canceled by WE tv. In the same post, she stated that SWV's long-delayed fifth studio album would be titled Still and was set to be released on February 5, 2016. On December 10, 2015, while making a surprise appearance on the television talk show, The View, Taj announced that "Still" was available for pre-order along with that came a second single titled "MCE (Man Crush Everyday)".
In 2017, SWV collaborated with Bell Biv DeVoe on the song "Finally" which was released as the second single off their album Three Stripes. They were also awarded the "Lady of Soul Award" at the 2017 Soul Train Music Awards.
In 2019, SWV announced they had partnered with hip-hop trio Salt-N-Pepa in the creation of a new reality series called Ladies Night. The show premiered on BET on April 30, 2019.
As part of their virtual artist battles birthed in 2020, Verzuz hosted a pre-Mother's day event, featuring both SWV and Xscape, on May 8, 2021. Both DJs, AONE and Spinderella, were responsible for music play for both groups.
== Members ==
Cheryl "Coko" Gamble (born June 13, 1970, The Bronx, New York) is the Soprano and lead singer of the group, known for her distinctive high tone and vocal acrobatics. Coko lives in Virginia Beach. Her son is rapper Lil Tracy.
Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George (born April 29, 1971, Brooklyn, New York) is the group's Mezzo-Soprano who has a more jazzy and blues sound. Taj lives in Nashville.
Leanne "Lelee" Lyons (born July 17, 1973, The Bronx, New York) is also a Soprano and despite being the lightest voice of the three, sings the alto or lower parts. Lelee lives in Atlanta.
== Discography ==
Studio albums
It's About Time (1992)
New Beginning (1996)
Release Some Tension (1997)
A Special Christmas (1997)
I Missed Us (2012)
Still (2016)
== Tours ==
Weak (1993 in the UK)
Budweiser Superfest 1993 with BBD, Silk, Shai, MC Lyte & Intro in the US)
SWV Live (1994 in the UK, South Africa, Canada, US)
SWV World Tour (1996 in the US, Europe, South Africa, Asia, New Zealand)
Release Some Tension (1998 in the US)
New Jack Swing Tour (2005 in the US and Canada)
Billboard Live Tour (June 16–21, 2008 in Japan)
Billboard Live Tour (January 12–13, 2009 in Japan)
SWV and Faith Evans (December 5–10, 2010 in the United Kingdom)
Fresh Music Festival (May–July 2012, US)
SWV Comeback Tour (2013 in London and US)
Ladies Night Tour (With Salt-N-Pepa) (2018, US) Canceled
Summer Block Party (with Jodeci and Dru Hill) (2023, US)
Queens of R&B Tour (2024)
Opening Act
2017: Three Stripes Tour (for Bell Biv DeVoe with En Vogue)
2018: The Great Xscape Tour (for Xscape)
2019: As Long as I Live Tour (for Toni Braxton)
== Awards and nominations ==
== See also ==
List of bestselling music artists
Top Heatseekers
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of performers on Top of the Pops
Girl group
== References ==
== External links ==
SWV at IMDb
SWV at AllMusic |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Caspar_F%C3%BCssli#:~:text=He%20married%20Elisabeth%20Waser%2C%20and,Anna%20(1749%E2%80%931772). | Johann Caspar Füssli | Johann Caspar Füssli (3 January 1706 – 6 May 1782) was a Swiss portrait painter and art historian.
== Biography ==
Füssli was born in Zürich to Hans Rudolf Füssli, who was also a painter, and Elisabeth Schärer. He studied painting in Vienna between 1724 and 1731, and then became a portraitist in the courts of southern Germany.
In 1736, he returned to Zürich, where he painted members of the government and figures of the Enlightenment era such as Johann Jakob Bodmer and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also wrote and illustrated two dictionaries of Swiss painters and became well known as an art historian.
He married Elisabeth Waser, and they had 18 children. Four of them later became known as painters: Johann Heinrich ("Henry Fuseli", 1741–1825), Johann Kaspar (1743–1786), Elisabeth (1744–1780), and Anna (1749–1772). Johann Caspar Füssli died in Zürich in 1782.
== Publications ==
Geschichte und Abbildung der besten Mahler in der Schweitz ("History and Illustration of the Best Painters in Switzerland"), 1754–1757.
Geschichte der besten Künstler in der Schweitz ("History of the Best Artists in Switzerland"), 1769–1779.
== References ==
== External links ==
"Füssli, Johann Caspar" in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
"Füssli, Johann (Hans) Kaspar (Caspar) (der Ältere)". SIKART Lexicon on art in Switzerland. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Good_Together | So Good Together | So Good Together is the twenty-fourth studio album by American country music singer Reba McEntire. It was released in 1999 and was preceded by the single "What Do You Say". "What Do You Say" peaked at number 3 on the country singles chart and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Video. It also became her highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 31. The album was certified platinum by the RIAA.
The album peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and number 28 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 49,000 copies.
== Track listing ==
North American version
International version
== Personnel ==
Adapted from liner notes.
Tracks 1, 4, 8, 10
Richard "Spady" Brannon - bass guitar
Terry Crisp - steel guitar
Eric Darken - percussion
Larry Franklin - fiddle
Paul Franklin - steel guitar
Wes Hightower - background vocals
Jeff King - electric guitar
Paul Liem - drums
B. James Lowry - acoustic guitar
Liana Manis - background vocals
Brent Mason - electric guitar
Jerry McPherson - electric guitar
Reba McEntire - lead vocals, background vocals
Jimmy Nichols - keyboards, background vocals
Brent Rowan - electric guitar
Tracks 2, 3, 5, 11
Eddie Bayers - drums
Mark Casstevens - acoustic guitar
John Cowan - background vocals
Thom Flora - background vocals
Larry Franklin - fiddle
Paul Franklin - steel guitar
Steve Gibson - acoustic guitar, electric guitar
John Hobbs - synthesizer
Dann Huff - electric guitar
Ronn Huff - string arrangements, conductor
John Barlow Jarvis - keyboards, piano
Kim Keyes - background vocals
Paul Liem - drums
Reba McEntire - lead vocals
Steve Nathan - keyboards, piano
Michael Rhodes - bass guitar
John Wesley Ryles - background vocals
Steuart Smith - acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Harry Stinson - background vocals
Templeton Thompson - background vocals
Laura Vide - background vocals
Glenn Worf - bass guitar
Track 12
Eddie Bayers - drums
David Campbell - string arrangements, conductor
Mark Casstevens - acoustic guitar
Jose y Durval - featured vocals
John Hobbs - keyboards
John Barlow Jarvis - piano
Reba McEntire - lead vocals
Michael Rhodes - bass guitar
Steuart Smith - electric guitar, gut string guitar
Tracks 6, 7, 9
Eddie Bayers - drums
Steve Dorff - string arrangements, conductor
Stuart Duncan - fiddle
Paul Franklin - steel guitar
Liana Manis - background vocals
Brent Mason - electric guitar
Reba McEntire - lead vocals
Gary Prim - keyboards, piano
John Wesley Ryles - background vocals
John Willis - acoustic guitar
Glenn Worf - bass guitar
== Charts ==
=== Singles ===
=== Other charted songs ===
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rana_Ayyub#:~:text=On%2028%20June%202022%2C%20Ayyub,by%20the%20National%20Press%20Club. | Rana Ayyub | Rana Ayyub (born 1 May 1984) is an Indian journalist and opinion columnist with The Washington Post. She is author of the investigative book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up.
== Background and family ==
Rana Ayyub was born in Mumbai, India. Her father Mohammad Ayyub Waqif, was a writer with Blitz, a Mumbai-based magazine, and a member of the progressive writers movement. Her uncle, Abdul Haq Azmi, was a distinguished scholar of Hadith and served as a senior professor at Darul Uloom Deoband.
She contracted polio at the age of five, leaving her left hand and right leg immobile, and eventually recovered from the disease. When Mumbai witnessed riots in 1992–93, Ayyub's father was warned by a Sikh friend that local men were coming after his daughters. Rana, nine at the time, fled with her sister to stay with the Sikh friend's relatives for three months before reuniting with their family in Deonar, a Muslim-majority suburb, which is where she largely grew up. Ayyub is a practising Muslim.
She graduated in English literature from Sophia College, Mumbai where she was a classmate of Richa Chada and Shuchi Talati.
== Career ==
=== Investigative journalist at Tehelka ===
Ayyub worked for Tehelka (lit. "commotion/uproar"), a Delhi-based investigative and political news magazine. By her own account, a report by her was instrumental in sending Amit Shah, a close associate of Narendra Modi, to jail for several months in 2010.
At Tehelka, Ayyub worked as an investigative journalist and her big assignment was to carry out the sting operation upon which her book Gujarat Files was based. At the end of the sting operation, the management of Tehelka refused to publish any story written by Rana or based on the data collected by her. Ayyub continued to work with Tehelka for several months more. In November 2013, her boss Tarun Tejpal, the editor-in-chief and major shareholder of Tehelka, was accused of sexual harassment by one of his journalist subordinates. Ayyub resigned from Tehelka in protest against the organisation's handling of the charge against Tejpal. She now works independently.
=== Opinions writer at The Washington Post ===
In September 2019, Washington Post nominated Ayyub as Contributing Global Opinions Writer with the paper.
In 2021, on the BBC show HARDtalk, Ayyub explained that she is in a position to express critical views about the government because she writes of international media, given that Indian media publications are censoring their journalists.
In October 2020, HarperCollins India published an open letter written by Ayyub, to protest the controversial appointment of Actor Gajendra Chauhan as the Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), as part of the book Inquilab: A Decade of Protest which contains speeches, lectures and letters said to "capture the most important events and issues of the past ten years."
== Notable work ==
=== The Gujarat sting operation ===
As an investigative journalist working with Tehelka, Rana Ayyub took up a project to conduct a prolonged sting operation aimed at snaring politicians and government officials of Gujarat and get them to reveal any potential cover-ups regarding the Gujarat riots of 2002. Rana Posing as Maithili Tyagi, a filmmaker from the American Film Institute, and set about befriending her intended targets. She spent around ten months in disguise, and got paid a regular monthly salary from Tehelka during this period. However, at the end of the exercise, the management of Tehelka felt that the recordings which she had made over the months did not provide any new or sensational information, that the data gathered by her was of inadequate quality, and that they could not publish any story on the basis of the new data.
==== The book ====
In her book Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up, Ayyub documented the verbatim transcripts of recordings, made using a concealed recording device, of many bureaucrats and police officers of Gujarat. The recordings were made in the course of an undercover investigation to reveal the views of bureaucrats and police officers on encounter killings and the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat violence. Ayyub had been posing as 'Maithili Tyagi', a student of the American Film Institute, having an ideological affinity for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's beliefs, to enable her to make the recordings.
==== Dispute with Tehelka ====
Tarun Tejpal and Shoma Chaudhury have disputed Ayyub's claim that her story on fake encounters in Gujarat, which was the result of an eight-month long undercover investigation, was dropped by them. According to Tejpal, Ayyub's story was "incomplete". According to Chaudhury, Ayyub's story "did not meet the necessary editorial standards." Ayyub has responded to Tejpal and Chaudhury's assertions by noting that:I must say I am not the only one to complain about dropped stories in Tehelka, the list is fairly big… Shoma Choudhury and Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka cited editorial decisions and gaps. The book is a bestseller and is getting rave reviews for its content. Let the reader be the judge.
==== Reception ====
Historian Ramachandra Guha had called Ayyub's Gujarat Files "a brave book." Jyoti Malhotra has noted that many journalists have privately applauded Ayyub's courage in authoring Gujarat Files. Priya Ramani has commented: "The abuses from the paid foot soldiers on Twitter bounce off her spiral curls smoothly." Reflecting on the procedure used by Ayyub in composing Gujarat Files, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay has observed: "Going undercover and interviewing many who had been in the thick of gruesome extra-constitutional operations required bravado and this must be appreciated."
Ayyub's investigation of the alleged Gujarat fake encounters has been listed by Outlook magazine as one of the twenty greatest magazine stories of all time across the world.
In 2018, Ayyub was awarded the "most Resilient Global journalist" by Dutch non-profit Free Press Unlimited for resisting attempts to stifle her work.
In the Haren Pandya murder case, the Supreme Court of India dismissed Rana Ayyub's book, stating that "it is based upon surmises, conjectures, and suppositions and has no evidentiary value." Ayyub termed the court's comments "puzzling", stating that the CBI had used her work as evidence in other related cases, and noting that no officer or bureaucrat had denied her claims or taken her to court.
=== Reporting from Kashmir ===
In 2019, Ayyub accompanied Dexter Filkins from The New Yorker on a trip to Kashmir to report on the violence by the government towards the Kashmiri population following the revocation of the special status of Kashmir by the Modi-led Indian government. Their report of torture inflicted on the Kashmiri population, including minors, sharply contrasted with official accounts from the Indian state and state media, which portrayed the region as calm. Prior to their report, the Indian government’s claims could not be verified due to a full communication blackout and a de facto curfew imposed in Kashmir.
== Controversies ==
=== Judicial proceedings ===
In February 2022, Ayyub received scrutiny after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) locked assets worth over ₹1.77 crore of hers. This was done in relation to a money laundering case filed against her, for allegedly embezzling funds she acquired from the public in the name of charity. ED stated that Ayyub had transferred those funds to other accounts for personal spendings.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in Mumbai has pointed out that only 10 per cent of the COVID relief funds were used for relief work, and the rest of the funds were transferred to her father's and sister's accounts and then transferred again to her personal account.
The money laundering charges against Ayyub have been described as sham charges by international observers. According to commentators, the money laundering allegations are part of a broader campaign by the Indian authorities aimed at intimidating Ayyub and silencing her criticism of Modi's government.
FIR was filed against Ayyub in Dharwad due to her alleged comments against anti-hijab protestors as Hindu terrorists.
In 2022, UN experts have called on the Indian government to stop the judicial harassment against Ayyub, that included twice freezing Ayyub's bank account. The experts labelled the accusations related to the funds raised by Ayyub for pandemic relief work as "the bogus allegations [that] can be traced back to a far-right social media group."
== Awards and recognition ==
In October 2011, Rana Ayyub received the Sanskriti award for excellence in journalism.
The 'Citation of Excellence' was conferred to Rana Ayyub in the 2017 edition of the Global Shining Light Award for her undercover investigation revealing state's top officials’ complicity during the 2002 Gujarat Riots.
Actress Richa Chadda claimed to have been inspired by Rana Ayyub, who is also her friend, in 2016 film Chalk n Duster, where she plays a journalist.
In 2018, Ayyub was awarded the Most Resilient Journalist Award by Free Press Unlimited for continuing her work "despite being harassed both online and offline and receiving death threats."
In 2019, Ayyub has been listed as one of ten global journalists who face maximum threats to their lives by the Time magazine.
In February 2020, Ayyub was awarded with McGill Medal for journalistic courage at University of Georgia's Grady College.
Ayyub is the 2020 Voices of Courage and Conscience Awardee from the Muslim Public Affairs Council of America.
In 2021, Ayyub received the Excellence in International Journalism and Human Rights Award by Texas Tech University College of Media and Communication.
In 2021, Ayyub was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for best commentary on international news for her op-eds in The Washington Post.
On 28 June 2022, Ayyub was awarded the International John Aubuchon Award by the National Press Club.
On 23 October 2024, Ayyub was awarded Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) International Press Freedom Award.
== Threats ==
Online violence against Ayyub is primarily driven by Twitter users aligned with Hindu nationalism and the ruling BJP. An International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) report found that Twitter has failed to address the abuse against her while withholding some of her tweets at the demand of the Indian Government. As per ICFJ's analysis, Ayyub receives abuse within 14 seconds of posting a tweet.
In 2018, Ayyub was at the receiving end of multiple death and rape threats on twitter. Her personal details were made public and a deepfake pornographic video was released. In April 2018 she filed a complaint with Delhi Police, who subsequently decided to close the case in August 2020 saying that "despite efforts the culprits could not be identified yet."
Several United Nations Special Rapporteurs, associated with the Human Rights Council have intervened in her case three times, warned of the "serious risk" to her life, and called on the authorities in India to "act urgently to protect" her from death threats following an online hate campaign. The US State department's 2020 Human Rights Report specifically mentions the online trolling and death threats faced by Ayyub. In its report documenting online attacks against journalists around the world, the international non-profit Reporters Without Borders discussed the hate speech unleashed against Ayyub and called on the government and Delhi police to protect her.
In 2022, Trads (members of Hindu nationalist alt-right groups) had created Bulli Bai, an app for fake online auction of Muslim women in India with intention to denigrate and harass the minorities. Ayyub and several prominent women journalists in India were targeted. They were also targeted with thousands of hate messages by the secret app Tek Fog allegedly used by the BJP supporters. The app was used to spread right wing propaganda online.
in November 2024, Ayyub was doxxed, and her phone number was leaked by a right-wing account on X. As a result, she received hundreds of calls and messages and states that she received no respite despite filing a complaint with the police.
In November 2025, Ayyub received threats of violence against her and her father from an unknown international number. Rana claimed that these threats were made to intimidate her into writing a column on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that occurred after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
== References ==
== External links ==
Media related to Rana Ayyub at Wikimedia Commons
Rana Ayyub on Twitter
Rana Ayyub at Washington Post |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Justice_of_Kenya | Chief Justice of Kenya | The chief justice of Kenya is a public office in the Republic of Kenya established under Article 161 of the country's Constitution as the head of the Judiciary of Kenya. Under Article 163, the chief justice also serves as the president of the Supreme Court of Kenya. The chief justice is assisted by the deputy chief justice, who also serves as the deputy president of the Supreme Court.
The current chief justice is Lady Justice Martha Koome, the first woman to serve as chief justice in Kenya.
== Appointment and tenure of office ==
Before the enactment of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, the president appointed the chief justice without any interview process or parliamentary approval. The chief justice did not enjoy security of tenure, and could be dismissed at the pleasure of the president.
Under the new Constitution, the chief justice is formally appointed by the president but is selected by the Judicial Service Commission following a competitive process involving a vacancy announcement, shortlisting of applicants and interviews. In order to be appointed as the chief justice, a person must have at least fifteen years experience as a legal practitioner. At the end of the interviews, the Judicial Service Commission selects one individual whose name is forwarded to Parliament for vetting and approval. If Parliament gives the candidate the green light, he is then formally appointed by the president.
In an attempt to give the president more leeway in appointing the chief justice, the Jubilee Coalition, while in power, pushed through a legislative amendment which required the Judicial Service Commission to provide three qualified individuals from which the president would appoint one as the chief justice. However, the constitutional court declared the amendment unconstitutional, and the new constitutional provision remains the only legal process of appointment of the chief justice.
Similar to other judges in the judiciary, the chief justice serves until they reach 70 years, with an option for early retirement once they reach the age of 65. However, no matter their age, an individual may not serve for more than ten years as chief justice. As such, an individual who serves for ten years as chief justice must retire from the office of the chief justice even if they are not yet 70 but may opt to stay on the Supreme Court as an associate justice until they reach 70.
The chief justice may be removed from office if a tribunal appointed to inquire into their conduct finds that they no longer legally fit for office.
In the event of a vacancy in the office of the chief justice, the deputy chief justice performs the role in an acting capacity until a new chief justice is appointed. Where the deputy chief justice position is also vacant, the senior-most associate justice of the Supreme Court will act as the president of the Supreme Court until a chief justice is named, and the next senior-most as the deputy president of the Supreme Court. An example of this occurred in 2016, when the senior associate justice Mohamed Ibrahim acted as the president of the Supreme Court following the early retirement of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga who turned 69 in June 2016, and the retirement of Deputy Chief Justice Kalpana Rawal who turned 70 in January 2016.
== Duties ==
The chief justice performs a wide range of judicial, administrative and ceremonial duties provided for under the Constitution and various statutes.
As the president and head of the Supreme Court of Kenya, the chief justice sits on the bench of the court and gives directions on which associate justices are to preside over cases. As the chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission, he/she has a lead role in setting policies for the administration of justice and the running of the judicial arm. The chief justice also takes part in the selection and recruitment of judges and magistrates who are appointed by the Judicial Service Commission.
He/she is also the administrative head of the judiciary, although the chief registrar of the judiciary is responsible for oversight over administrative matters.
The chief justice also presides over the swearing-in of the president, the deputy president and many other government officials and ceremoniously administers the oath that newly qualified lawyers take as they are admitted to the Roll of Advocates.
== List of chief justices ==
Source:
== List of deputy chief justices ==
The office of Deputy Chief Justice was created for the first time under the 2010 Constitution.
Nancy Makokha Baraza (2011 - 2012)
Kalpana Rawal (2013 - 2016)
Philomena Mbete Mwilu (2016 - present)
== See also ==
Judicial Service Commission (Kenya)
Supreme Court of Kenya
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brighton_Pier,_Christchurch#:~:text=The%20pier%20sustained%20some%20damage,reopened%20again%20in%20May%202018. | New Brighton Pier, Christchurch | There have been two New Brighton Piers in the Christchurch, New Zealand, suburb of New Brighton. The first pier, of wooden construction, opened on 18 January 1894 and was demolished on 12 October 1965. The current concrete pier was opened on 1 November 1997. It is one of the icons of Christchurch.
== First pier ==
The first pier was built from timber. Construction began in 1891 and it was officially opened by the Governor of New Zealand, the Lord Glasgow, on 18 January 1894. Other dignitaries who attended the opening included the Mayor of Christchurch (Walter Cooper), the Mayor of Linwood (J. R. Brunt), and two members of the House of Representatives (George John Smith and William Whitehouse Collins). It started raining just as the opening ceremony finished, and planned fireworks were postponed. The pier had been built to a length of 700 feet (210 m). There were plans to build an octagonal end to the pier including a large building, but this was never carried out. Over time, the pier decayed. The city council ordered the pier to be demolished, and this was done during just four and a half hours in the early morning of 12 October 1965 on a receding tide.
== Second pier ==
For 30 years, the New Brighton community rallied for another pier to be built. The Pier and Foreshore Society had campaigned to save the original pier, and the group continued lobbying for a new pier. When NZ$2m had been raised, this was matched by funding from Christchurch City Council and a new pier was designed using reinforced concrete. The new pier was built in exactly the same location, and was officially opened on 1 November 1997. It spans 300 metres (980 ft), which makes it the longest ocean pier in Australasia. The New Brighton Pier is held as the icon of New Brighton and later the icon of Christchurch after the 22 February 2011 earthquake that significantly damaged Christchurch's Cathedral. The pier is one of Christchurch's tourist attractions. Currently the New Brighton Pier is the venue of a number of events, such as regular skate on the Pier events and the annual Guy Fawkes fireworks display held on 5 November every year. The pier sustained some damage in the various earthquakes, which was exacerbated in the 2016 Christchurch earthquake. Repairs started in February 2017, took 16 months, and cost NZ$8.5m. New Brighton pier reopened again in May 2018.
== References ==
== External links ==
Christchurch City Libraries: Photographs of New Brighton pier construction |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea | South Korea | South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east. Like North Korea, South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. It has a population of about 52 million, of which half live in the Seoul metropolitan area, the ninth most populous metropolitan area in the world; other major cities include Busan, Daegu, and Incheon.
The Korean Peninsula was inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period. Its first kingdom was noted in Chinese records in the early seventh century BC. From the mid first century BC, various polities consolidated into the rival kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. The lattermost eventually unified most of the peninsula for the first time in the late seventh century AD, while Balhae succeeded Goguryeo in the north. The Goryeo dynasty (918–1392) achieved lasting unification and established the basis for the modern Korean identity. The subsequent Joseon dynasty (1392–1897) generated cultural, economic, and scientific achievements and also established isolationism starting from the mid-17th century. The succeeding Korean Empire (1897–1910) sought modernization and reform but was annexed in 1910 into the Empire of Japan. Japanese rule ended following Japan's surrender in World War II, after which Korea was divided into two zones: the Soviet-occupied northern zone and the United States-occupied southern zone. After negotiations on reunification failed, the southern zone became the Republic of Korea in August 1948, while the northern zone became the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea the following month.
In 1950, a North Korean invasion triggered the Korean War, one of the first major proxy conflicts of the Cold War, which saw extensive fighting involving the American-led United Nations Command and the Soviet-backed People's Volunteer Army from China. The war ended in 1953 with an armistice and left three million Koreans dead and the economy in ruins; due to the lack of a peace treaty, the Korean conflict is still ongoing. South Korea endured a series of dictatorships punctuated by coups, revolutions, and violent uprisings, but also experienced a soaring economy and one of the fastest rises in average GDP per capita, leading to its emergence as one of the Four Asian Tigers. The June Democratic Struggle of 1987 ended authoritarian rule and led to the establishment of the current Sixth Republic.
South Korea is now considered among the most advanced democracies in continental and East Asia. Under the 1987 constitution, it maintains a unitary presidential republic with a popularly elected unicameral legislature, the National Assembly. South Korea is a major non-NATO ally of the United States and is regarded as a regional power in East Asia and an emerging power in global affairs; its conscription-based armed forces are ranked as one of the strongest in the world and have the second highest number of military and paramilitary personnel. A highly developed country, South Korea's economy is ranked 14th largest in the world by nominal GDP and PPP-adjusted GDP; it is the world's eleventh-largest exporter and seventh-largest importer.
South Korea performs well in metrics of education, human development, democratic governance, and innovation. It has one of the world's longest life expectances, though its population is aging rapidly and has the lowest fertility rate in the world. South Korea has some of the fastest Internet connection speeds and densest high-speed railway networks. Since the turn of the 21st century, the country has been renowned for its globally influential pop culture, particularly in music, TV dramas, and cinema, a phenomenon referred to as the Korean Wave. South Korea is a member of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee, the G20, the IPEF, and the Paris Club.
== Etymology ==
The name Korea is an exonym derived from the historical Korean kingdom name Goryeo (Korean: 고려; Hanja: 高麗; MR: Koryŏ). Goryeo was the shortened name officially adopted by Goguryeo in the 5th century and the name of its 10th-century successor state Goryeo. Visiting Arab and Persian merchants pronounced its name as "Korea". The modern name of Korea appears in the first Portuguese maps of 1568 by João vaz Dourado as Conrai and later in the late 16th century and early 17th century as Corea (Korea) in the maps of Teixeira Albernaz of 1630.
The Kingdom of Goryeo became first known to Westerners when Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca in 1511 and described the people who traded in this part of the world as the Gores. Despite the coexistence of the spellings Corea and Korea in 19th-century publications, some Koreans believe that Imperial Japan intentionally standardized the spelling of Korea in order to make Japan appear first alphabetically during occupation.
After Goryeo was replaced by the Kingdom of Joseon (조선; 朝鮮; Chosŏn) in 1392, Joseon became the official name for the entire territory, though it was not universally accepted. The new official name was derived from the ancient kingdom of Gojoseon. In 1897, King Gojong changed the country's official name from Joseon to the Korean Empire (대한제국; 大韓帝國; Daehan Jeguk; Taehan Cheguk; lit. Great Han Empire). The latter half of the Korean Empire's name Daehan (대한; 大韓; lit. Great Han) derives from Samhan (Three Han), referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula. However, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, even though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted.
Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the "Republic of Korea" was adopted as the legal English name for the new country. The Korean name Daehan Minguk (대한민국; 大韓民國; lit. Great Han Republic) is sometimes used by South Koreans as a metonym to refer to the Korean nation as a whole, rather than just the South Korean state.
== History ==
=== Ancient Korea ===
The Korean Peninsula was inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period.
According to Korea's founding mythology, the history of Korea begins with the founding of Joseon (also known as "Gojoseon", or "Old Joseon", to differentiate it from the 14th century dynasty) in 2333 BC by the legendary Dangun. Gojoseon was noted in Chinese records in the early 7th century. Gojoseon expanded until it controlled the northern Korean Peninsula and parts of Manchuria. Gija Joseon was purportedly founded in the 12th century BC, but its existence and role have been controversial in the modern era. In 108 BC, the Han dynasty defeated Wiman Joseon and installed four commanderies in the northern Korean peninsula. Three of the commanderies fell or retreated westward within a few decades, but the Lelang commandery remained a center of cultural and economic exchange with successive Chinese dynasties ruling for four centuries, until it was conquered by Goguryeo in 313.
The linguistic homeland of Proto-Koreans is located somewhere in southern Siberia/Manchuria, such as the Liao River area or the Amur River area. Proto-Koreans arrived in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC, replacing and assimilating Japonic-speaking Yayoi and likely causing their migration to the Japanese archipelago.
=== Three Kingdoms of Korea ===
During the Proto–Three Kingdoms period, the states of Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongye, and Samhan occupied the whole Korean peninsula and southern Manchuria. From them, the Three Kingdoms of Korea emerged: Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla.
Goguryeo, the largest and most powerful among them, was a highly militaristic state and competed with various Chinese dynasties during its 700 years of history. Goguryeo experienced a golden age under Gwanggaeto the Great and his son Jangsu, who both subdued Baekje and Silla during their respective reigns, achieving a brief unification of the Three Kingdoms and becoming the most dominant power on the Korean Peninsula. In addition to contesting control of the Korean Peninsula, Goguryeo had many military conflicts with various Chinese dynasties, most notably the Goguryeo–Sui War, in which Goguryeo defeated a huge force said to number over a million men.
Baekje was a maritime power, sometimes called the "Phoenicia of East Asia". Its maritime ability was instrumental in the dissemination of Buddhism throughout East Asia and spreading continental culture to Japan. Baekje was once a great military power on the Korean Peninsula, especially during the time of Geunchogo, but was critically defeated by Gwanggaeto the Great and declined. Silla was the smallest and weakest of the three, but used opportunistic pacts and alliances with the more powerful Korean kingdoms, and eventually Tang China, to its advantage.
In 676, the unification of the Three Kingdoms by Silla led to the Northern and Southern States period, in which relationships between Korea and China remained relatively peaceful. Balhae, a Goguryeo successor state founded by a general, controlled most of Manchuria and parts of the Russian Far East and was called the "Prosperous Country in the East". In addition to Koreans, there were many other ethnicities such as the Mohe, Turkic, and Chinese.
Late Silla was a wealthy country, and its metropolitan capital of Gyeongju grew to become the fourth largest city in the world. It experienced a golden age of art and culture, exemplified by monuments such as Hwangnyongsa, Seokguram, and the Emille Bell. It also carried on the maritime legacy and prowess of Baekje, and during the 8th and 9th centuries dominated the seas of East Asia and the trade between China, Korea, and Japan, most notably during the time of Chang Pogo. In addition, Silla people made overseas communities in China on the Shandong Peninsula and the mouth of the Yangtze River. However, Silla was later weakened due to internal strife and the revival of successor states Baekje and Goguryeo, which culminated into the Later Three Kingdoms period in the late 9th century.
Buddhism flourished during this time. Many Korean Buddhists gained great fame among Chinese Buddhist circles and greatly contributed to Chinese Buddhism. Examples of significant Korean Buddhists from this period include Woncheuk, Wonhyo, Uisang, Musang, and Kim Gyo-gak. Kim was a Silla prince whose influence made Mount Jiuhua one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism.
=== Unified dynasties ===
In 936, the Later Three Kingdoms were united by Wang Geon, who established Goryeo as a successor state to Goguryeo. Balhae had fallen to the Khitan Empire in 926, and a decade later the last crown prince of Balhae fled south to Goryeo, where he was warmly welcomed and included in the ruling family by Wang Geon, thus unifying the two successor nations of Goguryeo. Like Silla, Goryeo was a highly cultural state, and invented the metal movable type printing press. After defeating the Khitan Empire, which was the most powerful empire of its time in the Goryeo–Khitan War, Goryeo experienced a golden age that lasted a century, during which the Tripitaka Koreana was completed and significant developments in printing and publishing occurred. This promoted education and the dispersion of knowledge on philosophy, literature, religion, and science. By 1100, there were 12 universities that produced notable scholars.
However, the Mongol invasions in the 13th century greatly weakened the kingdom. Goryeo was never conquered by the Mongols, but exhausted after three decades of fighting, the Korean court sent its crown prince to the Yuan capital to swear allegiance to Kublai Khan, who accepted and married one of his daughters to the Korean crown prince. Henceforth, Goryeo continued to rule Korea, though as a tributary ally to the Mongols for the next 86 years. During this period, the two nations' royalty became intertwined as all subsequent Korean kings married Mongol princesses. In the mid-14th century, Goryeo drove out the Mongols to regain its northern territories, briefly conquered Liaoyang, and defeated invasions by the Red Turbans. However, in 1392, General Yi Seong-gye, who had been ordered to attack China, turned his army around and staged a successful coup.
Yi Seong-gye established the House of Yi, renamed the nation to Joseon in reference to Gojoseon, and moved the capital to Hanseong (one of the old names of Seoul). The first 200 years of the Joseon dynasty were marked by peace and saw great advancements in science and education, among them the creation of Hangul by Sejong the Great to promote literacy among the common people. The prevailing ideology of the time was Neo-Confucianism, which was epitomized by the seonbi class: nobles who passed up positions of wealth and power to lead lives of study and integrity. Between 1592 and 1598, Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched invasions of Korea, but the advance was halted by Korean forces (most notably the Joseon Navy led by Admiral Yi Sun-sin and his renowned "turtle ship") with assistance from righteous army militias formed by Korean civilians, and Ming dynasty Chinese troops. Through a series of successful battles of attrition, the Japanese forces were eventually forced to withdraw, and relations between all parties became normalized. However, the Manchus took advantage of Joseon's war-weakened state and invaded in 1627 and 1637. After normalizing relations with the new Qing dynasty, Joseon experienced a nearly 200-year period of peace. Kings Yeongjo and Jeongjo particularly led a new renaissance of the Joseon dynasty during the 18th century.
In the 19th century, Joseon began experiencing economic difficulties and widespread uprisings, including the Donghak Peasant Revolution. The royal in-law families had gained control of the government, leading to mass corruption and weakening of the state. Additionally, the strict isolationism of the Joseon government that earned it the nickname "the hermit kingdom" became increasingly ineffective due to increasing encroachment from powers such as Japan, Russia, and the United States. This was exemplified by the Joseon–United States Treaty of 1882, which forced Joseon to open its borders.
=== Japanese occupation and World War II ===
In the late 19th century, Japan became a significant regional power after winning the First Sino-Japanese War against Qing China and the Russo-Japanese War against the Russian Empire. In 1897, King Gojong, the last king of Korea, proclaimed Joseon as the Korean Empire. However, Japan compelled Korea to become its protectorate in 1905 and formally annexed it in 1910. What followed was a period of forced assimilation, in which Korean language, culture, and history were suppressed. This led to the March First Movement protests in 1919 and the subsequent foundation of resistance groups in exile, primarily in China. Among the resistance groups was Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea.
Towards the end of World War II, the U.S. proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones: a U.S. zone and a Soviet zone. Dean Rusk and Charles H. Bonesteel III suggested the 38th parallel as the dividing line, as it placed Seoul under U.S. control. To the surprise of Rusk and Bonesteel, the Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.
=== Division of Korea ===
Despite intentions to liberate a unified peninsula in the 1943 Cairo Declaration, escalating tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States led to the division of Korea into two political entities in 1948: North Korea and South Korea.
In the South, the United States appointed and supported the former head of the Korean Provisional Government Syngman Rhee as leader. Rhee won the first presidential elections of the newly declared Republic of Korea in May 1948. In the North, the Soviets backed a former anti-Japanese guerrilla and communist activist, Kim Il Sung, who was appointed premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in September.
In October, the Soviet Union declared Kim Il Sung's government as sovereign over both the north and south. The UN declared Rhee's government as "a lawful government having effective control and jurisdiction over that part of Korea where the UN Temporary Commission on Korea was able to observe and consult" and the government "based on elections which was observed by the Temporary Commission" in addition to a statement that "this is the only such government in Korea." Both leaders engaged in authoritarian repression of political opponents. South Korea requested military support from the United States but was denied, while North Korea's military was heavily reinforced by the Soviet Union.
=== Korean War ===
On June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea, sparking the Korean War, the Cold War's first major conflict, which continued until 1953. At the time, the Soviet Union had boycotted the UN, thus forfeiting their veto rights. This allowed the UN to intervene in a civil war when it became apparent that the superior North Korean forces would unify the entire country. The Soviet Union and China backed North Korea, with the later participation of millions of Chinese troops. After an ebb and flow that saw both sides facing defeat with massive losses among Korean civilians in both the north and the south, the war eventually reached a stalemate. During the war, Rhee's party promoted the One-People Principle, an effort to build an obedient citizenry through ethnic homogeneity and authoritarian appeals to nationalism.
The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone near the original demarcation line. No peace treaty was ever signed, resulting in the two countries remaining technically at war. Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War, making it one of the deadliest conflicts of the Cold War era. In addition, virtually all of Korea's major cities were destroyed by the war.
=== Miracle on the Han River ===
In 1960, a student uprising (the "April Revolution") led to the resignation of the autocratic President Syngman Rhee. This was followed by 13 months of political instability as South Korea was led by the weak and ineffectual Second Republic. This instability was broken by the May 16, 1961 coup led by General Park Chung Hee. As president, Park oversaw a period of rapid export-led economic growth enforced by political repression. Under Park, South Korea took an active role in the Vietnam War.
Park was heavily criticized as a ruthless military dictator, who in 1972 extended his rule by creating a new constitution, which gave the president dictatorial powers and permitted him to run for an unlimited number of six-year terms. The Korean economy developed significantly during Park's tenure, largely due to investment in family-run conglomerates. The government developed the nationwide expressway system, the Seoul subway system, and laid the foundation for economic development during his 17-year tenure, which ended with his assassination on 26 October, 1979.
The years after Park's assassination were marked again by political turmoil, as the previously suppressed opposition leaders all campaigned to run for president in the sudden political void. In 1979, General Chun Doo-hwan led the coup d'état of December Twelfth. On May 17, 1980, Chun forced the Cabinet to expand martial law to the whole nation, which had previously not applied to Jeju Island. The expanded martial law closed universities, banned political activities, and further curtailed the press. Chun's assumption of the presidency through the events of May 17 triggered nationwide protests demanding democracy; these protests were particularly widespread in Gwangju, to which Chun sent special forces to violently suppress the 18–27 May 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement at the cost of probably 500 to 2,000 civilian lives and 26 dead soldiers (half of them by friendly fire).
Chun subsequently created the National Defense Emergency Policy Committee and took the presidency according to his political plan. Chun and his government held South Korea under a despotic rule until 1987, when a Seoul National University student, Park Jong-chul, was tortured to death. On June 10, the Catholic Priests Association for Justice revealed the incident, igniting the June Democratic Struggle across the country. Eventually, Chun's party, the Democratic Justice Party, and its leader, Roh Tae-woo, announced the June 29 Declaration, which promised a democratic election of the president.
=== Democracy ===
Roh Tae-woo went on to win the 1987 election by a narrow margin against the two main opposition leaders, Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam. Seoul hosted the Olympic Games in 1988, which was widely regarded as successful and a significant boost for South Korea's global image and economy.
South Korea was formally invited to become a member of the United Nations in 1991. The transition of Korea from autocracy to modern democracy was marked in 1997 by the election of Kim Dae-jung, who was sworn in as the eighth president of South Korea on February 25, 1998. His election was significant given that he had in earlier years been a political prisoner sentenced to death (later commuted to exile). He won against the backdrop of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, where he took IMF advice to restructure the economy and the nation soon recovered its economic growth, albeit at a slower pace.
In June 2000, as part of President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" of engagement, a North–South summit took place in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, now ruled by Kim Il Sung's son Kim Jong Il. Later that year, Kim received the Nobel Peace Prize "for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular". However, because of discontent among the population for fruitless approaches to the North under the previous administrations and, amid North Korean provocations, a conservative government was elected in 2007 led by President Lee Myung-bak, former mayor of Seoul. While South Korean and Japanese relations improved when they jointly co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup, it later soured because of conflicting claims of sovereignty over the Liancourt Rocks.
In 2010, there was an escalation in attacks by North Korea. In March 2010 the South Korean warship ROKS Cheonan was sunk killing 46 South Korean sailors, allegedly by a North Korean submarine. In November 2010 Yeonpyeongdo was attacked by a significant North Korean artillery barrage, with 4 people dying. The official UN report declined to explicitly name North Korea as the perpetrator for the Cheonan sinking. The lack of a strong response to these attacks from both South Korea and the international community caused significant anger with the South Korean public.
=== Contemporary history ===
The children of presidents Park Chung Hee and Kim Jong Il would take power in the two Koreas from 2011 to 2012. Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as leader of North Korea in 2011, while South Korea elected the first ever female president Park Geun-hye in the 2012 election. The conservative Park Geun-hye administration was formally accused of corruption, bribery, and influence-peddling for the involvement of Park's close friend Choi Soon-sil in state affairs. There followed a series of nationwide public demonstrations from November 2016, and she was removed from office. After the fallout of Park's impeachment and dismissal, elections were held and Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party won the presidency, immediately taking office on May 10, 2017. His tenure saw an improving political relationship with North Korea, some increasing divergence in the military alliance with the United States, and the successful hosting of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. In April 2018, Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 24 years in jail and convicted of abuse of power and corruption. The COVID-19 pandemic caused South Korea to record more deaths than births, resulting in a population decline for the first time on record.
In March 2022, Yoon Suk Yeol, the candidate of the conservative opposition People Power Party, won a close election over Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung by the narrowest margin in the history of the Sixth Republic and was sworn in on May 10, 2022. He declared martial law on December 3, 2024, accusing the opposition of being pro-North Korean and conducting anti-state activities. After several hours, the National Assembly voted to nullify the declaration in a unanimous vote of 190/0, causing Yoon to end martial law early on December 4. Yoon's actions resulted in his impeachment on December 14, 2024, followed by his unanimous removal from office on April 4, 2025. Lee Jae-myung won the election to succeed Yoon, immediately taking office on June 4, 2025.
== Geography ==
South Korea occupies the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula, which extends some 1,100 km (680 mi) from the Continental and East Asian mainland. This mountainous peninsula is flanked by the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east. Its southern tip lies on the Korea Strait and the East China Sea. The country, including all its islands, lies between latitudes 33° and 39°N, and longitudes 124° and 130°E. Its total area is 100,410 square kilometers (38,768.52 sq mi).
South Korea can be divided into four general regions: an eastern region of high mountain ranges and narrow coastal plains; a western region of broad coastal plains, river basins, and rolling hills; a southwestern region of mountains and valleys; and a southeastern region dominated by the broad basin of the Nakdong River. South Korea is home to three terrestrial ecoregions: Central Korean deciduous forests, Manchurian mixed forests, and Southern Korea evergreen forests. South Korea's terrain is mostly mountainous, most of which is not arable. Lowlands, located primarily in the west and southeast, make up only 30% of the total land area. South Korea has 20 national parks and popular natural areas such as the Boseong Tea Fields, Suncheon Bay Ecological Park, and Jirisan.
About 3,000 islands lie off the western and southern coasts of South Korea, the vast majority small and uninhabited. Jeju Island, the country's largest island, is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the southern coast of South Korea. Hallasan, a dormant volcano, is South Korea's highest point and reaches 1,950 meters (6,400 feet) above sea level. The easternmost islands of South Korea are Ulleungdo and the Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo/Takeshima), while Marado and Socotra Rock are the southernmost islands of South Korea.
=== Climate ===
South Korea tends to have a humid continental climate and a humid subtropical climate, and is affected by the East Asian monsoon, with precipitation heavier in summer during a short rainy season called jangma, which begins end of June and lasts through the end of July. In Seoul, the average January temperature range is −7 to 1 °C (19 to 34 °F), and the average August temperature range is 22 to 30 °C (72 to 86 °F). Winter temperatures are higher along the southern coast and considerably lower in the mountainous interior. Summer can be uncomfortably hot and humid, with temperatures exceeding 30 °C (86 °F) in most parts of the country. South Korea has four distinct seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter. Spring usually lasts from late March to early May, summer from mid-May to early September, autumn from mid-September to early November, and winter from mid-November to mid-March.
Rainfall is concentrated in the summer months of June through September. The southern coast is subject to late summer typhoons that bring strong winds, heavy rains and sometimes floods. The average annual precipitation varies from 1,370 millimeters (54 in) in Seoul to 1,470 millimeters (58 in) in Busan.
=== Environment ===
During the first 20 years of South Korea's growth surge, little effort was made to preserve the environment. Unchecked industrialization and urban development have resulted in deforestation and destruction of wetlands such as the Songdo Tidal Flat. However, there have been recent efforts to balance these problems, including a government run $84 billion five-year green growth project that aims to boost energy efficiency and green technology.
The climate initiative utilizes nearly two percent of the national GDP and facilitates creation of a nationwide bike network, solar and wind energy, decreasing combustion vehicles, backing daylight saving time and replacing obsolete lighting products in favor of environmentally friendly technologies such as LEDs. The country plans to build a nationwide next-generation network that will be 10 times faster than broadband facilities, in order to reduce energy usage.
The renewable portfolio standard program with renewable energy certificates runs from 2012 to 2022.
Quota systems favor large, vertically integrated generators and multinational electric utilities because certificates are generally denominated in units of one megawatt-hour. They are also more difficult to design and implement than a feed-in tariff. Around 350 residential micro combined heat and power units were installed in 2012. In 2017, South Korea was the world's seventh largest emitter of carbon emissions and the fifth largest emitter per capita. President Moon Jae-in pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero in 2050.
Seoul's tap water recently became safe to drink, with city officials branding it "Arisu" in a bid to convince the public. Efforts have also been made with afforestation projects; South Korea had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.02/10, ranking it 87th globally out of 172 countries. Another multibillion-dollar project was the restoration of Cheonggyecheon, a stream running through downtown Seoul that had previously been paved over by a motorway. One major challenge is air quality, with acid rain, sulfur oxides, and annual yellow dust storms; however, many of these difficulties are a result of South Korea's proximity to China, which is a major air polluter.
South Korea is a member of the Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity Treaty, Kyoto Protocol (forming the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG), regarding UNFCCC, with Mexico and Switzerland), Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (not into force), Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, and Whaling.
== Government and politics ==
The South Korean government's structure is determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Like many democratic states, South Korea has a government divided into three branches: executive, judicial, and legislative. The executive and legislative branches operate primarily at the national level, although various ministries in the executive branch also carry out local functions. The judicial branch operates at both the national and local levels. Local governments are semi-autonomous and contain executive and legislative bodies of their own. South Korea is a constitutional democracy.
The constitution has been revised several times since its first promulgation in 1948 at independence. However, it has retained many broad characteristics and with the exception of the short-lived Second Republic of Korea, the country has always had a presidential system with an independent chief executive. Under its current constitution the state is sometimes referred to as the Sixth Republic of Korea. The first direct election was also held in 1948.
Although South Korea experienced a series of military dictatorships from the 1960s until the 1980s, it has since developed into a successful liberal democracy. Today, the CIA World Factbook describes South Korea's democracy as a "fully functioning modern democracy", while The Economist Democracy Index classifies it as a "full democracy", ranking at 24th out of 167 countries in 2022. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices South Korea is the 3rd most electoral democratic country in Asia as of 2023. However, some political experts has argued that South Korea has been experiencing democratic backsliding and the reemergence of authoritarianism, particularly under the presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol, which culminated when he declared martial law for the first time since the 1980 military coup d'état after the assassination of dictator Park Chung Hee, and the first since democratization in 1987. South Korea is ranked 33rd on the Corruption Perceptions Index (6th in the Asia–Pacific region), with a score of 63 out of 100.
=== Administrative divisions ===
The major administrative divisions in South Korea are eleven provinces, three special self-governing provinces, six metropolitan cities (self-governing cities that are not part of any province), one special metropolitan city and one special self-governing city.
a Revised Romanisation; b See Names of Seoul; c May As of 2018.; d Areas that belong to the territory under the Constitution of the Republic of Korea but have not been recovered.
=== Foreign relations ===
South Korea has been a member of the United Nations since 1991, when it became a member state at the same time as North Korea. On January 1, 2007, former South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon served as UN Secretary-General from 2007 to 2016. South Korea has developed links with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as both a member of ASEAN Plus three, a body of observers, and the East Asia Summit (EAS). In November 2009, South Korea joined the OECD Development Assistance Committee, marking the first time a former aid recipient country joined the group as a donor member. South Korea hosted the G-20 Summit in Seoul in November 2010, a year that saw South Korea and the European Union conclude a free trade agreement (FTA) to reduce trade barriers. South Korea went on to sign a Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Australia in 2014, and another with New Zealand in 2015. South Korea and Britain have agreed to extend a period of low or zero tariffs on bilateral trade of products with parts from the European Union in October 2023.
==== North Korea ====
Both North and South Korea claim complete sovereignty over the entire peninsula and outlying islands. Despite mutual animosity, reconciliation efforts have continued since the initial separation between North and South Korea. Political figures such as Kim Ku worked to reconcile the two governments even after the Korean War. With longstanding animosity following the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, North Korea and South Korea signed an agreement to pursue peace. On October 4, 2007, Roh Moo-Hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il signed an eight-point agreement on issues of permanent peace, high-level talks, economic cooperation, renewal of train services, highway and air travel, and a joint Olympic cheering squad.
Despite the Sunshine Policy and efforts at reconciliation, the progress was complicated by North Korean missile tests in 1993, 1998, 2006, 2009, and 2013. By early 2009, relationships between North and South Korea were very tense; North Korea had been reported to have deployed missiles, ended its former agreements with South Korea, and threatened South Korea and the United States not to interfere with a satellite launch it had planned. North and South Korea are still technically at war (having never signed a peace treaty after the Korean War) and share the world's most heavily fortified border. In January 2024, in response to increasing tensions, North Korea abandoned peaceful reunification plans and labeled South Korea as the most hostile country to North Korea.
==== China and Russia ====
Historically, Korea had close relations with the dynasties in China, and some Korean kingdoms were members of the Imperial Chinese tributary system. The Korean kingdoms also ruled over some Chinese kingdoms including the Khitan people and the Manchurians before the Qing dynasty and received tributes from them. In modern times, before the formation of South Korea, Korean independence fighters worked with Chinese soldiers during the Japanese occupation. However, after World War II, the People's Republic of China embraced Maoism while South Korea sought close relations with the United States. The PRC assisted North Korea with manpower and supplies during the Korean War, and in its aftermath the diplomatic relationship between South Korea and the PRC almost completely ceased. Relations thawed gradually, and South Korea and the PRC re-established formal diplomatic relations on August 24, 1992. The two countries sought to improve bilateral relations and lifted the forty-year-old trade embargo, and South Korean–Chinese relations have improved steadily since 1992. The Republic of Korea broke off official relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) upon gaining official relations with the People's Republic of China, which does not recognize Taiwan's sovereignty. China has become South Korea's largest trading partner by far, sending 26% of South Korean exports in 2016 worth $124 billion, as well as an additional $32 billion worth of exports to Hong Kong. South Korea is also China's fourth largest trading partner, with $93 billion of Chinese imports in 2016.
Following the Korean War, the Soviet Union's relation with North Korea resulted in little contact until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since the 1990s, there has been greater trade and cooperation between the two nations.
==== Japan ====
Korea and Japan have had difficult relations since ancient times but also significant cultural exchange, with Korea acting as the gateway between East Asia and Japan. Contemporary perceptions of Japan are still largely defined by Japan's 35-year colonization of Korea in the 20th century, which is generally regarded in South Korea as having been very negative. There were no formal diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan directly after independence at the end of World War II in 1945. South Korea and Japan eventually signed the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965 to establish diplomatic ties. Japan is today South Korea's third largest trading partner, with 12% ($46 billion) of exports in 2016.
Longstanding issues such as Japanese war crimes against Korean civilians, the negationist re-writing of Japanese textbooks relating Japanese atrocities during World War II, the territorial disputes over the Liancourt Rocks, known in South Korea as "Dokdo" and in Japan as "Takeshima", and visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, honoring Japanese people (civilians and military) killed during the war continue to trouble Korean-Japanese relations. The Liancourt Rocks were the first Korean territories to be forcibly colonized by Japan in 1905. Although it was again returned to Korea along with the rest of its territory in 1951 with the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan does not recant on its claims that the Liancourt Rocks are Japanese territory. In 2009, in response to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, President Roh Moo-hyun suspended all summit talks between South Korea and Japan in 2009. A summit between the nations' leaders was eventually held on February 9, 2018, during the Korean held Winter Olympics. South Korea asked the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban the Japanese Rising Sun Flag from the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and the IOC said in a statement "sports stadiums should be free of any political demonstration. When concerns arise at games time we look at them on a case-by-case basis."
==== European Union ====
The European Union (EU) and South Korea are important trading partners, having negotiated a free trade agreement for many years since South Korea was designated as a priority FTA partner in 2006. The free trade agreement was approved in September 2010, and took effect on July 1, 2011. South Korea is the EU's tenth largest trade partner, and the EU has become South Korea's fourth largest export destination. EU trade with South Korea exceeded €90 billion in 2015 and has enjoyed an annual average growth rate of 9.8% between 2003 and 2013.
The EU has been the single largest foreign investor in South Korea since 1962, and accounted for almost 45% of all FDI inflows into Korea in 2006. Nevertheless, EU companies have significant problems accessing and operating in the South Korean market because of stringent standards and testing requirements for products and services often creating barriers to trade. Both in its regular bilateral contacts with South Korea and through its FTA with Korea, the EU is seeking to improve the current geopolitical situation.
==== United States ====
A close relationship with the United States began directly after World War II, when the United States temporarily administered Korea for three years (mainly in the South, with the Soviet Union engaged in North Korea). Upon the onset of the Korean War in 1950, U.S. forces were sent to defend against an invasion from North Korea of the South and subsequently fought as the largest contributor of UN troops. The United States participation was critical for preventing the near defeat of the Republic of Korea by northern forces, as well as fighting back for the territory gains that define the South Korean nation today.
Following the Armistice, South Korea and the U.S. agreed to a "Mutual Defense Treaty", under which an attack on either party in the Pacific area would summon a response from both. In 1967, South Korea obliged the mutual defense treaty by sending a large combat troop contingent to support the United States in the Vietnam War. The two nations have strong economic, diplomatic, and military ties, although they have at times disagreed with regard to policies towards North Korea and with regard to some of South Korea's industrial activities that involve usage of rocket or nuclear technology. There had also been strong anti-American sentiment during certain periods, which has largely moderated in the modern day.
The two nations also share a close economic relationship, with the U.S. being South Korea's second largest trading partner, receiving $66 billion in exports in 2016. In 2007, a free trade agreement known as the Republic of Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement was signed between South Korea and the United States, but its formal implementation was repeatedly delayed, pending approval by the legislative bodies of the two countries. On October 12, 2011, the U.S. Congress passed the long-stalled trade agreement with South Korea. It went into effect on March 15, 2012.
=== Military ===
Unresolved tension with North Korea has prompted South Korea to allocate 2.6% of its GDP and 13.2% of all government spending to its military (government share of GDP: 14.967%), while maintaining compulsory conscription for men. Consequently, the ROK Armed Forces is one of the largest and most powerful standing armed forces in the world with a reported personnel strength of 3,600,000 in 2022 (500,000 active and 3,100,000 reserve).
The South Korean military consists of the Army (ROKA), the Navy (ROKN), the Air Force (ROKAF), and the Marine Corps (ROKMC), and reserve forces. Many of these forces are concentrated near the Korean Demilitarized Zone. All South Korean males are constitutionally required to serve in the military, typically 18 months. In addition Korean Augmentation to the United States Army is a branch of the Republic of Korea Army that consists of Korean enlisted personnel who are augmented to the Eighth United States Army. In 2010, South Korea spent ₩1.68 trillion in a cost-sharing agreement with the U.S. to provide budgetary support to the U.S. forces in Korea, on top of the ₩29.6 trillion budget for its own military.
From time to time, South Korea has sent its troops overseas to assist American forces. It has participated in most major conflicts that the United States has been involved in the past 50 years. South Korea dispatched 325,517 troops to fight in the Vietnam War, with a peak strength of 50,000. In 2004, South Korea sent 3,300 troops of the Zaytun Division to help rebuilding in northern Iraq, and was the third largest contributor in the coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. Beginning in 2001, South Korea had deployed 24,000 troops in the Middle East region to support the war on terror.
The right to conscientious objection was not recognized in South Korea until recently. Over 400 men were typically imprisoned at any given time for refusing military service for political or religious reasons in the years before right to conscientious objection was established. On June 28, 2018, the South Korean Constitutional Court ruled the Military Service Act unconstitutional and ordered the government to accommodate civilian forms of military service for conscientious objectors. On November 1, 2018, the South Korean Supreme Court legalized conscientious objection as a basis for rejecting compulsory military service.
==== United States contingent ====
There is a substantial United States military presence in South Korea. There are approximately 28,500 U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea, most of them serving one year unaccompanied tours. The U.S. troops, which are primarily ground and air units, are assigned to United States Forces Korea and mainly assigned to the Eighth Army, Seventh Air Force, and Naval Forces Korea. They are stationed in installations at Osan, Kunsan, Yongsan, Dongducheon, Sungbuk, Camp Humphreys, and Daegu, as well as at Camp Bonifas in the DMZ Joint Security Area.
A fully functioning UN Command is at the top of the chain of command of all forces in South Korea, including the U.S. forces and the entire South Korean military – if a sudden escalation of war between North and South Korea were to occur the United States would assume control of the South Korean armed forces in all military and paramilitary moves. There has been long-term agreement between the United States and South Korea that South Korea should eventually assume the lead for its own defense. This transition to a South Korean command has been slow and often postponed, although it is currently scheduled to occur in the 2020s.
== Economy ==
South Korea's mixed economy is the 14th largest by nominal GDP and the 14th largest GDP by purchasing power parity in the world, identifying it as one of the G20 major economies. It is a developed country with a high-income economy and is the most industrialized member country of the OECD. South Korean brands such as LG Electronics and Samsung are internationally famous and garnered South Korea's reputation for its quality electronics and other manufactured goods. South Korea became a member of the OECD in 1996.
Its massive investment in education has taken the country from mass illiteracy to a major international technological powerhouse. The country's national economy benefits from a highly skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentages of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. South Korea's economy was one of the world's fastest-growing from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, and was still one of the fastest-growing developed countries in the 2000s, along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, the other three Asian Tigers. It recorded the fastest rise in average GDP per capita in the world between 1980 and 1990. South Koreans refer to this growth as the Miracle on the Han River. The South Korean economy is heavily dependent on international trade, and in 2014, South Korea was the fifth-largest exporter and seventh-largest importer in the world. In addition, the country has one of the world's largest foreign-exchange reserves.
Despite the economy's high growth potential and apparent structural stability, the country suffers damage to its credit rating in the stock market because of the belligerence of North Korea in times of deep military crises, which has an adverse effect on its financial markets. The International Monetary Fund compliments the resilience of the economy against various economic crises, citing low state debt and high fiscal reserves that can quickly be mobilized to address financial emergencies. Although it was severely harmed by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the country managed a rapid recovery and subsequently tripled its GDP.
Furthermore, South Korea was one of the few developed countries that was able to avoid a recession during the 2008 financial crisis. Its economic growth rate reached 6.2% in 2010 (the fastest growth for eight years after significant growth by 7.2% in 2002), a sharp recovery from economic growth rates of 2.3% in 2008 and 0.2% in 2009 during the Great Recession. The unemployment rate also remained low in 2009 at 3.6%.
=== Transportation ===
South Korea has a technologically advanced transport network consisting of high-speed railways, highways, bus routes, ferry services, and air routes that crisscross the country. Korea Expressway Corporation operates the toll highways and service amenities en route. Korail provides train services to all major South Korean cities. Two rail lines, Gyeongui and Donghae Bukbu Line, to North Korea are being reconnected. The Korean high-speed rail system, KTX, provides high-speed service along Gyeongbu and Honam Line. Major cities such as Seoul, Busan, and Daegu have urban rapid transit systems. Express bus terminals are available in most cities.
The main gateway and largest airport is Incheon International Airport, serving 58 million passengers in 2016. Other international airports include Gimpo, Busan and Jeju. There are also many airports that were built as part of the infrastructure boom but are barely used. The national carrier Korean Air served over 26 million passengers, including almost 19 million international passengers in 2016. Asiana Airlines also serves domestic and international traffic. Combined, South Korean airlines serve 297 international routes. Smaller airlines, such as Jeju Air, provide domestic service with lower fares.
=== Energy ===
South Korea is the world's fifth-largest nuclear power producer and the third-largest in Asia as of 2010. Supplying 45% of its electricity production, nuclear research is very active with research into a variety of advanced reactors, including small modular reactors, liquid-metal fast/transmutation reactors and high-temperature hydrogen generation reactors. Fuel production and waste handling technologies have also been developed locally. It is also a member of the ITER project.
South Korea is an emerging exporter of nuclear reactors, having concluded agreements with the United Arab Emirates to build and maintain four advanced nuclear reactors, with Jordan for a research nuclear reactor, and with Argentina for construction and repair of heavy-water nuclear reactors. As of 2010, South Korea and Turkey are in negotiations regarding construction of two nuclear reactors. South Korea is also preparing to bid on construction of a light-water nuclear reactor for Argentina.
South Korea is not allowed to enrich uranium or develop traditional uranium enrichment technology on its own due to U.S. political pressure, unlike most major nuclear powers such as Japan, Germany, and France, competitors in the international nuclear market. This impediment to South Korea's indigenous nuclear industrial undertaking has sparked occasional diplomatic rows between the two allies. While successful in exporting its electricity-generating nuclear technology and nuclear reactors, it cannot capitalize on the market for nuclear enrichment facilities and refineries, preventing it from further expanding its export niche. South Korea has sought unique technologies such as pyroprocessing to circumvent these obstacles and seek a more advantageous competition. The U.S. has recently been wary of the burgeoning nuclear program, which South Korea insists will be for civilian use only.
South Korea is the 2nd highest ranked Continental Asian country in the World Economic Forum's Networked Readiness Index after Singapore—an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. South Korea ranks 9th worldwide.
=== Tourism ===
South Korean tourism is driven by many factors, including the prominence of Korean pop culture such as South Korean pop music and television dramas, known as the Korean Wave or Hallyu, has gained popularity throughout the world. The Hyundai Research Institute reported that the Korean Wave has a direct influence on encouraging direct foreign investment back into the country through demand for products, and the tourism industry. Among East Asian countries, China was the most receptive, investing $1.4 billion in South Korea, with much of the investment within its service sector, a sevenfold increase from 2001. In 2019, more than 17 million foreign tourists visited South Korea.
According to an analysis by economist Han Sang-Wan, a 1% increase in the exports of Korean cultural content pushes consumer goods exports up 0.083%, while a 1% increase in Korean pop content exports to a country produces a 0.019% bump in tourism.
=== National pension scheme ===
The South Korean pension system was created to provide benefits to persons reaching old age, families and persons stricken with death of their primary breadwinner, and for the purposes of stabilizing the nation's welfare state. The structure is primarily based on taxation and is income-related. The system is divided into four categories distributing benefits to participants through national, military personnel, governmental, and private school teacher pension schemes. The national pension scheme is the primary welfare system providing allowances to the majority of persons. Eligibility for the national pension scheme is not dependent on income but on age and residence, where those between the ages of 18 and 59 are covered. Anyone under 18 is a dependent of someone who is covered or under a special exclusion where they are allowed to alternative provisions. The national pension scheme is divided into four categories of insured persons – the workplace-based insured, the individually insured, the voluntarily insured, and the voluntarily and continuously insured. An old-age pension scheme covers individuals age 60 or older for the rest of their life as long as they have satisfied the minimum of 20 years of national pension coverage beforehand.
=== Science and technology ===
Scientific and technological development in South Korea at first did not occur largely because of more pressing matters such as the division of Korea and the Korean War that occurred right after its independence. It was not until the 1960s under the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee when South Korea's economy rapidly grew from industrialization and the chaebol corporations such as Samsung, LG, and SK. Ever since the industrialization of South Korea's economy, South Korea has placed its focus on technology-based corporations, which has been supported by infrastructure developments by the government.
South Korea leads the OECD in graduates in science and engineering. From 2014 to 2019, the country ranked first among the most innovative countries in the Bloomberg Innovation Index. It was ranked 4th in the Global Innovation Index in 2025. Republic of Korea South Korea today is known as a launchpad of a mature mobile market that allows developers to reap benefits of a market where very few technology constraints exist. There is a growing trend of inventions of new types of media or apps, utilizing the 4G and 5G internet infrastructure in South Korea. South Korea has the infrastructures to meet a high density of population and culture; this, along with high revenues, allows South Korean-only tech startups to reach valuations of $1 billion and above, a peak usually reserved for startups growing in several countries.
Total spending for research and development grew from about 3.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 to more than 4.9% in 2022 and was thus the second-highest in the world, only behind Israel which spent 5.9%. In 2023 the government announced a spending cut by about 11% for 2024 and the intention to shift resources to new initiatives, such as efforts to build rockets, pursue biomedical research, and develop US-style biotech innovation.
==== Cyber security ====
Following cyberattacks in the first half of 2013, whereby government, news-media, television station, and bank websites were compromised, the national government committed to the training of 5,000 new cybersecurity experts by 2017. The South Korean government blamed North Korea for these attacks, as well as incidents that occurred in 2009, 2011 and 2012, but Pyongyang denies the accusations. South Korea's government maintains a broad-ranging approach toward the regulation of specific online content and imposes a substantial level of censorship on election-related discourse and on many websites that the government deems subversive or socially harmful.
==== Aerospace engineering ====
South Korea has sent up 10 satellites since 1992, all using foreign rockets and overseas launch pads, notably Arirang-1 in 1999, and Arirang-2 in 2006 as part of its space partnership with Russia. Arirang-1 was lost in space in 2008, after nine years in service. In April 2008, Yi So-yeon became the first Korean to fly in space, aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-12.
In June 2009, the first spaceport of South Korea, Naro Space Center, was completed at Goheung, South Jeolla Province. The launch of Naro-1 in January 2013 was a success, after two previous failed attempts.
Efforts to build an indigenous space launch vehicle have been marred by persistent political pressure from the United States, who had for many decades hindered South Korea's indigenous rocket and missile development programs in fear of their possible connection to clandestine military ballistic missile programs, which Korea many times insisted did not violate the research and development guidelines stipulated by US-Korea agreements on restriction of rocket technology research and development. South Korea has sought the assistance of foreign countries such as Russia through MTCR commitments to supplement its restricted domestic rocket technology. The two failed KSLV-I launch vehicles were based on the Universal Rocket Module, the first stage of the Russian Angara rocket, combined with a solid-fueled second stage built by South Korea.
On October 21, 2021, the KSLV-2 Nuri was successfully launched, making South Korea a country with indigenous orbital launch capability.
==== Robotics ====
Robotics has been included in the list of main national research and development projects since 2003. In 2009, the government announced plans to build robot-themed parks in Incheon and Masan with a mix of public and private funding. In 2005, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed the world's second walking humanoid robot, HUBO. A team in the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology developed the first Korean android, EveR-1 in May 2006.
EveR-1 has been succeeded by more complex models with improved movement and vision.
Plans of creating English-teaching robot assistants to compensate for the shortage of teachers were announced in February 2010, with the robots being deployed to most preschools and kindergartens by 2013. Robotics are also incorporated in the entertainment sector; the Korean Robot Game Festival has been held every year since 2004 to promote science and robot technology.
==== Biotechnology ====
Since the 1980s, the government has invested in the development of a domestic biotechnology industry. The medical sector accounts for a large part of the production, including production of hepatitis vaccines and antibiotics. Research and development in genetics and cloning has received increasing attention, with the first successful cloning of a dog, Snuppy in 2005, and the cloning of two females of an endangered species of gray wolves by the Seoul National University in 2007. The rapid growth of the industry has resulted in significant voids in regulation of ethics, as was highlighted by the scientific misconduct case involving Hwang Woo-Suk.
Since late 2020, SK Bioscience Inc. (a division of SK Group) has been producing a major proportion of the Vaxzevria vaccine (also known as COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca), under license from the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, for worldwide distribution through the COVAX facility under the WHO hospice. A recent agreement with Novavax expands its production for a second vaccine to 40 million doses in 2022, with a $450 million investment in domestic and overseas facilities.
== Demographics ==
South Korea had an estimated population of roughly 51.7 million in 2022. The population more than doubled from 21.5 million in 1955 to 50 million by 2010. However, it is expected to peak at 52 million in 2024 and decline to 36 million in 2072, owing to a rapid decline in birth rates that began in 1960. South Korea's birth rate became the world's lowest in 2009, at an annual rate of approximately 9 births per 1000 people. Fertility saw some modest increase afterwards, but dropped to a new global low in 2017, with fewer than 30,000 births per month for the first time since records began, and less than one child per woman in 2018. In 2020, the country recorded more deaths than births, resulting in the first population decrease since modern records began.
By 2021, the fertility rate stood at just 0.81 children per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, falling to 0.78 in 2022 and 0.72 in 2023—the lowest in the world. Consequently, South Korea has seen the steepest decline in working age population among OECD nations; the proportion of people aged 65 years and over is slated to reach over 20% by 2025 and close to 45% by 2050. The low birth rate has been declared a "national emergency" and prompted the creation of a new ministry in May 2024 dedicated to reversing the trend and addressing issues related to aging, immigration, and the workforce. The government has also launched various incentives to help entice families to have children, including a cash allowance for newborns and greater funding of childcare and fertility treatments.
Government policy, along with a rebound in marriages delayed by COVID-19, may account for the Korean birth rate increasing in late 2024; total births in the third quarter were up 8% from the same period last year, marking the largest quarterly increase since the third quarter of 2012 and the first annual rise in total fertility since 2015. Data released in January 2025 show the number of births in November 2024 was 20,095, a 14.6% increase year-on-year, the highest growth rate since November 2010 (which recorded a 17.5% increase), and the third consecutive month of double-digit growth, following September's 10.1% and October's 13.4%.
Most South Koreans live in urban areas following rapid migration from the countryside during the country's rapid economic expansion in the 1970s through the 1990s. About half the population (24.5 million) is concentrated in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, making it the world's second largest metropolitan area; other major cities include Busan (3.5 million), Incheon (3.0 million), Daegu (2.5 million), Daejeon (1.4 million), Gwangju (1.4 million) and Ulsan (1.1 million). Population density is estimated at 514.6 per square kilometre (1,333/sq mi) in 2022, more than 10 times the global average.
The population has been shaped by international migration. After World War II and the division of the Korean Peninsula, about four million people from North Korea crossed the border to South Korea. This trend of net entry reversed over the next 40 years because of emigration; large numbers of ethnic Koreans live overseas, sometimes in ethnic neighborhoods known as Koreatowns. The four largest diaspora populations are in China (2.3 million), the United States (1.8 million), Japan (850,000), and Canada (250,000).
South Korea is among the most ethnically homogeneous societies in the world, with ethnic Koreans representing approximately 96% of the total population. Precise numbers are difficult to estimate since official statistics do not record ethnicity, and many immigrants are ethnically Korean while a growing number of South Korean citizens are not. The percentage of foreign nationals has been growing rapidly since the late 1990s, with South Korea having one of the fastest-growing foreign-born populations: As of November 2023, there was an all-time high of 2.46 million foreign residents, accounting for nearly 5 percent of the total population, compared to 2016 figures of 1.4 million foreign residents (roughly 2.75 percent of the population). Much of this growth was driven by foreign workers and international students.
About 30,000 foreign born residents obtain South Korean citizenship every year since 2010; in 2023, the number of foreigners who had acquired Korean nationality was 234,506, an increase of 4.8 percent from the prior year. The number of children of foreign residents born in South Korea increased by 7,809, or 2.8 percent, to 289,886. Many foreign citizens are ethnic Koreans: migrants from China (PRC) are the largest foreign-born group both proportionally and numerically, accounting for 56.5% of foreign nationals, but approximately 70% of these Chinese citizens are Joseonjok (조선족), PRC citizens of Korean ethnicity. In addition, about 43,000 English teachers from English-speaking countries reside temporarily in Korea.
Corresponding to its socioeconomic development, South Korea has experienced a dramatic increase in life expectancy, from 79.10 years in 2008 (which was 34th in the world), to 83.53 years in 2024—the fifth highest of any country or territory.
=== Language ===
Korean is the official language of South Korea and is classified by most linguists as a language isolate. It incorporates a significant number of loan words from Chinese. Korean uses an indigenous writing system called Hangul, which was created in 1446 by Sejong the Great to provide a convenient alternative to the Classical Chinese Hanja characters that were difficult to learn and did not fit the Korean language well. South Korea still uses some Chinese Hanja characters in niche areas, such as print media and legal documentation.
The Korean language in South Korea has a standard dialect known as the Seoul dialect, with an additional four dialects (Chungcheong, Gangwon, Gyeongsang, and Jeolla) and one language (Jeju) in use around the country. Almost all South Korean students today learn English throughout their education.
=== Religion ===
According to the 2024 results of the Korea Research's regular survey 'Public Opinion Within Public Opinion', more than half of the South Korean population (51%) declared themselves not affiliated with any religious organizations. In a 2012 survey, 52% declared themselves "religious", 31% said they were "not religious" and 15% identified themselves as "convinced atheists". Of the people who are affiliated with a religious organization, most are Christians and Buddhists. According to the survey, 31% of the population were Christians (20% identified themselves as Protestants, 11% as Roman Catholics) and 17% were Buddhists. Other religions include Islam (Approximately 130,000 Muslims, which includes 73% of migrant workers from Pakistan,Bangladesh and 27% accounting to 35,000 Korean Muslims), the homegrown sect of Won Buddhism, and a variety of indigenous religions, including Cheondoism (a Confucianizing religion), Jeungsanism, Daejongism, Daesun Jinrihoe, and others. Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution, and there is no state religion. Overall, between 2015 and 2024, there has been a slight rise in Christianity (from 27.6% to 31%), a slow rise in Buddhism (from 15.5% to 17%), and a decline in the unaffiliated population (from 56.9% to 51%).
Christianity is South Korea's largest organized religion, accounting for more than half of all South Korean adherents of religious organizations. There are approximately 16 million Christians in South Korea today; about two thirds of them belonging to Protestant churches, and the rest to the Catholic Church. The number of Protestants had been stagnant throughout the 1990s and the 2000s but increased to a peak level throughout the 2010s. Roman Catholics increased significantly between the 1980s and the 2000s but declined throughout the 2010s. Christianity, unlike in other East Asian countries, found fertile ground in Korea in the 18th century, and by the end of the 18th century it persuaded a large part of the population, as the declining monarchy supported it and opened the country to widespread proselytism as part of a project of Westernization. The weakness of Korean shamanism, which—unlike Japanese Shinto and China's religious system—never developed into a national religion of high status, combined with the impoverished state of Korean Buddhism, (after 500 years of suppression at the hands of the Joseon state, by the 20th century it was virtually extinct) left a free hand to Christian churches. Christianity's similarity to native religious narratives has been studied as another factor that contributed to its success in the peninsula. The Japanese colonization of the first half of the 20th century further strengthened the identification of Christianity with Korean nationalism, as the Japanese coopted native Korean shamanism into the Nipponic Imperial Shinto that they tried to establish in the peninsula. Widespread Christianization of the Koreans took place during State Shinto, after its abolition, and then in the independent South Korea as the newly established military government supported Christianity and tried to utterly oust native shamanism.
Among Christian denominations, Presbyterianism is the largest. About nine million people belong to one of the hundred different Presbyterian churches; the biggest ones are the HapDong Presbyterian Church, TongHap Presbyterian Church and the Koshin Presbyterian Church. South Korea is also the second-largest missionary-sending nation, after the United States.
Buddhism was introduced to Korea in the 4th century. It soon became a dominant religion in the southeastern kingdom of Silla, the region that hitherto hosts the strongest concentration of Buddhists in South Korea. In the other states of the Three Kingdoms Period, Goguryeo and Baekje, it was made the state religion respectively in 372 and 528. It remained the state religion in Later Silla and Goryeo. It was later suppressed throughout much of the subsequent history under the unified kingdom of Joseon, which officially adopted a strict Korean Confucianism. Today, South Korea has about 8.7 million Buddhists, most of them affiliated to the Jogye Order. Most of the National Treasures of South Korea are Buddhist artifacts.
=== Education ===
A centralized administration in South Korea oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. The school year is divided into two semesters, the first of which begins at the beginning of March and ends in mid-July, the second of which begins in late August and ends in mid-February. The country adopted a new educational program to increase the number of foreign students through 2010. According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the number of scholarships for foreign students in South Korea would have (under the program) doubled by that time, and the number of foreign students would have reached 100,000.
South Korea is one of the top-performing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in reading literacy, mathematics and sciences with the average student scoring 519, compared with the OECD average of 492, placing it ninth in the world. The country has one of the world's highest-educated labor forces among OECD countries. The country is well known for its highly feverish outlook on education, where its national obsession with education has been called "education fever". This obsession with education has catapulted the resource-poor nation consistently atop the global education rankings. In 2014, South Korea ranked second worldwide (after Singapore) in the national rankings of students' math and science scores by the OECD. Higher education is a serious issue in South Korean society, where it is viewed as one of the fundamental cornerstones of South Korean life. Education is regarded with a high priority for South Korean families, as success in education is often a source of honor and pride for families and within South Korean society at large, and is seen as a fundamental necessity to channel one's social mobility to ultimately improve one's socioeconomic position in South Korean society. Due to the importance of education in Korean society, many students attend cram schools.
In 2015, the country spent 5.1% of its GDP on all levels of education—roughly 0.8 percentage points above the OECD average of 4.3%. A strong investment in education, a militant drive to achieve academic success, as well as the passion for scholarly excellence has helped the resource-poor country rapidly grow its economy over the past 60 years from a war-torn land to a prosperous, developed country.
=== Health ===
South Korea has a universal health care system. According to the Health Care Index ranking, it has the world's best healthcare system as of 2021. South Korean hospitals have advanced medical equipment and facilities readily available, ranking 4th for MRI units per capita and 6th for CT scanners per capita in the OECD. It also had the OECD's second largest number of hospital beds per 1000 people at 9.56 beds. Life expectancy has been rising rapidly and South Korea ranked 6th in the world for life expectancy at 83.5 years in 2023. It also has the third highest health adjusted life expectancy in the world. Suicide in South Korea is the 12th highest in the world according to the World Health Organization, as well as the highest suicide rate in the OECD.
== Culture ==
South Korea shares its traditional culture with North Korea, but the two Koreas have developed distinct contemporary forms of culture since the peninsula was divided in 1945. Historically, while the culture has been heavily influenced by that of neighboring China, it has nevertheless independently managed to develop a unique cultural identity in its own right that is distinct from its larger neighbors. As of 2024, South Korea has 24 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, along with 16 World Heritage Sites. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism actively encourages the traditional arts, as well as modern forms, through funding and education programs. According to the 2023 edition of the Press Freedom Index, South Korea has the second highest level of press freedom in Continental and East Asia, behind Taiwan.
Industrialization and urbanization have brought many changes to the way modern Koreans live. Changing economic circumstances and lifestyles have led to a concentration of population in major cities, especially the capital Seoul, with multi-generational households separating into nuclear family living arrangements. A 2014 Euromonitor study on 44 countries found that South Koreans drink the most alcohol on a weekly basis compared to the rest of the world. South Koreans drink 13.7 shots of liquor per week on average with Russia, the Philippines, and Thailand following.
=== Art ===
Korean art has been highly influenced by Buddhism and Confucianism, which can be seen in the many traditional paintings, sculptures, ceramics and the performing arts. Korean pottery and porcelain, such as Joseon's baekja and buncheong, and Goryeo's celadon are well known throughout the world. The Korean tea ceremony, pansori, talchum, and buchaechum are also notable Korean performing arts.
Post-war modern Korean art started to flourish in the 1960s and 1970s, when South Korean artists took interest in geometrical shapes and intangible subjects. Establishing a harmony between man and nature was also a favorite of this time. Because of social instability, social issues appeared as main subjects in the 1980s. Art was influenced by various international events and exhibits in Korea, which brought more diversity. The Olympic Sculpture Garden in 1988, the transposition of the 1993 edition of the Whitney Biennial to Seoul, the creation of the Gwangju Biennale and the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1995 were notable events.
=== Architecture ===
Because of South Korea's tumultuous history, construction and destruction has been repeated endlessly, resulting in an interesting melange of architectural styles and designs.
Traditional Korean architecture is characterized by its harmony with nature. Ancient architects adopted the bracket system characterized by thatched roofs and heated floors called ondol. People of the upper classes built bigger houses with elegantly curved tiled roofs and lifting eaves. Traditional architecture can be seen in the palaces and temples, preserved old houses called hanok, and special sites like Hahoe Folk Village, Yangdong Folk Village and Korean Folk Village. Traditional architecture may also be seen at several of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Western architecture was first introduced at the end of the 19th century. Churches, offices for foreign legislation, schools and university buildings were built in new styles. With the annexation by Japan in 1910 the colonial regime intervened in Korea's architectural heritage, and Japanese-style modern architecture was imposed. Anti-Japanese sentiment and the Korean War led to the destruction of most buildings constructed during that time.
Modern Korean architecture entered a new phase of development during the post-Korean War reconstruction, incorporating modern architectural trends and styles. Stimulated by the economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s, active redevelopment saw new horizons in architectural design. In the aftermath of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, South Korea has witnessed a wide variation of styles in its architectural landscape with the opening up of the market to foreign architects. Contemporary architectural efforts have attempted to balance the traditional philosophy of "harmony with nature" and the fast-paced urbanization that the country has been going through in recent years.
=== Entertainment ===
In addition to domestic consumption, South Korea has a thriving entertainment industry where various facets of South Korean entertainment, including television dramas, films, and popular music, have garnered international popularity and generated significant export revenues for the nation's economy. The cultural phenomenon known as Hallyu or the "Korean Wave", has swept many countries across Continental and East Asia making South Korea a major soft power as an exporter of popular culture and entertainment, rivaling Western nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
Until the 1990s, trot and traditional folk-based ballads dominated the South Korean popular music scene. The emergence of the pop group Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992 marked a turning point for South Korean popular music, also known as K-pop. Since the 1990s, the genre of K-pop has continuously engaged in a process of ongoing reinvention and modernization by assimilating various elements of popular musical genres and trends from across the world such as Western popular music, experimental, jazz, gospel, Latin, hip hop, rhythm and blues, electronic dance, reggae, country, folk, and rock on top of its uniquely traditional Korean music roots. Though Western-style pop, hip hop, rhythm and blues, rock, folk, electronic dance oriented acts have become dominant in the contemporary South Korean popular music scene, trot still continues to be appreciated and enjoyed by older South Koreans. K-pop idols are well known across Continental Asia, have found fame in the Western World, and have generated millions of dollars in export revenue beyond the confines of the traditional East Asian music market. Many K-pop acts have also established themselves by securing a strong global following using online social media platforms such as YouTube. K-pop first began to make its mark outside of Continental and East Asia following the unexpected success of singer Psy's international music sensation, "Gangnam Style", which topped global music charts in 2012.
Since the success of the film Shiri in 1999, the Korean film industry has grown substantially, garnering recognition both nation-wide and across the globe. Domestic films have a dominant share of the South Korean film market, partly because of the existence of government screen quotas requiring cinemas to show Korean films for at least 73 days of the year. 2019's Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, became the highest-grossing film in South Korea as well as the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the United States-based Academy Awards that year amongst numerous other accolades.
South Korean television shows have become popular outside of Korea. Television dramas, known as K-dramas, have begun to find fame internationally. Many dramas tend to have a romantic focus. Historical dramas are also famous. The 2021 survival drama Squid Game, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, received critical acclaim and widespread international attention upon its release, becoming Netflix's most-watched series at launch and garnering a viewership of more than 142 million households during its first four weeks from launch.
=== Holidays ===
The Korean New Year, or "Seollal", is celebrated on the first day of the Korean calendar. Korean Independence Day falls on March 1 and commemorates the March First Movement of 1919. Memorial Day is celebrated on June 6, and its purpose is to honor the men and women who died in South Korea's independence movement. Constitution Day is on July 17, and it celebrates the promulgation of Constitution of the Republic of Korea. Liberation Day, on August 15, celebrates Korea's liberation from the Empire of Japan in 1945.
Every 15th day of the 8th lunar month, Koreans celebrate the Midautumn Festival, in which Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and eat a variety of traditional Korean foods. On October 1, Armed Forces Day is celebrated, honoring the military forces of South Korea. October 3 is National Foundation Day. Hangul Day on October 9 commemorates the invention of hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language.
=== Cuisine ===
Korean cuisine, hanguk yori, or hansik, has evolved through centuries of social and political change. Ingredients and dishes vary by province. There are many significant regional dishes that have proliferated in different variations across the country in the present day. The Korean royal court cuisine once brought all of the unique regional specialties together for the royal family. Meals consumed both by the royal family and ordinary citizens have been regulated by a unique culture of etiquette.
Korean cuisine is largely based on rice, noodles, tofu, vegetables, fish and meats. Traditional meals are noted for the number of side dishes, banchan, which accompany steam-cooked short-grain rice. Every meal is accompanied by numerous banchan. Kimchi, a fermented, usually spicy vegetable dish, is commonly served at every meal and is one of the best-known dishes. Korean cuisine usually involves heavy seasoning with sesame oil, doenjang (a type of fermented soybean paste), soy sauce, salt, garlic, ginger, and gochujang (a hot pepper paste). Other well-known dishes are bulgogi, grilled marinated beef; gimbap; and tteokbokki, a spicy snack consisting of rice cake seasoned with gochujang or a spicy chili paste.
Soups are also a common part of a meal and are served as part of the main course rather than at the beginning or the end of the meal. Soups known as guk are often made with meats, shellfish and vegetables. Similar to guk, tang has less water and is more often served in restaurants. Another type is jjigae, a stew that is typically heavily seasoned with chili pepper and served boiling hot.
Popular Korean alcoholic drinks include Soju, Makgeolli and Bokbunja ju. Korea is unique among East Asian countries in its use of metal chopsticks. Metal chopsticks have been discovered in Goguryeo archaeological sites.
=== Sports ===
The martial art taekwondo originated in Korea. In the 1950s and 1960s, modern rules were standardized, with taekwondo becoming an official Olympic sport in 2000. Other Korean martial arts include Taekkyon, hapkido, Tang Soo Do, Kuk Sool Won, kumdo and subak.
Football has traditionally been regarded as the most popular sport in Korea, with baseball as the second. Recent polling indicates that a majority, 41% of South Korean sports fans continue to self-identify as football fans, with baseball ranked 2nd at 25% of respondents. However, the polling did not indicate the extent to which respondents follow both sports.
The national football team became the first team in the Asian Football Confederation to reach the FIFA World Cup semi-finals in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan. The Korea Republic national team (as it is known) has qualified for every World Cup since Mexico 1986, and has broken out of the group stage in 2002, in 2010, when it was defeated by eventual semi-finalist Uruguay in the Round of 16, and in 2022. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, South Korea won the bronze medal for football.
Baseball was first introduced to Korea in 1905. Recent years have been characterized by increasing attendance and ticket prices for professional baseball games. The Korea Professional Baseball league, a 10-team circuit, was established in 1982. The South Korea national team finished third in the 2006 World Baseball Classic and second in the 2009 tournament. The team's 2009 final game against Japan was widely watched in Korea, with a large screen at Gwanghwamun crossing in Seoul broadcasting the game live. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, South Korea won the gold medal in baseball. Also in 1982, at the Baseball Worldcup, Korea won the gold medal. At the 2010 Asian Games, the Korean National Baseball team won the gold medal. Several Korean players have gone on to play in Major League Baseball.
Basketball is a popular sport in the country as well. South Korea has traditionally had one of the top basketball teams in Asia and one of the continent's strongest basketball divisions. Seoul hosted the 1967 and 1995 Asian Basketball Championship. The Korea national basketball team has won a record number of 23 medals at the event to date.
South Korea hosted the Asian Games in 1986 (Seoul), 2002 (Busan), and 2014 (Incheon). It also hosted the Winter Universiade in 1997, the Asian Winter Games in 1999, and the Summer Universiade in 2003 and 2015. In 1988, South Korea hosted the Summer Olympics in Seoul, coming fourth with 12 gold medals, 10 silver medals, and 11 bronze medals. South Korea regularly performs well in archery, shooting, table tennis, badminton, short track speed skating, handball, field hockey, freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, baseball, judo, taekwondo, speed skating, figure skating, and weightlifting. The Seoul Olympic Museum is dedicated to the 1988 Summer Olympics.
Pyeongchang hosted the 2018 Winter Olympics. South Korea has won more medals in the Winter Olympics than any other Asian country, with a total of 45 (23 gold, 14 silver, and 8 bronze). At the 2010 Winter Olympics, South Korea ranked fifth in the overall medal rankings. South Korea is especially strong in short track speed skating. Speed skating and figure skating are also popular, and ice hockey is an emerging sport, with Anyang Halla winning their first ever Asia League Ice Hockey title in March 2010.
Seoul hosted a professional triathlon race, which is part of the International Triathlon Union (ITU) World Championship Series in 2010. In 2011, the South Korean city of Daegu hosted the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Athletics. In 2010, South Korea hosted its first Formula One race at the Korea International Circuit in Yeongam. The Korean Grand Prix was held from 2010 to 2013.
Domestic horse racing events are followed by South Koreans and Seoul Race Park in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province is located closest to Seoul out of the country's three tracks.
Competitive video gaming, better known as esports, has become more popular in South Korea in recent years, particularly among young people. The two most popular games are League of Legends and StarCraft. The gaming scene is managed by the Korean e-Sports Association.
== See also ==
Outline of South Korea
State Council of South Korea ("cabinet" of South Korea)
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Official website (Korea.net)
Korea Tourism Guide website Archived March 1, 2017, at the Wayback Machine
Korea National Statistical Office
South Korea. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency.
A Country Study: South Korea in the Library of Congress
Korea on the OECD website
South Korea profile from BBC News
South Korea Encyclopædia Britannica entry
Key Development Forecasts for South Korea from International Futures |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyre_Chatterton | Eyre Chatterton | Eyre Chatterton (22 July 1863 – 8 December 1950) was an eminent Anglican author who served as a bishop in India from 1903 to 1926. He was also an amateur tennis player.
== Life ==
He was born in Monkstown, County Cork on 22 July 1863 and educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College and Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained by Bishop Lightfoot in 1887, and began his career with a curacy at Holy Trinity, Stockton-on-Tees. He was head of the Dublin University Mission to Chhöta Nagpur from 1891 to 1900 when he returned briefly to England to be curate of St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, Surrey. In 1902 it was announced he would become the inaugural bishop of Nagpur, a post he held for 23 years. He died on 8 December 1950.
Chatterton competed on the amateur tennis tour during the 1880s.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) in December 1901.
In 1926 he was appointed an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Canterbury.
== Works ==
The Story of Fifty Years' Mission Work in Chhota Nagpur. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1901.
With the Troops in Mesopotamia, 1916
The Story of Gondwana. Sir I. Pitman & Sons. 1916. with Stephen Hislop and Sir Richard Carnac Temple
A History of the Church of England in India: Since the Early Days of the East India Company. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1924.
Alex Wood, bishop of Nagpur, missionary, sportsman, philosopher: a memoir. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 1939.
India Through a Bishop's Diary: Or, Memories of an Indian Diocese, by Its First Bishop. Society for promoting Christian knowledge. 1935.
Our Anglican Church in India, 1815-1946. Indian Church Aid Association. 1946.
== Notes == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Schwartz_(physician) | William Schwartz (physician) | William Benjamin Schwartz (May 16, 1922 – March 15, 2009) was a pioneering nephrologist who identified rising costs of health care as an incipient problem as early as the 1980s.
Schwartz attended Duke University after serving in the Army in World War II, earning undergraduate and medical degrees. His pioneering observation that the antibiotic sulfanilamide increased excretion of sodium in patients with heart failure led to the discovery and development of modern diuretic drugs. The Lancet.
Early in his career, he joined what is now Tufts Medical Center, and founded its Division of Nephrology in 1950. He served as its head until 1971, following which he became the Chairman of Medicine and chief physician at Tufts, positions he held until 1976. Then, he left his administrative position at the medical center, becoming the Vannevar Bush University Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and Professor of Medicine until joining the faculty of the University of Southern California Medical School in 1992.
Beginning in the 1970s, Schwartz developed an interest in medical decision-making, and was an early researcher into artificial intelligence applications to medicine. Later in his career, he focused on the US medical system more broadly, and investigated issues such as costs, possible rationing of health care, availability of specialist care, and malpractice insurance. With economist Henry Aaron, he co-authored The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care in 1984. Further advancements in medicine—such as widespread availability of transplant surgery, Cardiac surgery, and MRIs strengthened his views of the need to contain spiraling costs through some form of rationing.
The syndrome Schwartz-Bartter's syndrome is named after him, along with Frederic Bartter.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_(musical) | Hamilton (musical) | Hamilton: An American Musical is a sung-and-rapped-through biographical musical with music, lyrics, and a book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, the musical covers the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and his involvement in the American Revolution and the political history of the early United States. Composed from 2008 to 2015, the music draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes. It casts non-white actors as the Founding Fathers of the United States and other historical figures. Miranda described Hamilton as about "America then, as told by America now".
From its opening, Hamilton received near-universal acclaim. It premiered off-Broadway on February 17, 2015, at the Public Theater in Lower Manhattan, with Miranda playing the role of Alexander Hamilton, where its several-month engagement was sold out. The musical won eight Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical. It then transferred to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, opening on August 6, 2015, where it received uniformly positive reviews and high box office sales. At the 70th Tony Awards, Hamilton received a record-breaking 16 nominations and won 11 awards, including Best Musical. It received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2020, a filmed version of the Broadway production was released on Disney+, followed by a theatrical release in 2025 by Walt Disney Pictures.
The Chicago production of Hamilton began preview performances at the CIBC Theatre in September 2016 and opened the following month. The West End production opened at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London on December 21, 2017, following previews from December 6, winning seven Olivier Awards in 2018, including Best New Musical. The first U.S. national tour began in March 2017. A second U.S. tour opened in February 2018. Hamilton's third U.S. tour began January 11, 2019, with a three-week engagement in Puerto Rico in which Miranda returned to the role of Hamilton. The first non-English production opened in Hamburg in October 2022 for which it had been translated into German. As of 2025, no amateur or professional licenses have been granted for Hamilton.
== Synopsis ==
Hamilton narrates Alexander Hamilton's life in two acts, and details among other things his involvement in the American Revolutionary War as an aide-de-camp to George Washington, his marriage to Eliza Schuyler, his career as a lawyer and Secretary of the Treasury, and his interactions with Aaron Burr (the main narrator for most of the musical), which culminates in their duel that ends Hamilton's life.
=== Act I ===
The orphan Alexander Hamilton experiences a difficult early life, but through his wits and the charity of the people of his hometown, he escapes his home—the island of St. Croix—and immigrates to New York City ("Alexander Hamilton"). As a student at King's College in 1776, Hamilton meets Aaron Burr, John Laurens, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Hercules Mulligan ("Aaron Burr, Sir"), and impresses them with his rhetorical skills ("My Shot"). The latter three and Hamilton affirm their revolutionary goals to each other, while Burr remains apprehensive ("The Story of Tonight"). Later, the daughters of the wealthy Philip Schuyler—Peggy, Angelica, and Eliza—go into town and share their excitement about the upcoming revolution ("The Schuyler Sisters"), while loyalist bishop Samuel Seabury argues against the revolution ("Farmer Refuted") and King George III insists on his authority ("You'll Be Back"). During the New York and New Jersey campaign, Hamilton accepts a position as George Washington's aide-de-camp despite longing for field command ("Right Hand Man").
At a ball hosted by Philip Schuyler ("A Winter's Ball"), Eliza falls helplessly in love with Hamilton, who reciprocates her feelings to the point of marriage ("Helpless"), as Angelica suppresses her own feelings for the sake of their happiness ("Satisfied"). After the wedding, Burr and Hamilton congratulate each other's successes ("The Story of Tonight (Reprise)"), and Burr reflects on Hamilton's swift rise compared to his own more cautious career, as well as his affair with Theodosia, the wife of a British officer ("Wait for It").
As conditions worsen for the Continental Army with the Battle of Monmouth ("Stay Alive"), Hamilton aids Laurens in a duel against disgraced Major General Charles Lee ("Ten Duel Commandments"), for which Washington temporarily suspends him from the army ("Meet Me Inside"). Back home, Eliza reveals that she is pregnant with their first child, Philip, and asks Hamilton to slow down to take in the good that has happened in their lives ("That Would Be Enough"). Lafayette convinces Washington to recall Hamilton and grant him field command for the Battle of Yorktown ("Guns and Ships"). Knowing that Hamilton would die a martyr, Washington tells him that he should carefully consider his actions because whatever he does will be remembered for all time ("History Has Its Eyes on You"). At Yorktown, Hamilton works with Lafayette to take down the British and reveals that Mulligan has been working as a spy, helping them trap the British and win the war ("Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)").
Soon after the victory of Yorktown, King George asks the newborn America how it will succeed on its own ("What Comes Next?"). Hamilton's son Philip is born, while Burr has a daughter, Theodosia, and the two new fathers promise their children that they will do anything to protect them ("Dear Theodosia"). Hamilton receives word that Laurens has been killed in a pointless battle with evacuating British troops after the war was already over and responds to his grief by throwing himself into his work ("Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us (The Laurens Interlude)"). Over the next decade, both Hamilton and Burr return to New York and work as lawyers. Through his work and writing, Hamilton rapidly gains influence, participates in the Constitutional Convention, co-authors The Federalist Papers and is selected as Secretary of the Treasury by newly elected President Washington, amidst Eliza begging him to slow down and Angelica moving to London with her new husband ("Non-Stop").
=== Act II ===
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson returns to America from being the U.S. ambassador to France, taking up his newfound position as Secretary of State ("What'd I Miss"). Jefferson and James Madison debate against Hamilton's financial proposals at a Cabinet meeting. Washington orders Hamilton to figure out a compromise to push his plan through Congress ("Cabinet Battle #1"). Eliza and her family—along with Angelica, visiting from London—travel upstate during the summer, while Hamilton stays home to work on the compromise ("Take a Break"). Hamilton begins an affair with Maria Reynolds, making him vulnerable to her husband's extortion ("Say No to This"). Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison finally reach a compromise over a private dinner: they will push through Hamilton's financial plan in exchange for placing the country's permanent capital on the Potomac River. Burr is envious of Hamilton's sway in the government and wishes that he had similar power ("The Room Where It Happens"). Burr switches political parties and defeats Hamilton's father-in-law Philip Schuyler in a race for the Senate, now making Hamilton a rival ("Schuyler Defeated").
In another Cabinet meeting, Jefferson and Hamilton argue over whether the United States should assist France in its conflict with Britain. President Washington ultimately agrees with Hamilton's argument for remaining neutral ("Cabinet Battle #2"). In the wake of this, Jefferson, Madison, and Burr decide to join forces to find a way to discredit Hamilton ("Washington on Your Side"). Washington retires from the presidency after his second term, and Hamilton assists in writing his farewell address ("One Last Time"). A flabbergasted King George receives word that George Washington has stepped down, and will be replaced by John Adams ("I Know Him"). Adams fires Hamilton, who, in response, publishes an inflammatory critique of the new president ("The Adams Administration").
Jefferson, Madison, and Burr confront Hamilton about James Reynolds's blackmail years earlier, accusing him of embezzlement ("We Know"). Desperate to salvage his political career by proving that he was merely lustful and not corrupt, Hamilton reminisces over his life and how writing has always saved him ("Hurricane"), before preemptively publicizing his affair in the Reynolds Pamphlet, which wrecks his own reputation ("The Reynolds Pamphlet"). It also ruins his relationship with Eliza, who, in heartbroken retaliation, burns all the letters Hamilton wrote her, trying to erase herself from history ("Burn"). At 19 years old, Hamilton's son Philip attempts to defend his father's honor in a duel with George Eacker ("Blow Us All Away"), but is fatally shot ("Stay Alive (Reprise)"), eventually leading to reconciliation between Alexander and Eliza ("It's Quiet Uptown").
Hamilton's surprising endorsement of longtime political enemy Jefferson over Burr in the 1800 presidential election ("The Election of 1800") dramatically intensifies the animosity between Hamilton and Burr, who reaches his breaking point and challenges Hamilton to a duel via an exchange of letters ("Your Obedient Servant"). Hamilton writes his last letter in a rush while Eliza tells him to go back to bed ("Best of Wives and Best of Women"). Burr reflects on the events leading up to the duel, while Hamilton reflects on his legacy, before throwing away his shot. Burr fatally shoots Hamilton, and laments that though he survived, he is destined to be remembered by history as the villain who killed Hamilton ("The World Was Wide Enough"). The musical closes with a reflection on historical memory. Jefferson and Madison reflect on Hamilton's legacy, while Eliza tells how she reinserted herself in history and ensured Hamilton's memory by recording the memories of fellow veterans, raising funds for the Washington Monument, speaking out against slavery, and establishing the first private orphanage in New York City ("Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story"). Eliza then turns toward the audience and lets out a tearful gasp.
== Principal casts ==
=== Original production principal casts ===
Notes
==== Off-Broadway ====
King George III – Jonathan Groff
==== Broadway ====
Alexander Hamilton – Javier Muñoz, Michael Luwoye, Ryan Vasquez, Miguel Cervantes, Jon Rua (standby)
Aaron Burr – Brandon Victor Dixon, Daniel Breaker, Jin Ha, Nik Walker, Nicholas Christopher
Eliza Hamilton – Lexi Lawson, Denée Benton, Krystal Joy Brown
Angelica Schuyler – Mandy Gonzalez
George Washington - Nicholas Christopher
Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson – Seth Stewart, James Monroe Iglehart, Kyle Scatliffe
John Laurens/Philip Hamilton – Jordan Fisher
King George III – Andrew Rannells, Rory O'Malley, Taran Killam, Brian d'Arcy James, Euan Morton, Neil Haskell, Jarrod Spector
==== Chicago ====
Aaron Burr – Wayne Brady, Daniel Breaker, Jin Ha
Angelica Schuyler – Montego Glover
==== West End ====
Alexander Hamilton - Alex Sawyer
Angelica Schuyler – Allyson Ava-Brown, Ava Brennan
George Washington – Trevor Dion Nicholas
King George III – Jon Robyns, Daniel Boys
Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds - Courtney-Mae Briggs
==== Third U.S. Tour ====
Alexander Hamilton - Lin-Manuel Miranda
==== Australian Tour ====
King George III – Rowan Witt
==== Notable Broadway ensemble members ====
Ariana DeBose (2015–2016, original Broadway cast)
Ephraim Sykes (2015–2016, original Broadway cast)
Thayne Jasperson (2015–present, original Broadway cast)
Jon Rua (2015–2017, original Broadway cast)
Sasha Hutchings (2015–2016, original Broadway cast)
JJ Niemann (2025)
== Musical numbers ==
Notes
=== Recordings ===
==== Original Broadway cast album (2015) ====
The original Broadway cast recording for Hamilton was made available to listeners by NPR on September 21, 2015. It was released by Atlantic Records digitally on September 25, 2015, and physical copies were released on October 16, 2015. The cast album has also been released on vinyl. The album debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the highest entrance for a cast recording since 1963. It went on to reach number 2 on the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the Billboard Rap albums chart. The original cast recording won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
==== The Hamilton Mixtape (2016) ====
The Hamilton Mixtape, a collection of remixes, covers, and samples of the musical's songs, was released on December 2, 2016. It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200.
==== The Hamilton Instrumentals (2017) and Hamiltunes ====
The Hamilton Instrumentals, an instrumental edition of the original Broadway cast recording without the cast's vocals, was released on June 30, 2017.
In conjunction with the release, the producers of Hamilton announced that they were officially authorizing free sing-along programs for fans, and offering organizers the Hamiltunes name and logo to promote the events. A series of unauthorized Hamilton sing-alongs under that name, starting with Hamiltunes L.A. in early 2016, had already taken place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., with spinoff events nationwide.
==== Hamildrops (2017–2018) ====
Miranda announced a new series of 13 Hamilton-related recordings called Hamildrops, releasing once a month from December 2017 to December 2018. The first release, on December 15, 2017, was "Ben Franklin's Song" by The Decemberists, containing lyrics Miranda wrote during the development of Hamilton for an unused song that was never set to music. Miranda had long imagined Benjamin Franklin singing in a "Decemberist-y way", and ultimately sent the lyrics to Colin Meloy, who set them to music.
The second release, on January 25, 2018, was "Wrote My Way Out (Remix)", a remixed version of a song on The Hamilton Mixtape, featuring Royce Da 5'9", Joyner Lucas, Black Thought and Aloe Blacc.
The third release, on March 2, 2018, was "The Hamilton Polka" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, a polka medley of some of the songs from the musical. A fan of Yankovic since childhood, Miranda became friends with him after they tried to develop a musical together. About the origin of the song, Yankovic said, "Lin pitched it to me as a polka medley way more hesitantly than [he] should have. He was like, 'Would you want to do a polka medley?' I was like, 'Of course I do!'" Since Yankovic was busy working on his new tour, he wouldn't be able to release the song in February, so he suggested calling March 2 "February 30th". Miranda said it was "the most perfect 'Weird Al' creative problem solving possible". After Hamilton had premiered on Disney+ in July 2020, Yankovic released a video version of "The Hamilton Polka" that synched his song to video clips from the show.
The fourth release, on March 19, 2018, was "Found/Tonight" by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt. A mash-up of the songs "You Will Be Found" from the 2015 stage musical Dear Evan Hansen and "The Story of Tonight", part of the proceeds were destinated to the initiative March for Our Lives, created after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Miranda said the song was his way "of helping to raise funds and awareness for [the efforts of the students in Parkland, Florida], and to say Thank You, and that we are with you so let's keep fighting, together". Platt added that he hoped the song could "play some small part in bringing about real change [in gun control laws]".
The fifth release, on April 30, 2018, was "First Burn", featuring five actresses who played Eliza Hamilton at productions of the musical: Arianna Afsar (original Chicago company), Julia Harriman (first national tour), Shoba Narayan (original second national tour company), Rachelle Ann Go (original West End company) and Lexi Lawson (Broadway). The song is the first draft written by Miranda of "Burn". Miranda described Eliza's portrayal in the first version of the song as "angrier" and "entirely reactive", while in the final version "she has agency", and explained that "it works as a song but not as a scene".
The sixth release, on May 31, 2018, was a cover of "Helpless" by The Regrettes. Miranda credited Mike Elizondo, a producer who worked with the band, as having suggested the idea, which he immediately accepted.
The seventh release, on June 18, 2018, was "Boom Goes the Cannon..." by Mobb Deep. The song, which incorporates a sample of the musical's "Right Hand Man", was one of the last recorded by Havoc and Prodigy, before Prodigy's passing in June 2017. Havoc expressed that the release of the record was "a great way to pay homage to [Prodigy] and continue not only Mobb's legacy, but his as well". Miranda dedicated it to Queensbridge.
The eighth release, "Rise Up, Wise Up, Eyes Up" by French duo Ibeyi, was released on August 31, 2018.
The ninth release, entitled "A Forgotten Spot (Olvidado)", features Puerto Rican singers Zion & Lennox, De La Ghetto, Ivy Queen, PJ Sin Suela and Lucecita Benítez. It was released on September 20, 2018, by Atlantic Records and Warner Music Group. The song was written by Miranda, along with the rest of the collaborators. The song was released on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria which directly struck Puerto Rico in 2017.
The tenth release, a rendition of "Theodosia Reprise" by Sara Bareilles, debuted on the eve of Halloween 2018. It featured show orchestrator Alex Lacamoire on piano and Questlove of The Roots on drums. The song, sharing a moment between Aaron Burr and his daughter, was to appear in Act 2 but was cut from the final production.
The eleventh release was "Cheering For Me Now", an original song with music by John Kander and lyrics by Miranda based on the 1788 Federal Procession in New York City. It was released on November 20, 2018. The release features Miranda performing as Alexander Hamilton and an arrangement by Alex Lacamoire.
On December 20, 2018, the final song was released. "One Last Time (44 Remix)" features the vocals of original Broadway portrayer of George Washington, Christopher Jackson, gospel and R&B singer BeBe Winans, and former U.S. president Barack Obama, reciting the lines from George Washington's farewell address. It is based on "One Last Time" with a revamped gospel type of music. The 44 in the title stands for Obama being the 44th president of the United States.
== Instrumentation ==
The Broadway show's orchestration consists of the following:
Two keyboards
Bass (doubling on electric bass, acoustic bass, and synth bass)
Guitar (doubling on electric, acoustic, and tenor banjo)
Drums
Percussion
Three violins (one doubling on viola)
Cello
The first keyboard part is played by the conductor.
== Background ==
While on vacation from performing in his hit Broadway show In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda read a copy of the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. After finishing the first few chapters, Miranda began to envision the life of Hamilton as a musical, and researched whether a stage musical of Hamilton's life had been created: all he found was that a play of Hamilton's story had been done on Broadway in 1917, starring George Arliss as Alexander Hamilton.
Miranda began a project titled The Hamilton Mixtape. On May 12, 2009, Miranda was invited to perform music from In the Heights at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music and the Spoken Word. Instead, he performed the first song from The Hamilton Mixtape, an early version of what would later become "Alexander Hamilton", Hamilton's opening number. He spent a year after that working on "My Shot", another early number from the show.
Although Miranda took some dramatic license in recounting the events of Hamilton's life, both the story and the lyrics in the musical numbers were heavily researched. Many of the songs included in the show contain lines lifted directly from primary source documents including personal letters and other documents such as The Federalist Papers and the infamous Reynolds Pamphlet. Miranda has also cited the television series The West Wing as an inspiration for his approach to the musical.
Miranda performed in a workshop production of the show, then titled The Hamilton Mixtape, at the Vassar College and New York Stage and Film Powerhouse Theater on July 27, 2013. The workshop production was directed by Thomas Kail and musically directed by Alex Lacamoire. The workshop consisted of the entirety of the first act of the show and three songs from the second act. The workshop was accompanied by Lacamoire on the piano. The cast included Miranda as Hamilton, Utkarsh Ambudkar as Burr, Christopher Jackson as Washington, Daveed Diggs as Lafayette/Jefferson, Ana Nogueira as Eliza, Anika Noni Rose as Angelica, Javier Muñoz as Laurens, Presilah Nunez as Peggy/Maria, and Joshua Henry as Mulligan/Madison/King George.
Of the Vassar workshop cast, only three principal cast members played in the off-Broadway production: Miranda, Diggs, and Jackson. Ambudkar, who played Aaron Burr at Vassar later stated that while the part was written with him in mind, his alcoholism at the time led to him being replaced. The original off-Broadway cast moved to Broadway, except for Brian d'Arcy James, who was replaced by Jonathan Groff as King George III.
In 2014, there was a workshop production at the 52nd Street Project starring Miranda as Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Burr, Diggs as Lafayette/Jefferson, Phillipa Soo as Eliza, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica, Anthony Ramos as Laurens/Philip, Okieriete Onaodowan as Mulligan/Madison, Ciara Renée as Peggy/Maria, James as King George III, and Isaiah Johnson as Washington. An audio recording of this production is available on YouTube.
== Productions ==
=== Off-Broadway (2015) ===
Directed by Thomas Kail and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler, the musical received its world premiere Off-Broadway at The Public Theater, under the supervision of the Public's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, with previews starting on January 20, 2015, and officially opening on February 17. The production was extended twice, first to April 5 and then to May 3. Chernow served as historical consultant to the production. The show opened to universal acclaim according to review aggregator Did He Like It.
According to New York Post gossip columnist Michael Riedel, producer Jeffrey Seller wanted to take the show to Broadway before the end of the 2014–2015 season in order to capitalize on public interest in the show and qualify for eligibility for that year's Tony Awards (Seller had made a similar decision as a producer of the musical Rent, which opened off-Broadway in January 1996, and quickly moved to Broadway in April); however, he was overruled by Miranda and Kail, as Miranda wanted more time to work on the show. Changes made between off-Broadway and Broadway included the cutting of several numbers, a rewrite of Hamilton's final moments before his death, and a cutting-down of the song "One Last Ride" (now titled "One Last Time") to focus simply on Washington's decision not to run for a third term as president.
=== Broadway (2015–present) ===
Hamilton premiered on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (also home to Miranda's 2008 Broadway debut In the Heights) on July 13, 2015, in previews, and opened on August 6, 2015. As in the off-Broadway production, the show is produced by Seller, Jill Furman and Sandy Jacobs with sets by David Korins, costumes by Paul Tazewell, lighting by Howell Binkley and sound by Nevin Steinberg.
The production was critically acclaimed and won 11 Tony Awards.
In April 2016, the cast reached an agreement with the show's producers for a profit-sharing deal, an uncommon arrangement in theater.
On March 12, 2020, the show suspended production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Performances resumed on September 14, 2021.
=== Chicago (2016–2020) ===
Hamilton began previews at the CIBC Theatre in Chicago on September 27, 2016. The Chicago production cast included Miguel Cervantes as Alexander Hamilton, Joshua Henry as Aaron Burr, Karen Olivo as Angelica Schuyler, Arianna Afsar as Eliza Schuyler, Alexander Gemignani as King George III, Jonathan Kirkland as George Washington, and Samantha Marie Ware as Peggy/Maria Reynolds. On its opening in October, attended by author Miranda, the Chicago production received strongly positive reviews. The Chicago run closed on January 5, 2020, after 1,341 shows. The production grossed $400 million, breaking the box office record for theater in Chicago. According to Chris Jones, the success was made possible by the larger number of seats the CIBC Theatre holds and can sell compared with, for example, the show's smaller New York City venue. Overall, "more than 2.6 million people took in Hamilton during its Chicago run", including the "31 thousand public school students who saw it through the Hamilton Education Program".
=== North American touring productions (2017–present) ===
==== Angelica Tour (2017–2023, 2024-present) and Phillip Tour (2018–2025) ====
Plans for a national tour of Hamilton emerged near the end of January 2016. The tour was initially announced with over 20 stops, scheduled from 2017 through at least 2020. Tickets to the tour's run in San Francisco—its debut city—sold out within 24 hours of release; the number of people who entered the online waiting room to purchase tickets surpassed 110,000. The first national touring production began preview performances at San Francisco's SHN Orpheum Theatre on March 10, 2017, and officially opened on March 23. The production ran in San Francisco until August 5, when it transferred to Los Angeles's Hollywood Pantages Theatre for a run from August 11 to December 30, 2017.
Just days after the first U.S. tour began performances in San Francisco, news emerged that a second U.S. tour of Hamilton would begin in Seattle for a six-week limited engagement before touring North America concurrently with the first tour. To distinguish the first and second touring productions, the production team has labeled them, respectively, the "Angelica Tour" and the "Philip Tour".
The Philip tour began preview performances at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on February 6, 2018, before officially opening on February 15, 2018.
The Angelica tour alone requires 14 truckloads of cargo and a core group of over 60 traveling cast, crew, and musicians. The production team insisted that each tour must be able to duplicate the original Broadway show's choreography, which utilizes two concentric turntables on the stage. This led to the construction of four portable sets, two for each tour, so that one set can be assembled well in advance at the next stop while the tour is still playing at the last stop.
Hamilton premiered in Canada when the Philip tour began a planned three-month run at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto, Ontario on February 11, 2020. The show was slated to run until May 17, 2020, but was cancelled from March 14 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Angelica tour concluded its run on June 25, 2023, at the Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A. Ferré in Puerto Rico.
The Angelica tour re-opened on September 4, 2024, at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre and is currently running along with the Phillip tour again after a resurgence of popularity for Hamilton.
==== And Peggy Tour (2019–2023) ====
Producers announced the formation of a third touring company on November 8, 2017, dubbed the "And Peggy Tour". It was to debut in a January 8–27, 2019 run at the University of Puerto Rico's Teatro UPR in San Juan, with Lin-Manuel Miranda reprising the title role, then to become a San Francisco production with a different lead. The Teatro UPR stage, damaged by 2017's Hurricane Maria, was repaired in a months-long restoration in anticipation of the show.
On December 21, 2018, less than a month away from opening night, negotiations between the show's production and the local faculty and staff union shifted the three-week engagement to the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center, and shortening it by three days to January 11–27. This followed weeks of warnings from the union of possible protests outside the theater over budget cuts that the University of Puerto Rico administration was considering that would affect university staff and employees. In response to the prospect of union and pro-statehood protestors, a line of police stood outside the theater on opening night.
Miranda's performance in the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center marked his return to the venue nine years after he reprised the role of Usnavi for the San Juan stop of the North American touring production of In the Heights. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon taped segments in Puerto Rico to help tourism, one of them with the "And Peggy Tour" cast performing a version of "The Story of Tonight", where Jimmy Fallon joined in as a second Alexander Hamilton next to Miranda, changing the final song lyric to "they'll tell the story of Tonight Show", and ending the performance with a salsa version of Fallon's Tonight Show opening song.
In a review of the Puerto Rico production, Chris Jones said Miranda's performance demonstrated "deeper on-stage emotions", as well as improved vocal and dance technique than on his original run on Broadway. Jones praised Miranda's "signature warmth" as well as Donald Webber Jr., calling Webber's performance as Aaron Burr "exceptional". The sold-out three-week engagement raised about $15 million for Miranda's Flamboyán Arts Fund, which benefits arts in Puerto Rico; the first beneficiary having been the restoration of the Teatro UPR, where the three-week engagement would have originally taken place.
A filmed version of "Alexander Hamilton" was created featuring the Puerto Rico production and was shown as the final part of Hamilton: The Exhibition in 2019.
Julius Thomas III took over the role of Alexander Hamilton when the And Peggy tour moved to San Francisco, where it opened on February 21, 2019. Despite billing as a tour (as is the common theatrical convention with West Coast sit-down productions), the And Peggy Tour was fixed in San Francisco for a lengthy residency with no scheduled traveling dates. The San Francisco production was given a separate tab on the show's website from the two traveling North American tours. The production stopped performances on March 11, 2020, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The San Francisco production reopened on August 10, 2021, and closed on September 5, 2021, to resume touring. The And Peggy Company had their final performance in Toronto on August 20, 2023.
==== Eliza Tour (2021–2022) ====
A new production in Los Angeles was to run from March 12 to November 22, 2020, at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, but was suspended on the date of its intended debut in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The production finally opened on August 27, 2021, and ran until March 20, 2022. It was named the Eliza Tour by the production team.
=== West End (2017–present) ===
Cameron Mackintosh produced a London production that re-opened the Victoria Palace Theatre on December 21, 2017, following previews from December 6. Initial principal casting was announced on January 26, 2017. The London production received strongly positive reviews.
In 2018, Prince Harry attended a charity performance of the London production, where he sung a few bars of "You'll Be Back," sung in the show by his sixth great-grandfather King George III.
The show was forced to close from March 16, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in England. It was announced in June 2020 that it would not reopen until 2021. It reopened on August 19, 2021.
=== Australia (2021–2023) ===
Hamilton had its Australian premiere at Sydney Lyric, with previews beginning March 17, 2021. The Australian company is led by Jason Arrow as Alexander Hamilton, Chloé Zuel as Eliza Hamilton, Lyndon Watts as Aaron Burr, Akina Edmonds as Angelica Schuyler, Matu Ngaropo as George Washington, Victory Ndukwe as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, Shaka Cook as Hercules Mulligan/James Madison, Marty Alix as John Laurens/Philip Hamilton, Elandrah Eramiha as Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds and Brent Hill as King George III. The production was forced to suspend performances due to Sydney's Second Wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on June 25, 2021. Performances resumed on October 19, following a significant uptake in COVID-19 vaccines.
The production opened in Melbourne at Her Majesty's Theatre on March 15, 2022, one year following the opening in Sydney. The company performed a Ham4Ham show on March 22, 2022, before the official opening night on the 24th. A mashup of iconic Australian songs mixed with the Hamilton soundtrack was performed by the cast and written by Alex Lacamoire. The Melbourne production received overwhelming positive reviews, with Jason Arrow's performance praised, with The Age saying that Arrow "wipes the floor with Miranda's performance in the Disney+ version". Standby Tigist Strode performed the role of Eliza on opening night and was also received positively by reviewers. In September 2022, Sami Afuni took over the role of Hercules Mulligan/James Madison whilst Rowan Witt joined the company for the remainder of the Melbourne Season as King George. The Melbourne season ended on January 15, following a nine-month run.
The Australian tour continued in 2023, playing at the Lyric Theatre, QPAC in Brisbane from January, where it concluded its run on April 23.
=== Hamburg (2022–2023) ===
According to a report in Forbes, Stage Entertainment announced a German production in 2019 to open at the Operettenhaus in Hamburg. Originally scheduled for November 2021, the opening was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previews started on September 24, 2022, and the opening night eventually took place on October 6, 2022. It was the first official non-English production of the show.
The translation of the lyrics was done by German musical author Kevin Schroeder and German rapper Sera Finale.
In March 2023 it was announced that the production will end in October 2023 after only one year due to disappointing ticket sales. The production then closed on October 15, 2023.
=== International Tour (2023) ===
The Australian producers, Michael Cassel Group, announced an international tour to commence in Auckland, New Zealand at Spark Arena in May 2023. The production will feature the Australian cast, and be the first to be staged in an arena.
On March 28, 2023, through the GMG Productions social media pages, Miranda announced that the musical would have its Asian premiere in Manila, Philippines, in September at the Solaire Resort & Casino's theatre. The tour started previews in Manila on September 21, 2023, before having an opening night on November 11, 2023. Several Australian cast members, including Jason Arrow as Alexander Hamilton, returned for the first Asian production, The Manila run of the production performed there until November 26, 2023. Filipino actress Rachelle Ann Go reprised her role as Eliza from the original West End production. After the Manila run, the production moved to Abu Dhabi in 2024, where it ran from January 17 to February 11 at the Etihad Arena. Subsequently, the show will be transferred to Singapore starting on April 19 at the Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands.
=== UK and Ireland Tour (2023) ===
A UK and Ireland tour began at the Palace Theatre, Manchester on November 11, 2023, before it will be touring to Edinburgh, Bristol, Birmingham, Dublin, Cardiff, Bradford, Southampton, Liverpool, Sunderland, Plymouth and Norwich. The full cast was announced on 21 September, with Shaq Taylor taking on the titular role.
== Box office and business ==
=== Opening and box office records ===
Hamilton's off-Broadway engagement at The Public Theater was sold out, and when the musical opened on Broadway, it had a multimillion-dollar advance in ticket sales, reportedly taking in $30 million before its official opening.
By September 2015, the show was sold out for most of its Broadway engagement. It was the second-highest-grossing show on Broadway for the Labor Day week ending September 6, 2015 (behind only The Lion King).
Hamilton set a Broadway box office record for the most money grossed in a single week in New York City in late November 2016, when it grossed $3.3 million for an eight-performance week, the first show to break $3 million in eight performances.
=== Ticket lottery and Ham4Ham ===
Hamilton, like some other Broadway musicals, offers a ticket lottery before every show. Initially, 21 front-row seats (and occasional standing room tickets) were offered in each lottery. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda began preparing and hosting outdoor mini-performances shortly before each daily drawing, allowing lottery participants to experience a part of the show even when they did not win tickets. These were dubbed the "Ham4Ham" shows, because lottery winners were given the opportunity to purchase two tickets at the reduced price of one Hamilton ($10 bill) each.
The online theatrical journal HowlRound characterized Ham4Ham as an expression of Miranda's cultural background:
Ham4Ham follows a long tradition of Latina/o (or the ancestors of present-day Latina/os) theatremaking that dates back to when the events in Hamilton were happening. ... The philosophy behind this is simple. If the people won't come to the theatre, then take the theatre to the people. While El Teatro Campesino's 'taking it to the streets' originated from a place of social protest, Ham4Ham does so to create accessibility, tap into social media, and ultimately generate a free, self-functioning marketing campaign. In this way, Ham4Ham falls into a lineage of accessibility as a Latina/o theatremaking aesthetic.
As a result of the Ham4Ham shows, Hamilton's lottery drew unusually large crowds of people who created congestion on West 46th Street. To avoid increasingly dangerous crowding and traffic conditions, an online ticket lottery began operating in early January 2016. On the first day of the online lottery, more than 50,000 people entered, crashing the website.
After Miranda left the show on July 9, 2016, Rory O'Malley, then playing King George III, took over as the host of Ham4Ham. The Ham4Ham show officially ended on August 31, 2016, after more than a year of performances. The online lottery continued, with an official mobile app released in August 2017 that expanded the lottery by offering tickets for touring productions of Hamilton as well as the Broadway show.
== Critical response ==
Marilyn Stasio, in her review of the off-Broadway production of the show for Variety, wrote, "The music is exhilarating, but the lyrics are a big surprise. The sense, as well as the sound of the sung dialogue, has been purposely suited to each character. George Washington, a stately figure in Jackson's dignified performance, sings in polished prose. ... In the end, Miranda's impassioned narrative of one man's story becomes the collective narrative of a nation, a nation built by immigrants who occasionally need to be reminded where they came from."
In his review of the off-Broadway production, Jesse Green in New York wrote, "The conflict between independence and interdependence is not just the show's subject but also its method: It brings the complexity of forming a union from disparate constituencies right to your ears. ... Few are the theatergoers who will be familiar with all of Miranda's touchstones. I caught the verbal references to Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, [Stephen] Sondheim, West Side Story, and 1776, but other people had to point out to me the frequent hat-tips to hip-hop ... Whether it's a watershed, a breakthrough, and a game-changer, as some have been saying, is another matter. Miranda is too savvy (and loves his antecedents too much) to try to reinvent all the rules at once. ... Those duels, by the way—there are three of them—are superbly handled, the highlights of a riveting if at times overbusy staging by the director Thomas Kail and the choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler."
Although giving a positive review, Elisabeth Vincentelli, of the New York Post (which was founded by Hamilton himself), wrote that Hamilton and Burr's love/hate relationship "fails to drive the show—partly because Miranda lacks the charisma and intensity of the man he portrays", and that "too many of the numbers are exposition-heavy lessons, as if this were 'Schoolhouse Rap!' The show is burdened with eye-glazingly dull stretches, especially those involving George Washington."
Reviewing the Broadway production in The New York Times, Ben Brantley wrote, "But Hamilton, directed by Thomas Kail and starring Mr. Miranda, might just about be worth it...Washington, Jefferson, Madison—they're all here, making war and writing constitutions and debating points of economic structure. So are Aaron Burr and the Marquis de Lafayette. They wear the clothes (by Paul Tazewell) you might expect them to wear in a traditional costume drama, and the big stage they inhabit has been done up (by David Korins) to suggest a period-appropriate tavern, where incendiary youth might gather to drink, brawl and plot revolution." Melanie McFarland of Salon.com wrote, "Enthralling [and] uplifting".
In Time Out New York, David Cote wrote, "I love Hamilton... A sublime conjunction of radio-ready hip-hop (as well as R&B, Britpop and trad showstoppers), under-dramatized American history and Miranda's uniquely personal focus as a first-generation Puerto Rican and inexhaustible wordsmith, Hamilton hits multilevel culture buttons, hard. ... The work's human drama and novelistic density remain astonishing." Cote chose Hamilton as a Critics' Pick, and gave the production five out of five stars.
In an issue of Journal of the Early Republic, Andrew Schocket wrote that while Hamilton makes bold choices to stray away from what he calls the "American Revolution Rebooted" genre, it remains "forged in the mold of this genre, and despite its casting and hip-hop delivery, is more representative of it than we might think". In the same issue, Marvin McAllister noted that the production's heavy hip-hop influence works so well because "Miranda elevates the form through this marriage with musical theater storytelling, and in the process, ennobles the culture and the creators."
A review in The Economist summed up the response to Hamilton as "near-universal critical acclaim". Barack Obama joked in 2016 that admiration for the musical is "the only thing Dick Cheney and I agree on". In 2019, writers for The Guardian ranked Hamilton the second-greatest theatrical work since 2000.
Some feminist scholars have criticized Hamilton for its depiction of women. Theatre professor Stacy Wolf finds that female characters are assigned "limited and stereotypical roles" within a male-dominated story dominated by masculine perspectives and aesthetics. Musicologist Cheryl L. Keyes argues that the main character's three love interests — Eliza Hamilton, Angelica Schuyler, and Maria Reynolds — conform to a trifecta of female character tropes defined by the male gaze and found in hip hop music: the "good wife", the "gold digger", and the "whore".
== Honors and awards ==
=== Original off-Broadway productions ===
‡ Blankenbuehler received a Special Drama Desk Award for "his inspired and heart-stopping choreography in Hamilton, which is indispensable [sic] to the musical's storytelling. His body of work is versatile, yet a dynamic and fluid style is consistently evident. When it's time to 'take his shot,' Blankenbuehler hits the bulls-eye."
=== Original Broadway production ===
The musical currently holds the record for most Tony Award nominations with 16 nominations (though due to multiple nominations in the two 'actor' categories, it could have only won 13 awards unless a tie occurred). It eventually won 11 awards, the second-most ever given to a single production, behind only the original Broadway production of The Producers (2001), which won twelve.
=== Original West End production ===
=== Original Australian production ===
=== Accolades ===
== Concept ==
According to The New Yorker, the show is "an achievement of historical and cultural reimagining". The costumes and set reflect the period, with "velvet frock coats and knee britches. The set ... is a wooden scaffold against exposed brick; the warm lighting suggests candlelight". The musical is mostly sung and rapped all the way through, with little dialogue isolated outside of the musical score.
=== Casting diversity ===
Miranda said that the portrayal of Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other white historical figures by black, Latino and Asian actors should not require any substantial suspension of disbelief by audience members. "Our cast looks like America looks now, and that's certainly intentional", he said. "It's a way of pulling you into the story and allowing you to leave whatever cultural baggage you have about the founding fathers at the door." He noted "We're telling the story of old, dead white men but we're using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience."
The pro-immigration message of Hamilton is at the forefront, as the show revolves around the life of one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, and how he made his mark in American politics as an immigrant. Instead of being characterized as a white person, Alexander Hamilton's immigrant status is referenced throughout the show, along with the virtue and prowess of Hamilton ("by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter", described in the show's opening, and later stating "immigrants, we get the job done"), in order to foster a positive image of immigrants. Alongside this, the casting of Black, Latino, and Asian American leads allowed audiences to literally view America as a nation of immigrants, and illustrate the "complex racial history and identity of America".
"Hamilton is a story about America, and the most beautiful thing about it is ... it's told by such a diverse cast with such diverse styles of music", according to Renee Elise Goldsberry, who played Angelica Schuyler. "We have the opportunity to reclaim a history that some of us don't necessarily think is our own." Miranda has stated that he is "totally open" to women playing the Founding Fathers. Casting for the British production featured predominantly black British artists.
=== Historical accuracy ===
==== Chronology and events ====
Although Hamilton was based on historical events and people, Miranda did use some dramatic license in retelling the story. Here are the most prominent examples:
In "Aaron Burr, Sir", Alexander Hamilton is depicted as having come to the United States in 1776; he came in 1773. In the same song, Hamilton meets with John Laurens, Hercules Mulligan, and Marquis de Lafayette shortly after arriving in New York. While it's true that Hamilton met Mulligan early during his time in New York, he only met Laurens and Lafayette after becoming George Washington's aide-de-camp. In addition, Lafayette did not come to the United States until after the war had started.
In "My Shot", Hamilton describes himself as an abolitionist. Hamilton generally opposed slavery, but scholars have disputed if he could be described as an abolitionist. Despite once being the president of the New York Manumission Society, the fight against slavery wasn't considered a "mission" to him. His business dealings sometimes involved him in it; his father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, was a slave owner, as was George Washington. In the song "Stay Alive", Laurens says that he and Hamilton wrote essays against slavery; Hamilton didn't write any essays against slavery. There is also some evidence that Hamilton could have owned slaves himself.
While Angelica did have a strong relationship with Hamilton, it was exaggerated in the show. During "Satisfied", Angelica explains why Hamilton is not suitable for her despite wanting him; in particular, she states, "I'm a girl in a world in which my only job is to marry rich. My father has no sons so I'm the one who has to social climb for one." In actuality, Angelica had less pressure on her to do this: by 1780, Philip Schuyler actually had fourteen children, including two sons who survived into adulthood (one of whom was New York State Assemblyman Philip Jeremiah Schuyler); Philip Schuyler's fifteenth and last child, a daughter, was born in 1781. Angelica also eloped with John Barker Church three years before she met Hamilton at her sister's wedding, when she was already a mother of two of her eight children with Church. In addition, in "Take a Break", Angelica mentions that Hamilton put a comma in the wrong place in a letter to her, writing "my dearest,...". In reality, it was Angelica who did that. Hamilton noticed, and asked about it, with seemingly a bit of flirtatious hope in his question. Miranda stated that "[he] conveniently forgot that" for two reasons: because it is stronger dramatically if Angelica is available but cannot marry him; and, according to Hamilton: The Revolution, "in service of a larger point: Angelica is a world-class intellect in a world that does not allow her to flex it."
In Act I, Aaron Burr's role in Hamilton's life is overstated, and much of the early interactions between the two men in the show are fictionalized (Miranda even explicitly notes that "Aaron Burr, Sir" is a fictional first meeting between Hamilton and Burr in Hamilton: The Revolution). For example, while Burr was present at the Battle of Monmouth, Burr did not serve as Charles Lee's second in his duel with John Laurens as seen in "Ten Duel Commandments"; Lee's second was Evan Edwards. Hamilton also never invited Burr to his wedding as seen in "The Story of Tonight", and never approached Burr to help write The Federalist Papers as portrayed in "Non-Stop"; in Hamilton: The Revolution, Miranda calls the scene "Another great What if? Historically, we know that Hamilton asked other people to contribute to The Federalist Papers: Madison and John Jay agreed, but Gouverneur Morris declined. I extended that into this fictional scene, wherein Hamilton invites Burr to write [The Federalist Papers]."
In "A Winter's Ball", the character of Aaron Burr says that "... Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after [Hamilton]", to which Alexander Hamilton replies: "That's true!" In Hamilton: The Revolution, Miranda clarifies that it is false: "[It] is most likely a tale spread by John Adams later in life. But I like Hamilton owning it. At this point in the story he is at peak cockiness." Hamilton researchers Michael E. Newton and Stephen Knott say that they have failed to find any evidence for the story; Newton notes that the sexual connotation of tomcat as a womanizer did not exist in the 18th century.
"Take a Break" revolves around Angelica joining the Hamiltons in America for the summer and preceding this with a letter about it to Alexander himself; no such events took place in real life.
In the same song, a nine-year-old Philip Hamilton claims, "I have a sister, but I want a little brother"; Philip already had two of his five younger brothers when he was age 9: Alexander Hamilton Jr. and James Alexander Hamilton. Miranda jokingly notes in Hamilton: The Revolution, "And, boy, did he get little brothers! Five of them, actually, and two sisters."
While it is true that John Adams and Hamilton did not particularly get along, Adams did not fire Hamilton as told in the show. Hamilton himself tendered his resignation from his position as Secretary of the Treasury on December 1, 1794, two years before Adams became president. However, Hamilton remained close friends with Washington and highly influential in the political sphere until publishing a pamphlet criticizing Adams during the election of 1800, an event referenced in "The Adams Administration".
In regards to the creation and reception of The Reynolds Pamphlet, Jefferson, Madison, and Burr did not approach Hamilton about his affair after John Adams became president; it was actually James Monroe, Frederick Muhlenberg, and Abraham Venable in December 1792. Monroe was a close friend of Jefferson's and shared the information of Hamilton's affair with him. In summer 1797, journalist James T. Callender broke the story of Hamilton's infidelity; this is why the impact of The Reynolds Pamphlet's publication is exaggerated in the show. Hamilton blamed Monroe and challenged him to a duel, which was averted due to the intervention of Burr. With nothing left to do, Hamilton then published The Reynolds Pamphlet.
In "Blow Us All Away", George Eacker and Philip engage in a duel before the events of the 1800 presidential election; in said duel, the show has Eacker fire on Philip after seven paces. In reality, the duel occurred in 1801, with Philip Hamilton dying on November 24; furthermore, both men refused to fire for over a minute before Eacker shot Philip in the hips.
In "The Election of 1800", Madison tells Jefferson that he won the election in a landslide. The final vote count in the House of Representatives was 10 votes for Jefferson, 4 votes for Burr, and 2 blank ballots, meaning a division of 62.5% of the votes were for Jefferson against 25% for Burr.
It was not the presidential election of 1800 that led to Burr and Hamilton's duel. Burr did become Jefferson's vice-president, but when Jefferson decided not to run with Burr for reelection in 1804, Burr opted to run for Governor of New York instead; Burr lost to Morgan Lewis in a landslide. Afterward, a letter was published in The Albany Register from Charles D. Cooper to Philip Schuyler, claiming that Hamilton called Burr "a dangerous man and one who ought not be trusted with the reins of government", and that he knew of "a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr". This led to the letters between Burr and Hamilton as seen in "Your Obedient Servant".
==== Critical analysis and scholarship ====
The show has been critiqued for a simplistic depiction of Hamilton and vilification of Jefferson. Joanne B. Freeman, a history professor at Yale, contrasted the show's Hamilton to the "real Hamilton [who] was a mass of contradictions: an immigrant who sometimes distrusted immigrants, a revolutionary who placed a supreme value on law and order, a man who distrusted the rumblings of the masses yet preached his politics to them more frequently and passionately than many of his more democracy-friendly fellows".
Australian historian Shane White found the framing of the show's story "troubling", stating that he and many historian colleagues "would like to imagine that Hamilton is a last convulsion of the founding father mythology". According to White, Miranda's depiction of the founding of the United States "infuses new life into an older view of American history" that centered on the Founding Fathers, instead of joining the many historians who were "attempting to get away from the Great Men story" by incorporating "ordinary people, African-Americans, Native Americans and women" into a "more inclusive and nuanced" historical narrative in which Hamilton has a "cameo rather than leading role".
Rutgers University professor Lyra Monteiro criticized the show's multi-ethnic casting as obscuring a complete lack of identifiable enslaved or free persons of color as characters in the show. Monteiro identified other commentators, such as Ishmael Reed, who criticized the show for making Hamilton and other historical personages appear more progressive on racial injustice than they really were.
In The Baffler, policy analyst Matt Stoller criticized the musical's portrayal of Hamilton as an idealist committed to democratic principles, in contrast to what he characterized as the historical record of Hamilton's reactionary, anti-democratic politics and legacy. For example, Stoller cited Hamilton as a leader involved in the Newburgh conspiracy (a potential conspiracy against the Continental Congress in 1783); his development of a national financial system which, in Stoller's view, empowered the wealthy; and his use of military force, indefinite detention, and mass arrests against participants in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. Stoller cited history writer William Hogeland, who, in 2007, criticized Chernow's biography of Hamilton on similar grounds in the Boston Review.
In 2018, Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America's Past was published. Fifteen historians of early America authored essays on ways the musical both engages with and sometimes misinterprets history.
Theatre scholars Meredith Conti and Meron Langsner have both published written analyses of the place of firearms and dueling in the musical.
Writer and essayist Ishmael Reed wrote and produced the 2019 play The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, which critiques Hamilton's historical inaccuracies. The play, directed by Rome Neal, had an initial run in May 2019 at Nuyorican Poets Cafe and was produced again in October 2019.
Philosopher Michael Sandel critiques Hamilton for its oversimplistic multiculturalism, avoidance of discussions on Hamilton's financial doctrines, and a blind embrace of liberal meritocracy in his 2022 edition of Democracy's Discontent.
=== Use in education ===
KQED News wrote of a "growing number of intrepid U.S. history teachers ... who are harnessing the Hamilton phenomenon to inspire their students". The Cabinet rap battles provide a way to engage students with topics that have traditionally been considered uninteresting. An elective course for 11th and 12th graders on the musical Hamilton was held at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. KQED News added that "Hamilton is especially galvanizing for the student who believes that stories about 18th century America are distant and irrelevant" as it shows the Founding Fathers were real humans with real feeling and real flaws, rather than "bloodless, two-dimensional cutouts who devoted their lives to abstract principles". A high school teacher from the Bronx noted his students were "singing these songs the way they might sing the latest release from Drake or Adele". One teacher focused on Hamilton's ability to write his way out of trouble and toward a higher plane of existence: "skilled writing is the clearest sign of scholarship—and the best way to rise up and alter your circumstance."
Hamilton's producers have made a pledge to allow 20,000 New York City public high school students from low-income families to get subsidized tickets to see Hamilton on Broadway by reducing their tickets to $70 for students, and the Rockefeller Foundation provided $1.5 million to further lower ticket prices to $10 per student. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History created a study guide to accompany the student-ticket program.
Through a private grant, over the course of the 2017 school year, nearly 20,000 Chicago Public Schools students got to see a special performance of the show, and some got to perform original songs on stage prior to the show.
The website EducationWorld writes that Hamilton is "being praised for its revitalization of interest in civic education". Northwestern University announced plans to offer course work in 2017 inspired by Hamilton, in history, Latino studies, and interdisciplinary studies.
In 2016, Moraine Valley Community College started a Hamilton appreciation movement, Straight Outta Hamilton, hosting panels and events that talk about the musical itself and relate them to current events.
== Legacy and impact ==
=== $10 bill ===
In 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced a redesign to the $10 bill, with plans to replace Hamilton with a then-undecided woman from American history. Possibly due to Hamilton's surging popularity, then-United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reversed the plans to replace Hamilton's portrait, instead deciding to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. This decision would later be reversed by the first Trump administration, with Harriet Tubman replacing neither Hamilton or Jackson.
=== Hamilton: The Revolution ===
On April 12, 2016, Miranda and Jeremy McCarter's book, Hamilton: The Revolution, was released, detailing Hamilton's journey from an idea to a successful Broadway musical. It includes an inside look at not only Alexander Hamilton's revolution, but the cultural revolution that permeates the show. It also has footnotes from Miranda and stories from behind the scenes of the show. The book won a Goodreads Choice Award for Nonfiction in 2016, and the audiobook won Audiobook of the Year at the Audie Awards 2017 from the Audio Publishers Association.
=== Hamilton's America ===
After premiering on the New York Film Festival on October 1, 2016, PBS's Great Performances exhibited on October 21, 2016, the documentary Hamilton's America. Directed by Alex Horwitz, it "delves even deeper into the creation of the show, revealing Miranda's process of absorbing and then adapting Hamilton's epic story into groundbreaking musical theater. Further fleshing out the story is newly shot footage of the New York production with its original cast, trips to historic locations such as Mount Vernon and Valley Forge with Miranda and other cast members, and a range of interviews with prominent personalities, experts, politicians, and musicians." The film featured interviews with American historians and Hamilton authorities, and currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
=== Hamilton: The Exhibition ===
Hamilton: The Exhibition was an interactive museum, which focused on the history concerning the life of Alexander Hamilton and also the musical. Designed to travel, it debuted in Chicago in April 2019. Located in a specially built structure on Northerly Island, according to theater critic Chris Jones, the exhibition marks something that "no Broadway show ever has attempted before". Lead producer of the exhibition was musical producer Jeffrey Seller, the artistic designer was David Korins, and the main historical consultant was Yale University professor Joanne Freeman. Alex Lacamoire provided the orchestration for the exhibit (in part, a take-off on the Hamilton score), and Lin-Manuel Miranda, actors, and historians provided recorded presentations.
Hamilton: The Exhibition shut down on August 25, 2019, and plans to move the exhibition elsewhere were cancelled. Refunds were issued for tickets purchased for August 26 to September 8.
=== Hamilton for Puerto Rico ===
After Hurricane Maria, Lin-Manuel Miranda with family roots in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico used his influence to bring attention to the plight of the Puerto Rican people and to encourage tourism to Vega Alta. In 2017, Miranda and his father, Luis Miranda Jr., inaugurated the Placita Güisín, a café and restaurant in Vega Alta barrio-pueblo. In 2019, Lin-Manuel moved his memorabilia to a new gallery, the Lin-Manuel Miranda Gallery, within the Placita Güisín and opened a merchandise store, TeeRico. The location has become a tourist attraction.
=== 2016 Vice President–elect Pence controversy ===
Following a performance on November 18, 2016, with Vice President-elect Mike Pence in the audience, Brandon Victor Dixon addressed Pence from the stage with a statement jointly written by the cast, show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and producer Jeffrey Seller. Dixon began by quieting the audience, and stated:
Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton: An American Musical, we really do. We, sir,—we—are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us. All of us. Again, we truly thank you truly for seeing this show, this wonderful American story told by a diverse group of men and women of different colors, creeds and orientations.
Pence listened to the expression of concern about President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming administration and later expressed that he was not offended. However, Trump demanded an apology for what he described on Twitter as the cast having "harassed" Pence. This led to an online campaign called "#BoycottHamilton", which became widely mocked as the show was already sold out months in advance. Trump was criticized by The Washington Post, who noted the division between white and non-white America in the 2016 Presidential election and suggested Trump could have offered "assurances that he would be a president for all Americans—that he would respect everybody regardless of race or gender or creed"; instead, as presidential historian Robert Dallek expressed, Trump's Twitter response was a "striking act of divisiveness by an incoming president struggling to heal the nation after a bitter election", with the Hamilton cast a proxy for those fearful of Trump's policies and rhetoric. Jeffrey Seller, the show's lead producer, said that while Trump has not seen Hamilton or inquired about tickets, he is "welcome to attend".
=== Parodies ===
In April 2016, Jeb! The Musical appeared on the Internet with Jeb Bush in the place of Alexander Hamilton, with political figures like Donald Trump and Chris Christie holding supporting roles. A staged reading, given "just as much preparation as Jeb's campaign", was staged at Northwestern University in June of that year. The parody was crowdsourced, with contributions coming from a range of writers from Yale University, Boston University, McGill University and the University of Michigan, who met in a Facebook group named "Post Aesthetics".
In 2016, Gerard Alessandrini, creator of Forbidden Broadway, wrote the revue Spamilton, which premiered at the Triad Theater in New York and also played at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago. It parodies Hamilton and other Broadway shows and caricatures various Broadway stars.
On October 12, 2016, the American situation comedy Modern Family released the episode "Weathering Heights". The episode features a scene where Manny applies for college. To do so he records a parody of "Alexander Hamilton" as part of his application, complete with rewritten lyrics to accompany to his own life. It is revealed that most of the other applications are also Hamilton parodies.
The 2022 Transformers: BotBots episode "I, Cheeseburger" prominently features a musical of the same name that directly parodies Hamilton, including an identical poster for the performance and fast-food-themed versions of several songs.
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a polka medley of Hamilton songs in 2018 as part of the Hamildrops program, following it up in 2020 with a video using footage from the filmed version.
==== Scamilton production ====
In 2022, a church in Texas, known as The Door Christian Fellowship produced an illegal version of Hamilton known online as Scamilton. It was live streamed to YouTube reportedly around August 22, but it was reuploaded to YouTube on August 28, 2022.
=== Ham4Progress ===
Ham4Progress is a group of Hamilton cast members and staff that provides a platform for supporting social justice causes.
==== Education ====
The Hamilton Education Program was founded in 2016 with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. It is a collaboration between the producers of Hamilton, the Miranda Family, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Together they established the Ham4Progress Award for Educational Advancement, an award supporting "college-bound high school juniors from communities that directly experience the consequences of social injustice and/or discrimination".
==== Civic engagement ====
Hamilton, in partnership with Michelle Obama's When We All Vote, have released "The Election of 2022", a video for National Voter Registration Day to encourage voting. Voter registration and get out the vote activities have been advanced by tumblr. Ohio State University held an on campus voter registration and voter awareness event sponsored by Ham4Progress. VoteRiders and VoteForward are partner organizations dedicated to voter education and enablement.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Lin-Manuel Miranda discussed democracy, civics, inclusion and opportunity.
Additionally, Ham4Progress has supported environmental issues by collaborating with NRDC.
==== Racial justice ====
On February 3, 2021, Hamilton Families with Hamilton cast member Christopher Henry Young, joined by staff and supporters of Hamilton Families, speaking to them about addressing family homelessness in the SF Bay Area.
In 2021, Ham4Progress presented "The Joy In Our Voices" hosted by Wayne Brady and featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda, Senator Cory Booker, poet and activist Amanda Gorman, Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, CBS' Gayle King, and members of Hamilton performing original pieces highlighting Black art and artists for Black History Month.
Ham4Progress posted that May is Asian & Pacific American Heritage month. Jon M. Chu, director of the 2021 In the Heights movie, talked about AAPI representation in the industry with Hamilton cast members Marcus Choi and Taeko McCaroll.
==== Gender equality ====
Abortion rights has been promoted by fundraising activities for The Brigid Alliance and Planned Parenthood.
Trans rights have been supported through collaboration with the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, an American non-profit dedicated to providing support and advocacy for young transgender individuals and their families.
== Adaptations ==
=== Filmed stage production ===
Several 2016 stage performances with the original principal cast in the Richard Rodgers Theatre were filmed by RadicalMedia and offered for bidding to major movie studios. On February 3, 2020, Walt Disney Studios acquired the distribution rights for $75 million, with an original theatrical release date on October 15, 2021, under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. Miranda later announced on May 12, 2020, that in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the film industry and the performing arts, which shut down the Broadway, West End, and touring productions, the film would be released early on Disney+ on July 3, 2020, in time for Fourth of July weekend. Acclaimed by critics for its visuals, performances, and direction, it became one of the most-streamed films of 2020. The film was named as one of the best films of 2020 by the American Film Institute, and was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (for Miranda) at the 78th Golden Globe Awards, while Daveed Diggs was nominated for Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Limited Series or Television Movie. Hamilton also received 12 nominations at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Lead Actor for Miranda and Odom Jr., Outstanding Supporting Actor for Groff, Ramos and Diggs, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Soo and Goldsberry.
The film saw a wide theatrical release in the United States and Canada on September 5, 2025, to celebrate the musical's tenth anniversary. This exhibition features new "Reuniting the Revolution" interviews with the original cast and creators. The release, in 1,825 screens, grossed $10.1 million, ranking second at the box office behind fellow newcomer The Conjuring: Last Rites. Further cinema releases are scheduled in the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 26, and Australia and New Zealand on November 13, 2025.
=== Potential film adaptation ===
On February 10, 2017, Miranda speculated that a film adaptation of Hamilton would eventually be made, but "not for years, so that people have ample time to see the stage version first". On July 6, 2020, after the release of the live film recording of the stage version on Disney+, Miranda stated, "I don't love a lot of movie musicals based on shows, because it's hard to stick the landing ... I don't know what a cinematic version of Hamilton looks like. If I had, I'd have written it as a movie." In December 2024, following the critical and commercial success of Universal Pictures' Wicked, the first installment of that musical's two-part film adaptation, interest grew again for an actual screen adaptation of Hamilton, with Miranda feeling that the property should wait at least "10 more years" given the success of the live film recording, but did say "But if someone's got an idea, holla at me."
== See also ==
1776, a 1969 musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence
Hamilton, 1917 play
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, a 2010 historical rock musical about America's seventh President, Andrew Jackson, and the founding of the Democratic Party
Latino theater in the United States
List of plays and musicals about the American Revolution
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Miranda, Lin-Manuel; McCarter, Jeremy (2016). Hamilton: The Revolution. Hachette. ISBN 978-1-4555-3974-1. (Preview available through Google Books.)
Thelwell, Chinua (2016). "Chapter 9: Who tells your story? Hamilton, Future aesthetics and Haiti". In Thelwell, Chinua (ed.). Theater and Cultural Politics for a New World: An Anthology. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-39879-0.
McManus, Stuart M. (2018). "Hip-hop historiography: Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton and the Latinx historical imagination." Latino Studies, 16.2, pp. 259–267.
Romano, Renee C., Claire Bond Potter, eds. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America's Past (Rutgers University Press, 2018) online review
== External links ==
Official website
Hamilton at the Internet Broadway Database
Hamilton at the Internet Off-Broadway Database (archived)
Hamilton articles and resources at BritishTheatre.com Archived April 24, 2024, at the Wayback Machine |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconalia_brasiliensis | Paraconalia brasiliensis | Paraconalia is a genus of tumbling flower beetles in the family Mordellidae. This genus has a single species, Paraconalia brasiliensis, found in South America.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Rugby_Europe_Championship#Week_1:~:text=5%20February%202022%0A14,(1/1)%2072%27 | 2022 Rugby Europe Championship | The 2022 Rugby Europe Championship was the sixth Rugby Europe Championship, the annual rugby union for the top European national teams outside the Six Nations Championship, and the 52nd edition of the competition (including all its previous incarnations as the FIRA Tournament, Rugby Union European Cup, FIRA Nations Cup, FIRA Trophy and European Nations Cup).
The 2022 Championship was contested by Georgia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia and Spain.
Georgia enter the tournament as defending champions. They topped the table after winning all of their matches in the 2021 tournament, claiming their 13th title and 10th Grand Slam as a result.
As in several other sports, Russia were disqualified after Week 3 due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This year's edition of the Rugby Europe Championship doubles as the second year of the 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifiers for the European region. The winner and runner-up of the two-year cycle automatically qualify for the tournament as Europe 1 and Europe 2 respectively while the team in third place advances to the final qualification tournament as Europe 3.
== Participants ==
== Table ==
== Fixtures ==
=== Week 1 ===
Touch judges:
George Selwood (England)
Mike Woods (England)
Television match official:
Rowan Kitt (England)
Touch judges:
Manuel Bottino (Italy)
Leonardo Masini (Italy)
Television match official:
Emanuele Tomo (Italy)
Touch judges:
Ludovic Cayre (France)
Stéphane Boyer (France)
Television match official:
Denis Grenouillet (France)
=== Week 2 ===
Touch judges:
Federico Vedovelli (Italy)
Filippo Bertelli (Italy)
Television match official:
Stefano Roscini (Italy)
Touch judges:
Cédric Marchat (France)
Stéphane Crapoix (France)
Television match official:
Patrick Pechambert (France)
Touch judges:
Oisin Quinn (Ireland)
Nigel Correll (Ireland)
Television match official:
Leo Colgan (Ireland)
=== Week 3 ===
Touch judges:
Riccardo Angelucci (Italy)
Simone Boaretto (Italy)
Television match official:
Alan Falzone (Italy)
Touch judges:
Graeme Ormiston (Scotland)
Jonny Perriam (Scotland)
Television match official:
Neil Paterson (Scotland)
Georgia awarded 4 points.
=== Week 4 ===
Netherlands awarded 4 points.
Touch judges:
Gareth Newman (Wales)
Mark Butcher (Wales)
Television match official:
Elgan Williams (Wales)
Touch judges:
David Beun (France)
Christophe Bultet (France)
Television match official:
Eric Briquet-Campin (France)
=== Week 5 ===
Touch judges: Ru Campbell (Scotland) Bob Nevins (Scotland) Television match official: Andrew Mac Menemy (Scotland)
Portugal awarded 4 points.
Touch judges: Ben Breakspear (Wales) Ian Davies (Wales) Television match official: Jon Mason (Wales)
== International broadcasters ==
== See also ==
Rugby Europe International Championships
Antim Cup
Kiseleff Cup
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Christophe_Yoccoz | Jean-Christophe Yoccoz | Jean-Christophe Yoccoz (29 May 1957 – 3 September 2016) was a French mathematician. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1994, for his work on dynamical systems.
== Biography ==
Yoccoz attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, during which time he was a silver medalist at the 1973 International Mathematical Olympiad and a gold medalist in 1974. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1975, and completed an agrégation in mathematics in 1977.
After completing military service in Brazil, he completed his PhD under Michael Herman in 1985 at Centre de mathématiques Laurent-Schwartz, which is a research unit jointly operated by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and École Polytechnique.
He took up a position at the University of Paris-Sud in 1987, and became a professor at the Collège de France in 1997, where he remained until his death. He was a member of Bourbaki.
Yoccoz won the Salem Prize in 1988. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1990 at Kyoto, and was awarded the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1994 in Zürich. He joined the French Academy of Sciences and Brazilian Academy of Sciences in 1994, became a chevalier in the French Legion of Honor in 1995, and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Brazilian National Order of Scientific Merit in 1998.
== Mathematical work ==
Yoccoz's worked on the theory of dynamical systems. His contributions include advances to KAM theory, and the introduction of the method of Yoccoz puzzles, a combinatorial technique which proved useful to the study of Julia sets.
== Notable publications ==
Yoccoz, J.-C. Conjugaison différentiable des difféomorphismes du cercle dont le nombre de rotation vérifie une condition diophantienne. Ann. Sci. École Norm. Sup. (4) 17 (1984), no. 3, 333–359. doi:10.24033/asens.1475
Yoccoz, Jean-Christophe. Théorème de Siegel, nombres de Bruno et polynômes quadratiques. Petits diviseurs en dimension 1. Astérisque No. 231 (1995), 3–88. MR 1367353
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Nogueira | Juan Nogueira | Juan Nogueira (born 1 May 1988) is a Brazilian amateur heavyweight boxer who won a bronze medal at the 2014 South American Games. He competed at the 2013 and 2015 world championships and qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_L._Brody#:~:text=Aaron%20Leo%20Brody%20(August%2023,at%20the%20University%20of%20Georgia.&text=Boston%2C%20Massachusetts%2C%20U.S. | Aaron L. Brody | Aaron Leo Brody (August 23, 1930 – July 26, 2021) was an American food scientist, who developed new technologies in food processing and packaging. He created the first frozen fish sticks in the 1950s. While working for Mars, Incorporated, he was also responsible for introducing Starburst to the United States. Later, Brody served as an adjunct professor at the University of Georgia.
== Biography ==
=== Early years ===
Aaron Leo Brody was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the elder of two children to Nathan Brozozek and Lillian Gorman, Jewish immigrants from Poland. Upon entry into America through Ellis Island, his father's name was Americanized to Brody. Aaron attended Solomon-Lewenburgh Junior High School and then Boston English School in 1947.
Brody entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1947, and earned a B.S. in Food Technology in 1951. He became an illustrator with contributions to the school newspaper where most of his work was pen on paper of sports figures. He was drafted into the Korean War and served from 1952 to 1954. He was based at Fort Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia where he was a newspaper correspondent reporting on the personal stories of wounded soldiers returning from the War.
After completing his military commitment, he entered the graduate program of the Food Packaging Department at MIT where he earned a Ph.D. in 1957. Brody studied under Bernard E. Proctor, an American food scientist involved in early research of food irradiation, and the MIT Food Technology Department Chair. Brody's "Masticatory Properties of Foods by the Strain Gage Denture Tenderometer", was one of the many contributions he made to the world of food technology. The invention was featured in Life (magazine) on October 29, 1956, and included a full page of pictures of the machine which was shown chewing a piece of mozzarella cheese. The device is on display at the MIT Museum. The mechanism allowed food manufacturers to control qualities in process and design future food products with specific properties. He later earned an M.B.A. from Northeastern University in 1970.
=== Career ===
Brody started his career, while in school, in food technology with the Birdseye Fisheries Lab Division of General Foods in 1951 as a team member in the development of the first frozen precooked foods including fish sticks. While a graduate student, he worked part-time for Raytheon Manufacturing Company where he was a member of a team that developed the first microwave oven, leading to microwave cooking, heating, and browning of foods. After he earned his graduate degree, Brody worked for the Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He led the development of modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), invented an odor control system for refrigerators, a thermoelectric refrigerator/freezer, the Total Environmental Control “Tectrol” controlled atmosphere process for food preservation, a progenitor of MAP fresh-cut vegetables, and radiation pasteurization of foods. While at Whirlpool, he invented and patented an apparatus and method of storing perishable animal and plant materials, as well as non-food materials.
He developed commercial confectionery products including Starburst and Pop Rocks while employed at M&M Candies Division of Mars, Inc. Brody’s team formulated adapted the British fruit flavored candy Opal Fruits and adapted it to M&M Fruit Chewies before deciding to rename them Starburst due to the connotation of M&M’s to chocolate. At Mead Packaging, he invented the Crosscheck Aseptic Packaging System for high acid fluid food products used commercially for juices and sauces, receiving patents US4,152,464, US4,391,080, US4,409,775. At Container Corporation of America, he led the development of the Versaform insert injection molding system, and he was Marketing Development Manager, which was his last position in corporate America.
By the mid 1980s, Brody transitioned into an independent consultant and college professor. He has taught undergraduate and graduate food packaging and food product development and marketing courses at The University of Georgia, MBA strategic marketing and product development courses at Saint Joseph's University, and packaging courses at Michigan State University. Brody authored numerous articles and ten textbooks in food packaging and food technology, marketing, and packaging. He authored The Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology that covers technologies used to package consumer and industrial products across industries from food to automobiles, soft drinks to pharmaceuticals. He also authored Modified Atmosphere Packaging for Fresh-Cut Fruits and Vegetables that covers modern MAP technologies for fresh-cut fruits.
=== Family ===
Aaron Brody married Carolyn Goldstein on April 11, 1953, and stayed married until her death in April 2021. They had three children. He died on July 26, 2021, of Congestive Heart Failure.
== Honors ==
In 1964, Brody was awarded the Industrial Achievement Award by the Institute of Food Technologists and the Leadership Award by the Packaging Institute. He was named Packaging Man of the Year in 1985 by the National Association of Packaging, Handling, and Logistics Engineers. The Institute of Food Technologists' Food Packaging Division gave Brody the highest industry award, the Riester-Davis Award for Lifetime Achievement in Food Packaging, in 1988. He was the first recipient of the Institute of Food Technologists' Industrial Scientist Award in 1994 for scientists who made technical contributions to advancing the food industry.
In 1995, Brody was inducted into the Packaging Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was awarded the Nicholas Appert Award by the Institute of Food Technologists in recognition of his lifetime contributions.
The Michigan State School of Packaging established the Annual Aaron Brody Distinguished Lecture In Food Packaging in perpetuity. This is an endowment that was created by family and friends of Aaron L. Brody and Carolyn Brody in recognition of Aaron's lifelong achievements in Food Packaging. The Food Packaging Division of the Institute of Food Technologist renamed the Riester-Davis Award to include Aaron Brody's name in 2015 and now called the Riester-Davis-Brody Award.
He has been quoted in The New York Times, and featured on National Public Radio and CNN news. One of his NPR interviews was titled, The Weird, Underappreciated World Of Plastic Packaging where he explains that plastic packaging has become an ingrained part of the food system. On CNN, he described how new plastics may keep soft drinks from falling flat.
== Books ==
Developing New Food Products for a Changing Marketplace, Second Edition (2000, with John B. Lord). Boca Raton, FL. ISBN 9781566767781 : CRC Press.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging for Fresh-Cut Fruits and Vegetables (2011, with Hong Zhuang and Jung H. Han). Oxford, UK. ISBN 978-0-8138-1274-8 : Wiley & Sons.
The Wiley Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology (1997, with Kenneth S. Marsh). New York. ISBN 0-471-06397-5 : Wiley & Sons.
Active Packaging for Food Applications (2002, with Eugene R. Strupinsky and Lauri R. Kline). Boca Raton. ISBN 978-1-58716-045-5 : CRC Press.
Principles of Package Development (1993, with Roger C. Griffin, Jr. and Stanley Sacharow). Malababar, FL. ISBN 978-8-94464-811-3 : Krieger Publishing Company.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Walker#Track_listing | World of Walker | World of Walker is the second studio album by Norwegian DJ and record producer Alan Walker. It was released on 25 November 2021 through MER Musikk and Sony Music Entertainment and includes his successful 2019 single "On My Way".
== Background ==
The elaborate official artwork for World of Walker consists of thousands of selfies submitted by fans around the world as part of a collaborative production campaign.
Walker said of the album, "It's been three years since the release of my debut album Different World, and since then I've spent a lot of time working on new music and further developing Walker's cinematic universe. I am very excited to finally be able to release my new album, World of Walker. What is really special to me is that the official artwork consists of thousands of selfies of walkers from around the world. The time has finally come to unveil the community we have built together, the World of Walker."
== Singles ==
The album's first single, "On My Way", featuring Sabrina Carpenter and Farruko and was released on 21 March 2019. The single was released to celebrate the first anniversary of the American battle royale game PUBG Mobile and reached number 3 on the Norwegian VG-lista chart.
The second single, "Alone, Pt. II", featuring American singer Ava Max, was released on December 27, 2019. The song reached the top 10 in the charts in Belgium, Norway, Poland and Romania.
"Heading Home", featuring Norwegian singer Ruben, was released as the third single on April 1, 2020. The music video for this song is on the selection list for the 2021 Silver Screening of the Berlin Music Video Awards.
"Time (Alan Walker Remix)", a song with German film composer Hans Zimmer, was released as the fourth single from the album on May 15, 2020. The song is a remix of the song "Time" from Christopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception.
"Sorry", a song featuring Norwegian band Isák, was released as the fifth single on 12 February 2021. The song reached number 8 on the Norwegian VG-lista charts.
The single "Fake a Smile", featuring American singer-songwriter Salem Ilese, was released as the sixth single on February 19, 2021. Two remixes have been officially released, one by norwegian producer K-391 and one by Dutch procuer and DJ R3hab. The song charted in Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden.
The song "Paradise", featuring Norwegian producer K-391 and Swedish singer-songwriter Boy in Space, was released as the seventh single on September 23, 2021. The song was released in collaboration with the mobile game PUBG Mobile (PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds). The song reached number 37 in the Norwegian charts.
The song "World We Used to Know", featuring Winona Oak, was released as the eighth single on November 12, 2021.
The song "Man on the Moon", featuring Swedish singer Benjamin Ingrosso, was released as the ninth single on November 25, 2021.
== Critical reception ==
Matthew Lambert of We Rave You said, "It also includes short storytelling video snippets that take the listener on a journey through the songs and blend them with what Walker had envisioned. Through the music videos, Walker offers a glimpse into the enhanced album's reveals, telling an epic tale of a faraway, advanced civilisation, the ancient Walkers' discovery and its connection to modern-day humanity." Viljar Sæbbe of the Norwegian edition of Gaffa said: "World of Walker ages between the highlights. At the same time, it's easy to imagine shirt collars in record company offices giving big, juicy thumbs up." Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang described the album as "a long string of banal, indifferent melodies and shallow lyrics" and "lacking any semblance of originality."
== Track listing ==
== Charts ==
== Certifications ==
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhau_dance | Chhau dance | Chhau, also spelled Chhou, is a semi classical Indian dance with martial and folk traditions. It is found in three styles named after the location where they are performed, i.e. the Purulia Chhau of West Bengal, the Seraikella Chhau of Jharkhand and the Mayurbhanj Chhau of Odisha.
The dance ranges from celebrating martial arts, acrobatics and athletics performed in festive themes of a folk dance, to a structured dance with religious themes found in Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism. The costumes vary between the styles, with Purulia and Serakeilla using masks to identify the character. The stories enacted by Chhau dancers include those from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas and other Indian literature.
The dance is traditionally an all males troupe, regionally celebrated particularly during spring every year, and may be a syncretic dance form that emerged from a fusion of classical Hindu dances and the traditions of ancient regional tribes. The dance brings together people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in a festive and religious spirit.
== Etymology ==
Chhau is a dance style originating from the regions of East India. It may have been derived from Sanskrit Chāya (shadow, image or mask). Others link it to the Sanskrit root Chadma (disguise), yet others such as Sitakant Mahapatra suggest it is derived from Chhauni (military camp, armour, stealth) in Odia language.
== Features of Chhau ==
The Chhau dance is mainly performed during festivals in the region of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, especially the spring festival of Chaitra Parva and in which the whole community participates. The Purulia Chhau dance is celebrated during the Sun festival.
Masks form an integral part of Chhau dance in Purulia and Seraikella styles. The knowledge of dance, music and mask-making is transmitted orally. The Chhau dance found in northern Odisha does not use masks during the dance, but they do when the artists first appear on the stage for introduction to the audience.
The two styles of Chhau dance that use masks, blend within it forms of both dance and martial practices employing mock combat techniques (called khel), stylised gaits of birds and animals (called chalis and topkas) and movements based on the chores of village housewives (called uflis). This form of the Chhau dance, states Mohan Khokar, has no ritual or ceremonial meaning, it is a form of community celebration and entertainment.
The dance is performed by male dancers, at night in an open space, called akhada or asar. The dance is rhythmic and set to traditional folk music, played on the reed pipes mohuri and shehnai. A variety of drums accompany the music ensemble including the dhol (a cylindrical drum), dhumsa (a large kettle drum) and kharka or chad-chadi. The themes for these dances include local legends, folklore and episodes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata and other abstract themes.
The precursors of Chhau dance (especially Purulia style) were not only Paika and Natua, but Nachni dance also played an important role in giving Chhau its present identity. Chhau dance borrows the female gaits and movements from the Nachni dance almost exclusively (Bhattacharya, 1983, Chakravarti, 2001, Kishore, 1985). The female dance elements in Chhau introduced the aspects of Lasya Bhava from the Natya Shastra that brought elegance, sensuality, and beauty in the dance form, whereas, the virile male dance movement is attributed to the Shiva's tandava style of dance (Bose 1991). There are different interpretations to tandava and lasya. I have above-mentioned the most commonly accepted definition of tandava and lasya above. Bose foregrounds the debate between the relation of lasya and tandava critically in his analysis of dance in Sanskrit texts. See Bose, Mandakranta.
== Three styles of Chhau ==
The Seraikella Chhau developed in Seraikela, when it was under the rule of Kalinga's Gajapati Rule the present day administrative headquarters of the Seraikela Kharsawan district of Jharkhand, the Purulia Chhau in Purulia district of West Bengal and the Mayurbhanj Chhau in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. The most prominent difference among the three subgenres is regarding the use of masks. While, the Seraikela and Purulia subgenres of Chhau use masks during the dance, the Mayurbhanj Chhau uses none.
The Seraikella Chhau's technique and repertoire were developed by the erstwhile nobility of this region who were both its performers and choreographers, and in the modern era people from all backgrounds dance it. The Seraikella Chhau is performed with symbolic masks, and the acting establishes the role the actor is playing. The Purulia Chhau uses extensive masks shaped in the form of the character being played; for example, a lion character has a face mask of lion and body costumes too with the actor walking on all fours. These masks are crafted by potters who make clay images of Hindu gods and goddesses and is primarily sourced from the Purulia district of West Bengal. In the Mayurbhanj Chhau is performed without masks and is technically similar to the Seraikella Chhau.
== Recognition ==
In 2010, the Chhau dance was inscribed in the UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Government of Odisha established the Government Chhau Dance Centre in 1960 in Seraikella and the Mayurbhanj Chhau Nritya Pratisthan at Baripada in 1962. These institutions engage in training involving local gurus, artists, patrons and representatives of Chhau institutions and sponsor performances. The Chaitra Parva festival, significant to the Chhau Dance, is also sponsored by the state government. The Sangeet Natak Akademi has established a National Centre for Chhau Dance at Baripada, Odisha.
== In popular culture ==
The Hindi film Barfi! has several scenes that features the Purulia Chhau in it.
Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Kolkata, brings you the documentary. The video is a documentary on the Purulia Chhau of West Bengal. The Chhau is a semi-classical dance form from Eastern India which has tribal and folk origins.
== Chhau mask ==
Purulia Chhau Dance is listed on UNESCO's world heritage list of dances. The main difference between the Purulia Chhau and Mayurbhanj Chhau is in the use of the mask. Purulia Chhau uses masks in dance, but Mayurbhanj Chhau does not have masks thereby adding facial expression with body movements and gestures. Traditionally, the chhau dance is held during mid-march when one agricultural circle ends and a new circle begins. Purulia Chhau dancers wear the earthy and theatrical mask which represent the mythological characters. After making the shape of mask with clay, it is coloured and decorated with Shola and other things.
The Chhau mask of Purulia is registered under Geographical Indications. As the basic difference of Purulia Chhau the mask is unique and traditional.
These chhau masks are made by the artists by the Sutradhar community. The making of a mask goes through various stages. 8-10 layers of soft paper, immersed in diluted glue, are pasted one after another on the mould before the mud mould is dusted with fine ash powder. The facial features are made of clay. A special layer of mud and cloth is applied and the mask is then sun-dried. After this, the mould is polished and the second round of sun drying is done before separating the layers of cloth and paper from the mould. After finishing and drilling of holes for the nose and eyes, the mask is coloured and decorated.
== Gallery ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Asutosh Bhattacharya, Chhau dance of Purulia. Pub. Rabindra Bharati University, 1972.
Barba, Eugenio; Nicola Savarese (1991). A dictionary of theatre anthropology: the secret art of the performer. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-05308-0.
Claus, Peter J.; Sarah Diamond; Margaret Ann Mills (2003). South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-415-93919-4.
Claus, Peter J.; et al. (2003), South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-93919-4
Kishore, Vikrant (2014). From real to reel : folk dances of India in Bollywood cinema. Adelaide, South Australia UNESCO-APNIEVE Australia ISBN 9780992525958, 9780992525996
Williams, Drid (2004). "In the Shadow of Hollywood Orientalism: Authentic East Indian Dancing" (PDF). Visual Anthropology. 17 (1). Routledge: 69–98. doi:10.1080/08949460490274013. S2CID 29065670. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
== External links ==
Chhau dance: Spandan, Shiva themes, Carolina Prada (2013)
Chau: The Rare Mask Dances
Purulia district website with information on Chhau
Mauyrbhanj district website with information on Chhau
Saraikela Kharsawan district website with information on Chhau |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wangechi_Mutu#Exhuming_Gluttony:_A_Lover's_Requiem_(2006) | Wangechi Mutu | Wangechi Mutu (; born 1972) is a Kenyan American visual artist, known primarily for her painting, sculpture, film, and performance work. Born in Kenya, Mutu now splits her time between her studio there in Nairobi and her studio in Brooklyn, New York, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years. Mutu's work has directed the female body as subject through collage painting, immersive installation, and live and video performance while exploring questions of self-image, gender constructs, cultural trauma, and environmental destruction and notions of beauty and power.
== Background and education ==
Mutu was born in 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya. She was educated at Loreto Convent Msongari (1978–1989). She left Nairobi at age 16 for high school, studying at the United World College of the Atlantic, in Wales (I.B., 1991). Mutu moved to New York in the late 1990s, focusing on Fine Arts and Anthropology at The New School for Social Research, and Parsons School of Art and Design. She earned a BFA degree from Cooper Union for the Advancement of the Arts and Science in 1996 and a master's degree in sculpture from Yale School of Art in 2000.
As soon as Mutu graduated from Yale, her work began popping up in important shows—many of them international exhibitions and biennials. In an email interview with NPR, Mutu wrote, "Making art and traveling are my greatest teachers. Everyone should travel, not just to see new things but to see new things in themselves." In 2015, the artist made the decision to begin dividing her time between her studios in New York and Nairobi. These travels back and forth, she says, help give her valuable perspective: New York has "an addictive potency," and its density of creative, entrepreneurial people inspires her greatly; Nairobi is "layered, lush, and encourages a coexistence between humans and the natural world," and Mutu describes Kenya as a very attractive country, despite its "anglophone trauma."
”It's the difference between a plant with one root and one with a network of roots. If a plant has just one root, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to stand straight and strong. The idea of having many roots, of having your feet really grounded in different places, is extremely empowering for me."
Mutu has Kikuyu heritage.
== Art ==
Mutu's work crosses a variety of mediums, including collage, bricolage, video, performance, and sculpture, and investigates themes of gender, race, and colonialism. These mediums, many of which involve the mixing of materials, sources, and imagery, are more than just formal choices—they hint towards foundational themes of resilience and regeneration that appears throughout her oeuvre.
Mutu's work, in part, centers on the violence and misrepresentation experienced by Black women in contemporary society. A recurring theme of Mutu's work is her various depictions of femininity. Mutu uses the feminine subject in her art, even when the figures are more or less unrecognizable, whether by using the form itself or the texture and patterns the figure is made from. Sometimes she uses cliche images of archetypal women—mothers, virgins, goddesses—as source material, reconfiguring them to create potent, charged images that reflect her own emotional agency, as well as the agency, multitudes, and contradictions of womanhood in general. Her use of otherworldly depictions for women, many times shown in a seemingly sexual or sensual pose, brings about discussion of the objectification of women. Specifically, Mutu addresses the hyper-objectification of black female bodies and has used an otherworldly nature to reiterate the fictitious nature of society's depictions of black women. Mutu uses female subjectivity to examine other social and political issues as well; however, her aim is to always retain focus on female figures, identities, and experiences, in order to bring them to the forefront.
Whether through delicate lined patterns or familiar feminine builds, Mutu's various ways of representing feminine qualities is said to enhance the strength of the images or the significance of the issues presented. Many of Mutu's artworks are known to be interpreted in contradictory ways, both seen as complicit to problematic society and as hopeful for future change in society. It's also been said that Mutu's use of such intentionally repulsive or otherworldly imagery may help women to step away from society's ideas of perfection and instead embrace their own imperfections and become more accepting of the flaws of others as well. Although her imagery of female figures has often been described as "grotesque", she claims they are instead "disabled", displaying a manifestation of historical and societal tensions present in black women's identities. In these mangled forms, the struggle of women forced to comply with social expectations and historical oppressions is given physical form, portraying distinct inner turmoil.
Much of this is accomplished through her use of mixed media, which allows for her to unmake and reimagine bodies through modes of collage. In her Sentinel series which has been active from 2016 until now, she creates regal and fierce abstract female forms made from clay, wood and various found materials.
In an interview with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia curator, Rachel Kent, she states, "I try to stretch my own ideas about appropriate ways to depict women. Criticism, curiosity, and voyeurism lead me along, as I look at things I find hard to view – things that are sometimes distasteful or unethical". Mutu frequently uses "grotesque" textures in her artwork and has cited her mother's medical books on tropical diseases as an inspiration, stating that there is "nothing more insanely visually interesting and repulsive than a body infected with tropical disease; these are diseases that grow and fester and become larger than the being that they have infected, almost."
Mutu is able to enact personal and cultural transfigurations by transitioning from painting to sculpture and back again. Mutu says " This transition was so powerful because I used my mind as an object maker – I think I always painted like a sculptor." In Mutu's collage work she began to respond to Western advertisement and beauty standards: "I began an ongoing critique and an intellectual an actual vandalization of those images, which were violating me by rendering me invisible."
The themes and narratives of Mutu's work create a visual representation of certain social, political, and physical realities of the world today. This includes issues of feminism, racism, the environment, and the effects of colonialism and rebuilding post-colonialism. Mutu's visual arts deliberately reject colonial political and social constructs regarding these issues, instead deliberately examining them through the lens of the identities of black women. As a result, she is able to generate unique perspectives by under-represented identities, thus broadening and improving discourse surrounding certain issues, while also recognizing and emphasizing the importance of these women and their experiences.
In her art, Mutu presents complex narratives of mental anguish and, in many ways, crises of identity. Her material transformations of the human body imply a theoretical layer, where psychological aspects of African experience can be represented. Mutu views her own art as a form of self-reflection, and as a way to process her own identity being boiled down to "black" as an African woman in America. Furthermore, she uses her art as a way to examine how African identities and experiences on the whole are oversimplified in western discourse, bringing the reality of the intricacies of feminism and colonialism to the forefront through the aesthetics of collage, mixed media art, and Afrofuturism.
== Influence of Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism ==
Mutu's work has been called "firmly Africanfuturist and Afrofuturist", as exemplified in her work, including one of her pieces titled The End of Eating Everything (2013). In her 2013–2014 installation at the Brooklyn Museum, the curatorial placard accompanying her work A'gave described Afrofuturism as "an aesthetic that uses the imaginative strategies of science fiction to envision alternate realities for Africa and people of African descent". For critics, Mutu's imagined alternate realities for Africa through the medium of science fiction definitively situated Mutu in the genre of Afrofuturism.
Specific elements of Mutu's art that situate her within this genre include her amalgamations of humans and machines, or cyborgs, within collages such as Family Tree as well as the film The End of Eating Everything.
Additionally, Mutu's work consistently involves intentional re-imaginations of the African experience. In Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies, she examines social hierarchy and power relationships through the medium of collage, for "rankings of peoples have historically been constructed around fabricated racial and ethnic categories". In Family Tree, as in many of her works, Mutu deliberately constructs both a past and a future within the single figure through displaying diagrams from antique medical journals as well as mechanical images. Mutu uses Afrofuturism to explore themes of alienation, which relates to feminism, colonialism, materiality, and disability. In this way, Afrofuturism acts as a lens for these subjects. The use of Afrofuturistic aesthetics also allows for creative freedom in rendering bodies and representations of identities and experiences, as can be seen with the presence of cyborgs and alien-like figures in her works.
The presence of black women in a futuristic setting also acts as a pushback to ideas of evolutionism and cultural and social hierarchies. By contextualizing these women in such extreme modern spaces, Mutu makes a statement—that women of color are included in the idea of the idealistic "evolved" human. This rejects colonialist ideas about people of color being "less evolved", or modernist ideas about people of color being stuck in a less developed state.
In the goal of creating distinct representations of struggles and tensions for female and African identities, the principles and aesthetics of Afrofuturism work well with Mutu's use of collage and mixed media art. These elements form a more holistic approach to examining fractured identities. Mutu gave a speech on TED in 2023.[1]
== Female Representations ==
Aspects of feminine themes are used across Mutu's body of work. The majority of her artwork, whether in her collages, sculptures, photography, or performances; all of these highlights a female character.
A handful of Mutu's works highlight the female figure and feminine features. Using references to a black woman's body, Mutu uses the silhouette or actual photographic imagery of a woman to create the characters in her works. A series of artworks that reflect the use of the female silhouette and elements of photographic images of black females is “The Ark Collection” from 2006. One of the artworks in this collection, titled “Highland Woman, shows a photographic image of a female body meshed with various college elements, helping create a scene as well as create the rest of the silhouette of a female figure, highlighting the photographic elements of a woman's nude breasts. The rest of these works have been discussed as using the female form to create “figurations of black women's corporeality in visual culture”. She also places a lot of emphasis on body language and the way the woman is situated within the work.
Another feminine aspect that Mutu draws from is the idea of feminine power. She draws these ideas in her “The Seated series.” In an interview, Mutu claimed this artwork is inspired by “caryatids throughout history,” in which she uses a reference from women of color. Mutu shares that “in Greek architecture, you see these women in their beautiful robes, and then in African sculpture across the continent, you see these women wither kneeling or sitting, sometimes holding a child, as well as holding up the seat of the king.” Most African women in these historical sculptures show women of color in these contexts implemented on the bottom on the pedestal. She wanted to showcase the African American women as being on top of a pedestal to express a reclaim of black female power. She considers the black female experience in her pieces through her inspiration from female forms that showcase power in art history.
== Selected works ==
Yo Mama (2003)
Constructed of ink, mica flakes, pressure-sensitive synthetic polymer sheeting, painted paper, and synthetic polymer paint on paper, Yo Mama spans 59 1/8 " x 85" and is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This diptych is Mutu's depiction in collage form, including details from magazine clippings, of feminist Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, who was known for fighting against the practice of female genital mutilation in Nigeria.
=== Exhuming Gluttony: A Lover's Requiem (2006) ===
Mutu has exhibited sculptural installations. In 2006, Mutu and British architect David Adjaye collaborated on a project. They transformed the Upper East Side Salon 94 townhouse in New York into a subterranean dinner-party setting entitled Exhuming Gluttony: A Lover's Requiem. Furs and bullet holes adorned the walls while wine bottles dangled in a careless chandelier-like form above the stained table. The table's multiple legs resembled thick femurs with visibly delicate tibias, and the whole space had a pungent aroma. The artists strove to show a moment of gluttony as she stated, "I wanted to create a feast, a communing of minds and viewers Something has gone wrong, there is a tragedy or unfolding of evil". This vicious hunger was seen as a connection between images of The Last Supper, the climate of the current art-buying world, and the war in Iraq.
=== Cleaning Earth (2006) ===
It is a performance video in which a woman uses a panga [a type of machete] to chop up a log but the wood is impossible to sever. The action serves to emphasize Africa's history of being cut up into portions by colonial forces. The work was shot in a town in Presidio, Texas, a town with racial tension and violence since it sits on the U.S./Mexican border, uprooting energy from the site
=== Suspended Playtime (2008) ===
Another installation of Mutu, Suspended Playtime (2008) is a series of bundles of garbage bags, wrapped in gold twine as if suspended in spiders' webs, all suspended from the ceiling over the viewer. The installation makes reference to the common use of garbage bags as improvised balls and other playthings by African children.
=== Stone Ihiga (2009) ===
Part of the Performa Commissions for the Performa Biennial, Stone Ihiga is a performance art piece created by Mutu in collaboration with Imani Uzuri.
=== Sketchbook Drawing (2011–12) ===
As a visual artist, Mutu takes inspiration from fashion and travel magazines, pornography, ethnography, and mechanics. In 2013, at the Nasher Museum of Art, Mutu showed her sketchbook drawings for the first time ever in her retrospective exhibition, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey. The books consisted of strangely attractive, yet grotesque human figures fused with animals, plants, or machines.
=== The End of Eating Everything (2013) ===
In 2013, Wangechi Mutu's first-ever animated video, The End of Eating Everything, was created in collaboration with recording artist Santigold, commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art. The video was animated by Awesome + Modest.
=== Nguva na Nyoka (2014) ===
In 2014, Mutu's art was on display at an exhibition entitled Nguva na Nyoka, at Victoria Miro Gallery in London. At the exhibition's opening night, Mutu displayed a performance piece, wherein guests were encouraged to consume custom-made Wangechi Mutu chocolate mermaids. The guests could obtain a mermaid only by "snapping a photo of their first bite, lick, taste", operating as a commentary on "the public consumption of brown bodies".
=== Banana Stroke (2017) ===
Banana Stroke is Mutu's second Performa Commission following Stone Ihiga (2007). For Performa 17, Mutu designed a set that was part arena and part white cube gallery. Wearing a black velvet jumpsuit and large banana leaves on her arms, she created a site-specific live action painting within this space using black viscous matter. The performance took place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
=== The Seated series (2019) ===
In 2019, Mutu created bronze statues (titled individually as The Seated I, The Seated II, The Seated III, The Seated IV, collectively, The NewOnes, will free Us) for the exterior niches of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The statues seated women were displayed from September 9, 2019 through January 12, 2020.
=== MamaRay (2020) ===
In 2020 Mutu completed her large bronze sculpture, MamaRay, commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The sculpture is fifteen feet long and twelve feet wide and "is part human, part manta ray and part supernatural creature."
== Exhibitions ==
Mutu's first solo exhibition at a major North American museum opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario in March 2010. On 21 March 2013, she held her first United States solo exhibition, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey at Nasher Museum of Art. The exhibition Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey subsequently traveled to the Brooklyn Museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in October 2013.
In 2014 Mutu founded the charitable organization Africa's Out! located in Brooklyn New York. The organization is devoted to supporting artists whose work subverts traditional narratives around Africa and its diaspora.
In 2016, her film The End of Carrying All was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. The film depicts Mutu crossing a landscape with a basket filling up with consumer goods as the landscape changes, ending with a volcanic eruption. In 2016, she also participated in several group exhibits, including "Blackness in Abstraction," at the Pace Gallery in New York, "Black Pulp!" at the International Print Center in New York, and "Africans in America" at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg.
In 2017, her black bronze sculpture Water Woman, of which depicted a nguva, was placed at the foot of the amphitheater at the Contemporary Austins fourteen-acre sculpture park at Laguna Gloria. Based on the East African folklore of the half woman and half sea creature is a representation of histories narrative of women as cunning temptresses. The exhibition ran from September 23, 2017, to January 14, 2018, when it became a part of the museum's permanent collection.
In September 2019, four female bronze sculptures by Mutu, "Seated I, II, III, and IV", were placed to occupy the empty niches always intended to house free-standing sculpture in the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the first installation and exhibition ("The New Ones Will Free Us" September 9 – Fall 2020) of what will be an annual commission meant to feature work by contemporary artists. Mutu has described the bronze statues as having been inspired by caryatids. Initially, the sculptures were planned to be displayed until January 12, 2020, but their exhibition was extended to June 8, 2020, and further extended to Fall 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "Seated I" and "Seated III" were subsequently acquired for The Met's permanent collection. A discussion with her about the exhibit and contemporary times was recorded on July 28, 2020 for a series entitled Women and the Critical Eye.
In January 2020, Mutu was part of Artpace's exhibit entitled Visibilities: Intrepid Women of Artpace. Curated by Erin K. Murphy, Visibilities not only kicks off Artpace's 25th anniversary celebration, but also highlights past artists from their International Artist-in-Residency program, such as Mutu who was a resident there in Fall of 2004. Mutu's 12-panel series Histology of the Different Classes of Uterine Tumors, made up of collaged digital prints, was exhibited in the Hudson Showroom.
In 2023 the New Museum featured a retrospective of Mutu's work. The solo exhibition entitled Mutu: Intertwined, features roughly 115 pieces ranging from early in her career to brand new pieces showcasing various mediums and techniques including sculpture, video, collage, and more. Wangechi Mutu's work was included in the Spirit in the Land exhibition and accompanying publication at the Nasher Museum of Art, in 2023, which later traveled to the Pérez Art Museum Miami in 2024.
== Filmography ==
Mutu's artistic oeuvre also embraces film and video installations as media, and the artist has produced a number of films such as Amazing Grace (2005) in the collections of Pérez Art Museum Miami, Eat Cake (2012), The End of eating Everything (2013), and My Cave Call (2021).
== Collections ==
Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; the Brooklyn Museum; Tate Modern in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
== Publications ==
Adrienne Edwards, Courtney J. Martin, Kellie Jones, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Wangechi Mutu (2022), Phaidon Press, London.
Isaac Julien and Claudia Schmuckli, Wangechi Mutu: I Am Speaking, Are You Listening?, Distributed Art Publishers, New York, 2021
Trevor Schoonmaker, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey (2013), Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham.
== Awards ==
On 23 February 2010, Wangechi Mutu was honoured by Deutsche Bank as its first "Artist of the Year". The prize included a solo exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. Entitled My Dirty Little Heaven, the show traveled in June 2010 to the Wiels Center for Contemporary Art in Forest, Belgium.
In 2013, Mutu was awarded the BlackStar Film Festival Audience Award for Favorite Experimental Film in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for her film The End of Eating Everything, as well as the Brooklyn Museum Artist of the Year, Brooklyn, New York.
In 2014, Mutu won the United States Artist Grant and in 2017, she was honored with the International Artist Award given by Anderson Ranch Arts Center.
Mutu, along with Amy Sherald, received the Baltimore Museum of Art's Artist Who Inspires Award at their BMA Ball on November 22, 2025.
== Philanthropy ==
In 2014, Mutu founded the charitable organization Africa's Out! to "advance radical change through the power of art and activism, particularly supporting artists, initiatives and institutions from Africa and its Diaspora that celebrate freedom of creative expression."
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Wangechi Mutu, as told to Faye Hirsch. "The Women". Art in America, November 2013. New York: Brant Publications, Inc. pp. 54–55.
"Grotesque Sensations: Carnivalising the Sensorium in the Art of Wangeshi Mutu" by Bettina Papenburg in: B. Papenburg and M. Zarzycka (eds.) Carnal Aesthetics. London: I.B.Tauris, 2013. ISBN 978-1-78076-013-1.
Preziuso, Marika. “Is America Really Full? A Conversation with Wangechi Mutu.” Transition, no. 129, 2020, pp. 26–45. JSTOR 10.2979/transition.129.1.03 Accessed 1 Apr. 2021.
== External links ==
Official website Archived 21 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Ernst#:~:text=He%20received%20a%20B.A.%20degree,Johns%20Hopkins%20University%20in%201959. | W. G. Ernst | W. Gary Ernst (born December 14, 1931) is an American geologist specializing in petrology and geochemistry. He currently is the Benjamin M. Page Professor Emeritus in Stanford University's department of geological sciences.
== Career ==
Ernst was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He received a B.A. degree in Geology from Carleton College in 1953, an M.S. in Geology from the University of Minnesota of 1955, and a Ph.D. in Geochemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1959.
From 1960 to 1989, he was a professor in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA, where he also served terms as chair of the Department of Geology, chair of the Department of Earth and Space Sciences, and director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. In 1989, he joined Stanford University as professor in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences and dean of the School of Earth Sciences. He retired in 2004, but has continued to be active professionally.
Ernst's research interests have included the petrology, geochemistry, and plate tectonics of Circumpacific and Alpine mobile belts, ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism in Eurasia, geology of the California Coast Ranges, the central Klamath Mountains, and White-Inyo Range, geobotany and remote sensing of the southwestern United States; and mineralogy and human health.
== Honors and awards ==
Ernst has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1975. He has served as a trustee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington since 1990. He was the 2004 recipient of the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America, 2006 recipient of the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America, and 2008 recipient of the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal. Other honors include selection as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Member of the American Philosophical Society. He was president of the Geological Society of America in 1986.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un%27alma_innamorata | Un'alma innamorata | Un'alma innamorata (HWV 173) is a dramatic secular cantata for soprano and instruments written by George Frideric Handel in 1707. Other catalogues of Handel's music have referred to the work as HG liiB,92; and HHA v/5,97. The title of the cantata translates as "A soul in love".
== History ==
The work was written for Ruspoli for performance at his country estate in Vignanello (near Rome). The copyist's bill is dated 30 June 1707. It is possible that the soprano part was composed for the singer Vittoria Tarquini (with whom Handel is rumoured to have had a relationship), and it is known that Vittoria was among the guests at the estate in Vignanello around the time of composition. Although uncertain, the text of the cantata may have been written by Abbé Francesco Mazziotti (who was the tutor of Ruspoli's eldest son).
== Synopsis ==
Even though the work is performed by a female voice, the text does not reveal whether the "voice" of the text is male or female. The text relates that a heart which is faithful in love becomes angry when it is wounded by love, however the singer is happy because it loves more than one heart and spurns the harsh laws and rigours of love (as defined by Cupid).
== Structure ==
The work is scored for violin and keyboard (with occasional figured bass markings in the second movement). The cantata contains three recitative-aria pairings.
A typical performance of the work takes about fifteen and a half minutes.
== Movements ==
The work consists of six movements:
(Movements do not contain repeat markings unless indicated. The number of bars is the raw number in the manuscript—not including repeat markings. The above is taken from volume 52B, starting at page 92, of the Händel-Gesellschaft edition.)
== See also ==
List of cantatas by George Frideric Handel
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Harris, Ellen T. (2009). "Handel's Italian Cantatas". Handel Complete Cantatas. Volume 2 (CD). Stephanie True, Marco Vitale, Contrasto Armonico. Brilliant Classics. p. 6. 9400. ASIN: B002VZ2MEO. Archived from the original on 18 May 2011.
Score at IMSLP |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_at_the_1896_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_masters_foil#:~:text=Article,1%20Background | Fencing at the 1896 Summer Olympics – Men's masters foil | The men's masters foil was one of three fencing events on the Fencing at the 1896 Summer Olympics programme. It was the only event at the Games for professional athletes and was held immediately after the amateur event on 7 April. It consisted of a single match, between Leonidas Pyrgos of Greece and Joanni Perronet of France. Pyrgos won the match, 3–1, to become the first Greek champion in the modern Olympics.
== Background ==
This was the first appearance of the event, which was held only once more. Fencing masters were an exception to the amateurs-only nature of the early Olympics. Masters fencing was held as an Olympic event in 1896 (men's foil only) and 1900 (all three weapons for men, as well as a special event in épée that pitted the top professionals against the top amateurs). By 1904, only amateur events were conducted.
== Competition format ==
With only two fencers, the competition consisted of a single bout. The bout was to three touches. Standard foil rules were used, including that touches had to be made with the tip of the foil, the target area was limited to the torso, and priority determined the winner of double touches.
== Schedule ==
The exact time of the master's event is not known. The fencing began at 10 a.m. on the second day of events with the (amateur) men's foil, followed by the master's foil. The Official Report notes that the fencing ended at noon.
== Results ==
Pyrgos won the only bout, 3–1.
== References ==
Lampros, S.P.; Polites, N.G.; De Coubertin, Pierre; Philemon, P.J.; Anninos, C. (1897). The Olympic Games: BC 776 – AD 1896. Athens: Charles Beck. (Digitally available at [1] Archived 2008-05-27 at the Wayback Machine)
Mallon, Bill; Widlund, Ture (1998). The 1896 Olympic Games. Results for All Competitors in All Events, with Commentary. Jefferson: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0379-9. (Excerpt available at [2] Archived 2008-04-11 at the Wayback Machine)
Smith, Michael Llewellyn (2004). Olympics in Athens 1896. The Invention of the Modern Olympic Games. London: Profile Books. ISBN 1-86197-342-X. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lark_Voorhies | Lark Voorhies | Lark Voorhies (born Lark Holloway; March 25, 1974) is an American actress. She played Lisa Turtle on the NBC sitcom Saved by the Bell (1989–1993) and was nominated for the Young Artist Award six times, winning in 1990 and 1993 for her work on the show.
== Early life ==
Born Lark Holloway to Wayne and Tricia Holloway in Nashville, Tennessee, she later adopted "Voorhies" as a stage name. Her mother named her "Lark" after the character in the 1972 film Cool Breeze, played by Margaret Avery. By the time Voorhies was two years old, the family had moved to Pasadena, California. During this period, her mother took her to a talent agent, because of her belief that Voorhies was "a natural-born ham." However, her first audition ended poorly when she froze up. She appeared in a national television commercial for Universal Studios Tour at age 12, advertising its upcoming King Kong attraction. She said of the experience: "I was on this tram screaming with all these other people. I had such a great time doing that."
== Entertainment career ==
=== Acting ===
Voorhies made her acting debut at the age of two. Though photogenic, she was shy, and her mother put Voorhies' acting career on hold until she was more comfortable in front of the cameras. Later, at the age of fourteen, Voorhies reappeared on an episode of Small Wonder in 1988. In June of that same year, she landed the role of Lisa Turtle in Disney Channel's television series Good Morning, Miss Bliss and appeared in thirteen episodes from 1988 to 1989. She remained as the same character, as did Zack, Screech, and Mr. Belding, after Disney dropped the series and it was picked up and retooled by NBC and renamed Saved by the Bell.
Voorhies has since appeared in several television sitcoms and soap operas. She played the role of single mom Wendy Reardon on Days of Our Lives in 1993. On The Bold and the Beautiful Voorhies played the role of amiable intern fashion-designer, Jasmine Malone beginning in September 1995. She was released from her contract in November 1996 when her role required her to act in sex scenes, which the actress refused to do citing her religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness.
In 1995, Voorhies guest-starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Life Support". During the same year, Voorhies guest-starred in the Family Matters season six episode "Home Sweet Home", as Eddie's upstairs dream girl. She has continued to act in various roles since then, such as In the House, in which she played the girlfriend-turned-wife of Alfonso Ribeiro’s character, Dr. Max Stanton. Previously, she played Ribeiro's love interest twice on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Besides sitcoms, Voorhies also appeared in movies and direct-to-video films. In 2001, Voorhies played a major role in the film How High as Lauren, a Harvard student. She was involved in a 1990 movie adaptation of the book The Black Man's Guide to Understanding Black Women and played Ana Smith in the 2008 movie The Next Hit. Although she only has two acting credits since 2008, and none since 2012, Voorhies' representatives cited a busy work schedule when she did not appear in a SBTB-based mini-reunion sketch on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" alongside Gosselaar, Lopez, Thiessen, and Dennis Haskins in 2015. Voorhies publicly stated in 2020 that she was "hurt" that she was not invited to participate in the Saved by the Bell sequel series on Peacock. Later that year, however, NBC announced that Voorhies would in fact reprise her role as Lisa Turtle for the new show.
=== Music ===
Voorhies has appeared in several music videos. She plays Kenny Lattimore's love interest in his debut video "Never Too Busy", from his 1996 self-titled debut album. In Boyz II Men's music video "On Bended Knee", she plays Wanya's girlfriend. She is featured in Montell Jordan's "Somethin' for the Honeyz" and in Dru Hill's "These Are the Times". In 1994, Voorhies was in a group originally called the X-Girls (now known as Geneva) with Stacee and Yashi Brown (the daughters of singer and oldest Jackson family sibling, Rebbie Jackson). Voorhies founded and was the lead singer in Third Degree, an alternative band.
=== Writing ===
Over 2010 and 2011, Voorhies self-published three books she authored: Reciprocity, Trek of the Cheshire, and A True Light.
== Personal life ==
Voorhies dated her Saved by the Bell co-star Mark-Paul Gosselaar for three years from August 1989 to August 1992 during the show's run. Voorhies was engaged to actor Martin Lawrence in 1993 but it was later called off in 1994. Voorhies married Miguel Coleman in 1996. They separated in 2001, and divorced in 2004.
On May 30, 2006, Voorhies filed a lawsuit against The National Enquirer for libel over an article that included claims published in June 2005 that she had a drug problem. The case was dropped in less than two months.
Voorhies met music engineer Jimmy Green at a networking event in 2014. After a year of dating, Voorhies and Green married on April 30, 2015, at a chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Voorhies filed for divorce in October 2015 after six months of marriage.
Voorhies was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 2015 and did not publicly reveal it until 2020.
== Books authored ==
Voorhies, Lark (2010). Reciprocity. New York, New York: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1450200660.
Voorhies, Lark (2011). True Light. New York, New York: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1450243544.
Voorhies, Lark (2011). Trek of the Cheshire. Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1462025985.
== Filmography ==
=== Television ===
=== Film ===
== Awards and nominations ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Lark Voorhies at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severance_(TV_series)#:~:text=Michael%20Cumpsty%20as%20Doug%20Graner,wife%20of%20Senator%20Angelo%20Arteta. | Severance (TV series) | Severance is an American science fiction psychological thriller television series created by Dan Erickson, and executive produced and primarily directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, and Sarah Bock. The series follows employees at Lumon Industries, a biotechnology corporation, that have undergone "severance"—a procedure that splits a person's memories between work and their personal life. This creates two separate identities for employees: the "innie", who has no knowledge of the outside world, and the "outie", who lives their life outside without any knowledge of their job.
Erickson and Stiller first developed Severance in 2015, with the series being greenlit by Apple TV+ in 2019, with Scott attached. The cast for the first season was rounded out by December 2020, and the cast for the second season was announced in October 2022. Principal photography for the series has taken place in New York, New Jersey and Newfoundland. Its first season aired from February 18 until April 8, 2022, and its second season from January 17 to March 21, 2025. Severance has been renewed for a third season.
Severance has received critical acclaim for its cinematography, direction, production design, musical score, story, and performances. It has received numerous accolades, including 41 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Lower and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Tillman. Scott's performance earned him nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, two Television Critics Association Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, while Stiller and Erickson also received Emmy nominations for directing and writing.
== Cast and characters ==
=== Main ===
Adam Scott as Mark S. / Mark Scout, a former history professor and a severed worker for Lumon Industries in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department.
Zach Cherry as Dylan G. / Dylan George, Mark's severed co-worker in the MDR department, who particularly enjoys company perks.
Britt Lower as Helly R., a rebellious new severed employee in the MDR department at Lumon.
Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick, the Deputy Manager on the severed floor at Lumon.
Jen Tullock as Devon Scout-Hale, Mark's sister.
Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey, who serves as the wellness counselor on the severed floor at Lumon.
Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale, an eccentric self-help author who is Devon's husband and Mark's brother-in-law.
John Turturro as Irving B. / Irving Bailiff, Mark's severed co-worker in the MDR department, who is a stickler for company policy and is drawn to Burt.
Christopher Walken as Burt G. / Burt Goodman, another severed employee and the head of the Optics and Design (O&D) division who is drawn to Irving.
Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel, the manager of the severed floor at Lumon, who outside of work uses the false identity of "Mrs. Selvig," and Mark's next-door neighbor.
Sarah Bock as Eustice Huang (season 2), the young new Deputy Manager of the Severed floor.
=== Recurring ===
Yul Vazquez as Peter "Petey" Kilmer (season 1; voice season 2), Mark's former severed co-worker and best friend in the MDR division, who left Lumon under mysterious circumstances.
Michael Cumpsty as Doug Graner (season 1), the head of security on Lumon's severed floor.
Nikki M. James as Alexa (season 1), Devon's midwife and one of Mark's love interests.
Sydney Cole Alexander as Natalie Kalen, Lumon's PR representative and speaker for the mysterious Board.
Nora Dale as Gabby Arteta (season 1), the wife of Senator Angelo Arteta, whom Devon encounters at a birthing retreat.
Mark Kenneth Smaltz as Judd, a security guard at Lumon.
Donald Webber Jr. as Patton, a friend of Ricken's.
Grace Rex as Rebeck, a friend of Ricken's.
Annie McNamara as Danise (season 1), a friend of Ricken's.
Claudia Robinson as Felicia, a severed O&D division employee who is close with Burt.
Karen Aldridge as Asal Reghabi, a former Lumon surgeon who performs reintegrations.
Michael Siberry as Jame Eagan, the current CEO of Lumon.
Darri Ólafsson as Mr. Drummond (season 2), an intimidating Lumon enforcer who is involved with severance operations.
Merritt Wever as Gretchen George (season 2), Dylan's wife.
Robby Benson as Dr. Mauer (season 2), a doctor on Lumon's testing floor.
Gwendoline Christie as Lorne (season 2), a severed employee running the Mammalians Nurturable division.
Sandra Bernhard as Cecily (season 2), a nurse on the testing floor.
=== Guest ===
Marc Geller as Kier Eagan, the late founder of Lumon, who is worshipped with cult-like devotion within the company; he is represented throughout the series in sculptures, paintings, and audio recordings.
Cassidy Layton as June Kilmer (season 1), Petey's daughter.
Joanne Kelly as Nina (season 1), Petey's ex-wife.
Ethan Flower as Angelo Arteta (season 1), a Lumon-backed state senator who supports legalizing the severance procedure and is married to Gabby Arteta, with whom he has three children.
Rajat Suresh as Balf (season 1), a friend of Ricken's.
Bob Balaban as Mark Wilkins (season 2), a new member of MDR, from Lumon branch 5X.
Alia Shawkat as Gwendolyn Y. (season 2), a new member of MDR, from Lumon branch 5X.
Stefano Carannante as Dario Rossi (season 2), a new member of MDR.
Sarah Sherman (season 2) as the voice of a stop-motion water tower in a Lumon industrial film.
Adrian Martinez as Mr. Saliba (season 2), a manager at a door factory who interviews Dylan for a position.
John Noble as Fields (season 2), Burt's husband.
James LeGros as Hampton (season 2), an acquaintance of Harmony Cobel from Salt's Neck.
Jane Alexander as Celestine "Sissy" Cobel (season 2), Harmony's reclusive aunt in Salt's Neck.
Ben Stiller has an uncredited voice cameo as an animated version of Kier Eagan in season 1. Keanu Reeves has an uncredited voice cameo as an animated Lumon building in a Lumon industrial film in season 2.
== Episodes ==
=== Season 1 (2022) ===
=== Season 2 (2025) ===
Episodes in season 2 were promoted as being released on Fridays globally from January 17, but were released in American time zones on the preceding Thursday evenings.
== Production ==
=== Development ===
Erickson conceived of Severance during a period of depression, working an office job at a door factory after he had completed his master's degree in television writing. He found the job so monotonous that he wished he could "skip the eight hours of the workday, to disassociate and just get it over with".
Erickson submitted his pilot script to Ben Stiller's production company Red Hour Productions in 2015, and it was passed to Stiller by the development executive Jackie Cohn and then head of creative Nicholas Weinstock. Stiller read it at least five years before Severance premiered, and said the project was "the longest thing I've ever worked on". He said he enjoyed the story's contributions to the genre of workplace comedy. Erickson has described his earlier versions of the pilot as "weirder" and containing many stray elements with no backstory such as a disembodied pair of legs running by Mark, a charred floor with burnt desks, and a woman trapped in a glass cubicle. Erickson credits Stiller with grounding the show, saying "he felt that the concept was weird enough that you didn't have to throw a bunch of other Terry Gilliam-esque bells and whistles at it." According to Erickson, "Ben fell in love with the part of the show that was this weird human sadness of a person who would willingly do this to himself."
In November 2019, Apple TV+ gave Severance a series order, with Stiller directing and Scott in the leading role. Stiller was only attached to direct the pilot, but decided to direct more episodes as the series entered development. On April 6, 2022, Apple renewed the series for a second season. In April 2023, it was reported that Beau Willimon had been hired as an executive producer and writer for the second and potential third seasons. On March 21, 2025, shortly after the premiere of the season 2 finale, Apple announced the renewal of the series for a third season. The Writers Guild of America West database lists new showrunners Eli Jorne and Mary Laws alongside Erickson for the third season, replacing Chris Black and Mark Friedman, who showran the first two seasons alongside Erickson.
=== Writing ===
Media that influenced Severance include the Backrooms creepypasta, the 2013 video game The Stanley Parable, films including Office Space, The Truman Show, Being John Malkovich, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Black Mirror episode "White Christmas", and the comic strip Dilbert. Older influences include the existential hell in the 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre play No Exit and the totalitarian dystopia in the 1949 George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Aesthetically, the series was influenced by the films Brazil, Dark City, and Playtime. Erickson's siblings inspired some of the characters. In 2016, his screenplay for the pilot of Severance appeared on Blood List's survey results of the best unproduced genre screenplays.
Erickson said: "The same frustrations that led us to this moment as a country [United States] and as a world are the ones that I was feeling when I wrote this because I was working office jobs, and I was dealing with all these increasingly insane requests that are made of workers. This was born of that ... Employees are the ones who are expected to give and give and give, with the understanding that this is a family—you're doing this out of love, but then that is often not returned by the employers in any kind of a substantive way."
=== Casting ===
In January 2017, Stiller invited Adam Scott to star. Stiller and Scott had previously worked together in Stiller's 2013 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Stiller intended to appear in the first season as a doctor character, but was later scrapped because Stiller didn't think it felt right and said he's happy to be off-camera.
In January 2020, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Jen Tullock, and Zach Cherry were added to the cast. Tramell Tillman joined in February 2020, and John Turturro and Christopher Walken were added in November 2020. Dichen Lachman was cast in December 2020. Turturro said he recommended Walken for the role of Burt because he had known him for "a long time and I don't have to really act like we're friends".
On October 31, 2022, Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and John Noble were announced to have joined the cast for season two. Stiller offered former U.S. President Barack Obama a voice cameo role in the second season, but he declined; the role eventually went to Keanu Reeves.
=== Set design ===
Production designer Jeremy Hindle blended corporate looks from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s for the show's distinctive look, and cited modernist architect Eero Saarinen as influential for the building design. This included the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, and the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in New Jersey (the latter which served as both the exterior shots and the ground floor interiors for Lumon Industries), both buildings designed as "work designed to do work" according to Hindle. The set designs of Playtime also served as inspiration for the internal sets. The main sets for Severance were created on soundstages in The Bronx. One soundstage was used for the hallways within Lumon, using around 140 feet (43 m) of hallway that they would rearrange as necessary, along with special effects, to create the maze-like structure. Another soundstage used larger hallways that were used in latter episodes of the first season. A second soundstage was used for main rooms like the Macrodata Refinement Division. This space was designed to create the feeling of being trapped, using a large room (80 by 40 feet (24 m × 12 m)) with a low ceiling. Hindle also felt this room was meant to be a playroom for the newest Lumon hires, and gave it green carpeting in contrast with the whites to make it feel like grass. Other spaces within Lumon were inspired by the works of M.C. Escher.
Erickson said the mix of cars and technologies from different eras was meant to "give a slight sense of disorientation" and make Lumon "feel unmoored from time and space". To this end, the production team sourced an anachronistic collection of 400 cars, largely commonplace boxy vehicles from the 1980s and 1990s, all in relatively good condition. Each car, even in the far background, was intentionally placed to curate the retro science fiction aesthetic. Characters' vehicles, chosen to show more of who they are, include Mark's Volvo S90, Cobel's Volkswagen Rabbit, Helena's Lincoln Continental, and Milchick's Royal Enfield motorcycle. All the office equipment carries Lumon branding. The prop designers reconstructed old computers with functional trackball devices so the actors could perform the work presented on the show in order to get adjusted to the office setting. The computers lacked an escape key, as a metaphor for the lack of control the innies have while in Lumon's offices. The computer terminals were modeled from the Data General Dasher terminals from the 1970s and the keycaps were recreated by Signature Plastics, who also made the original keycaps for the 1970s Dasher terminals. The keycap set was re-released in 2025 under the name "SA Macrodata Refinement".
=== Filming ===
The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the initial production start of March 2020. Principal photography for the first season started in New York City under the working title Tumwater on November 8, 2020. The opening scene of the show was shot on January 6, 2021. The series filmed for a few days in February in Nyack, New York for the homes of Mark and Cobel, and in Kingston and Beacon, New York in March. In April, filming moved to central New Jersey, mainly in the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex which stood in for Lumon HQ. Filming was scheduled to conclude on June 23, 2021.
The second season began filming on October 3, 2022, in New York City, and was set to wrap on May 12, 2023. However, on May 8, 2023, production of the season was shut down due to the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Production had resumed by May 13, 2023, with filming occurring in Newfoundland. Filming was later shut down again due to both the actors strike and the writers strike, but resumed on January 29, 2024, and wrapped on April 23, 2024.
== Reception ==
=== Audience viewership ===
In 2025, Severance became the most watched series in the history of Apple TV+.
=== Critical response ===
Both seasons of Severance have received critical acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the overall series holds an approval rating of 96%. Meanwhile, on Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the overall series has received a score of 85 out of 100.
==== Season 1 ====
On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season of Severance has an approval rating of 97% based on 117 reviews, with an average rating of 8.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Audacious, mysterious, and bringing fresh insight into the perils of corporate drudgery, Severance is the complete package." Metacritic assigned a score of 83 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
The series received a rating of five out of five from Lucy Mangan of The Guardian and Rachael Sigee of I, 4 out of 5 stars from Huw Fullerton of Radio Times, John Nugent of Empire, Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone and Anita Singh of The Telegraph, and 3.5 out of 4 stars from Patrick Ryan of USA Today. In her review, Mangan praised Stiller's direction, the writing, and the performances of the cast (particularly those of Arquette, Turturro, Walken, and Tillman). Sigee also praised the performances, especially Scott's, Arquette's, Turturro's and Walken's, and wrote, "Severance moves slowly but surely, allowing time to absorb both the impressive world-building and stunning visuals, [...] [and] its breathtaking cinematography and design. With an exceptional cast [...], this is an original, weird, thought-provoking and beautifully crafted story that asks just how much of ourselves we should give over to our jobs." Fullerton also praised Scott's performance and called the series "an impressive creation". Nugent praised the direction, performances of Scott, Arquette, Turturro and Walken, and chemistry between the latter two. Sepinwall also praised Stiller's direction and the cast's performances (most notably those of Scott, Turturro, Walken, Lower and Tillman), in addition to the production design, tone, and season finale.
Grading the series an "A", Carly Lane of Collider wrote, "the most engrossing element of Severance is the many mysteries it presents, wrapped up in silent overarching questions of philosophy, morality, and free will versus choice, and as the series demonstrates, some of those questions aren't so easily solved, but some issues aren't as black-and-white as initially presented either." Also grading it an "A", Ben Travers of IndieWire wrote, "Whether you invest in the allegory, character arcs, or both, 'Severance' hits its marks. [...] Erickson and his writing staff deserve a ton of credit. The season plays out cleanly and efficiently; episodes range from nearly 60 minutes to a crisp 40; cliffhangers abound, but they're earned. [...] This is serialized storytelling that knows how to make the most of its episodic format." Stephen Robinson of The A.V. Club gave it an "A-" grade and praised Stiller's direction and the cast, with the performances of Lower, Scott, Tillman, Turturro, Walken, Tullock and Cherry singled out. For Entertainment Weekly, Kristen Baldwin graded it a "B+" and highlighted the performances of Scott, Lower and Tillman, writing, "Scott is a superb fit for Severance's central everyman, [...] Lower brings an effective vulnerability to the acerbic Helly, and Tramell Tillman is an absolute force of charisma as Milchick."
Giving the series a score of nine out of ten, Samantha Nelson of IGN wrote, "Severance [...] uses a clever premise and excellent cast to set up an intriguing mystery that leaves plenty of room for the characters to evolve." Writing for Paste, Shane Ryan gave it an 8.1 out of 10 and praised the performances of Scott, Arquette and Tillman as well as Stiller and McArdle's direction. Kyle Mullin of Under the Radar gave it eight out of ten and said, "Severance's writer/creator Dan Erickson is another newcomer who pens scenes with veteran-level aplomb. Every scene is a Golden Age of TV gem in its own right. But Severance's dramatic heart resides at the workplace, where it also becomes a white-knuckle thriller. This is where director Ben Stiller especially shines, training his lens and setting the scenes [...]. He certainly brings the best out of his cast."
The American Film Institute named it one of the ten best television programs of the year.
The first season was also recognized with The ReFrame Stamp for hiring people of underrepresented gender identities, and of color.
==== Season 2 ====
The second season has an approval rating of 94% based on 223 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The website's consensus reads: "Masterfully managing its two halves of adroit character study and surreal nightmare, Severance's long-awaited sophomore season makes cognitive dissonance a mind-melting pleasure." Metacritic assigned a score of 86 out of 100 based on 43 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Writing for Variety, Alison Herman awarded the second season with a perfect rating, noting: "Season 2 fulfills this sine qua non with deceptive ease. Real-time viewers have had their patience strained; future binge-watchers will barely notice a blip." John Nugent of Empire gave season two 4 stars out of 5, while stating: "After a storming Season One, Season Two expands and deepens the original mysteries while opening up new ones. Sharply made and skilfully executed, the employee benefits are there if you stay with it."
=== Critics' top ten list ===
=== Accolades ===
For its first season, the series received 7 major nominations for the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, with an additional 7 nominations for the 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Nominations included Outstanding Drama Series, Adam Scott for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, John Turturro and Christopher Walken for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Patricia Arquette for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, Ben Stiller for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, and Dan Erickson for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. It won two awards at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards: Outstanding Title Design and Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score).
For its second season, the series received 10 major nominations for the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, with an additional 17 nominations for the 77th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, making it the most-nominated series at both ceremonies. It won for three acting awards: Britt Lower for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Tramell Tillman for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and Merritt Wever for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series; it won five additional awards in technical categories. Notable nominations included Outstanding Drama Series, Adam Scott for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Zach Cherry and John Turturro for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Jessica Lee Gagné and Ben Stiller for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, and Dan Erickson for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
== Marketing ==
The second season was teased during the Apple Event on September 7, 2022, which featured Helly (Britt Lower). The first footage from season 2 was released on June 10, 2024, as part of a promo for upcoming Apple TV+ programming.
On July 9, 2024, a post on the Apple TV+ account on social media platform X teased an announcement about season 2. In the video, a light blinks the word "tomorrow" in Morse code. The next day on July 10, Apple TV+ announced that season 2 would debut on January 17, 2025. The first trailer for season 2 was released on October 23, 2024.
On January 14, 2025, three days before the premiere of the second season, Apple TV+ recreated the show's 'Macrodata Refinement' office inside a glass box at Grand Central Terminal. Actors Scott, Cherry, Arquette, Lower, and Tillman entered the glass box and behaved as though they were working their respective jobs at Lumon Industries for about two and a half hours. The pop-up's uniqueness and the cast's dedication generated largely favorable responses from the public.
On March 21, 2025, IKEA India and Australia posted the same advertisement promoting office supplies replicating a similar set up to the Macrodata Refinement office. The tagline pokes fun at the "mysterious and important work" joke that is told by the office workers.
On March 26, 2025, some cast members appeared at Tower Bridge in London to celebrate the renewal of season 3. Cast members included Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, and Gwendoline Christie. At the event were balloons with Adam Scott's face. On the same day, Apple updated their computer section on their website to include the Lumon Terminal Pro. However, the item was not actually for sale but served as marketing to promote both the show and the Apple TV+ service.
== Release ==
The official release dates of second-season episodes were on Fridays, but Apple TV+ released episodes the prior Thursday at 9:00 pm ET.
=== Home media ===
The first season was released in the UK on Blu-ray and DVD on December 2, 2024, in Australia on December 4, 2024, and in the United States on December 17, 2024.
== Other media ==
An epistolary novel related to the series, Severance: The Lexington Letter, was released by Apple Books purporting to be a "tell-all" exposé of sinister occurrences at Lumon Corporation, in the form of a dialogue between former Lumon employee Margeret "Peg" Kincaid and her innie (work self), sent as a letter to a Topeka newsletter.
A fictional self-help book from the series, The You You Are, was released by Apple Books as an e-book and an audiobook, the latter read by the actor Michael Chernus in his role as Ricken Hale.
The official Severance podcast premiered in January 2025, hosted by Ben Stiller and Adam Scott. Each episode of the podcast recaps an episode of the series, and features interviews with an actor, crew member, or fan of the show.
== See also ==
Cypher, a 2002 thriller with similar themes of memory erasure and separate identities in a mysterious workplace setting
Drug-induced amnesia § In popular culture
My Own Worst Enemy, a 2008 TV series about a secret agent and his cover, who has no knowledge of his own double life
Paycheck, a 1952 novelette by Philip Dick, that explores a theme of erasing memory of the time spent on a contract
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Severance – official site
Severance at IMDb
Severance – wiki site |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024 | 2024 | 2024 (MMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2024th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 24th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2020s decade.
The year saw the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war, and the Islamist insurgency in the Sahel. Israel's war on Gaza led to widespread protests and spillover conflicts into numerous other countries, most notably Lebanon, which was invaded by Israel in October. This followed an intensification of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In September, Israel escalated an offensive against the group, which resulted in the killing of the Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah. Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, had also been assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran in July, and his successor Yahya Sinwar was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in October. In November, heavy fighting resumed in the Syrian civil war, leading to the toppling of Ba'athist Syria, with Bashar al-Assad fleeing Syria in December. The year also saw a rise in activity by the Houthi movement which contributed to a crisis in the Red Sea that impacted global shipping.
Approximately 80 countries, representing around 4 billion people, conducted national elections throughout the course of the year, including eight out of the ten most populous countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and the United States) as well as France, the United Kingdom, and Japan. The European Parliament also held elections. Among democracies, over 80% saw the incumbent party lose support compared to the last election, including many significant losses. In countries like Japan, Botswana, and South Africa, incumbent parties that had dominated domestic politics for decades lost their majorities and either relinquished power or are holding on through coalitions with minor parties. Bassirou Diomaye Faye won the 2024 Senegalese presidential election, becoming the first opposition candidate to win in the first round since the country's independence. In Sri Lanka, voters delivered a landslide victory to the National People's Power, previously a minor party. On November 5, 2024, Republican Donald Trump won the 2024 United States presidential election, becoming the first U.S. president to be elected to a nonconsecutive second term since Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1892. The French and German governments lost votes of no confidence. In December, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol's attempt to declare and impose martial law was thwarted by members of parliament, sparking a political crisis that led to his impeachment and the impeachment of acting president Han Duck-soo.
== Events ==
=== January ===
January 1
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates become BRICS members.
The Republic of Artsakh is formally dissolved following the recapture of the Nagorno-Karabakh region by Azerbaijan.
A 7.5 Mww earthquake strikes the western coast of Japan (Noto Peninsula), killing at least 504 people and injuring 1,389 others. A further 5 are killed the next day when a Coast Guard aircraft carrying humanitarian aid was involved in a collision with a Japan Airlines Airbus A350-900 aircraft, destroying both aircraft. All 379 people aboard the passenger jet are evacuated safely.
Ethiopia announces an agreement with Somaliland to use the port of Berbera. Ethiopia also says that it will eventually recognize Somaliland's independence, becoming the first country to do so.
January 2 – 2023 Marshallese general election: The Legislature of the Marshall Islands elects Hilda Heine as President for a second non-consecutive term during its first session following the general election.
January 3 – 2024 Kerman bombings: An Islamic State double bombing kills 94 people during a memorial event commemorating the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in Kerman, Iran. The bombing was carried out using two briefcase bombs placed at the entrance that were detonated remotely.
January 7 – 2024 Bangladeshi general election: The Awami League, led by incumbent Sheikh Hasina, wins a 4th consecutive term amid protests by opposition parties and a large drop in voter turnout.
January 8
Said Abdullahi Deni is elected President of Puntland by the Puntland Parliament after three rounds in the 2024 Punttland presidential election.
Ecuadorian conflict (2024–present): Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa declares a state of emergency following the escape of Los Choneros drug cartel leader José Adolfo Macías Villamar from prison. The military was deployed onto the streets and into prisons, while setting a national nighttime curfew.
January 9 – Two Polish MPs: former Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski and his then-deputy Maciej Wasik, are arrested by police inside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw following a legal dispute over their conviction and pardon for abuse of power. On 23 January, President Andrzej Duda pardoned them for the second time, and the police released them from prison.
January 11 – Riots break out throughout Papua New Guinea after an alleged rounding error causes pay cuts for police officers and soldiers.
January 12 – Operation Prosperity Guardian: A U.S.-led coalition launches airstrikes at Houthi militant locations in Yemen, marking a retaliation to the Houthis' attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
January 13 – 2024 Taiwanese presidential election: Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party wins with 40% of the vote.
January 14
Margrethe II formally abdicates as Queen of Denmark on the 52nd anniversary of her accession, with her eldest son Frederik succeeding her as King Frederik X.
2024 Comorian presidential election: Amid an opposition boycott, incumbent president Azali Assoumani wins re-election with 62.9% of the vote and only 16.3% voter turnout.
January 15 – Following a brief political crisis in the aftermath of the 2023 elections, Bernardo Arévalo is inaugurated as the 52nd President of Guatemala.
January 16 – Iran carries out a series of missile and drone strikes within Balochistan, Pakistan, claiming that it had targeted the Iranian Baloch militant group Jaish ul-Adl.
January 18 – Pakistan conducts retaliatory airstrikes on Iran's Sistan and Baluchestan province.
January 19 – Japan becomes the 5th country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, with its SLIM mission.
January 22 – Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha: The Ram Mandir is inaugrated by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
January 24 – 2024 Korochansky Ilyushin Il-76 crash: A Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane carrying (according to Russia) 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, 6 crew members, and 3 guards crashes in Russia's Korochansky District, near the Ukrainian border, killing everyone on board.
January 26
Gaza war: The UN's International Court of Justice rules that Israel must take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stops short of ordering an immediate halt to operations.
2024 Tuvaluan general election: Kausea Natano, the incumbent Prime Minister of Tuvalu, loses reelection to Parliament. A month later, Feleti Teo was elected prime minister.
January 31 – Sultan of Johor Ibrahim Iskandar ascends the throne as the 17th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
=== February ===
February 2 – The US launches airstrikes on 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in response to a deadly drone attack on a US military base.
February 4
President of Namibia Hage Geingob dies at the age of 82, and is succeeded by his vice-president Nangolo Mbumba.
2024 Salvadoran presidential election: Incumbent President Nayib Bukele wins the election with over 80% of the vote, becoming the first president to be reelected in El Salvador since 1944.
February 6 – Former President of Chile Sebastián Piñera dies in a helicopter crash at the age of 74.
February 7 – 2024 Azerbaijani presidential election: Amid an opposition boycott, President Ilham Aliyev is reelected to a 5th term.
February 8 – 2024 Pakistani general election: Independent politicians, most of whom are members of the banned political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, win a plurality of seats in the National Assembly.
February 11 – 2024 Finnish presidential election: In the closest presidential election in Finnish history, Alexander Stubb is elected president in the second round.
February 14 – 2024 Indonesian general election: Prabowo Subianto wins the presidential election, and the Democratic Party of Struggle wins the most votes in the legislative election.
February 16 – Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, dies under mysterious circumstances at the age of 47.
February 22 – American company Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander becomes the first commercial vehicle to land on the Moon.
February 28 – 2024 Haitian jailbreak: A state of emergency is declared by the Haitian government after gangs storm two prisons and demand the resignation of acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
February 29 – Gaza war: Soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces open fire on a crowd of civilians in Gaza City, killing more than 100 people, as the Palestinian casualties of the war exceed 30,000.
=== March ===
March 7 – As the final Nordic country to join the alliance, Sweden officially joins NATO, becoming its 32nd member after Finland a year earlier.
March 10 – 2024 Portuguese legislative election: The Democratic Alliance wins a plurality of seats and forms a minority government amid losses by the incumbent Socialist Party and major gains by the right-wing Chega party.
March 11 – Haitian acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry announces his pending resignation from both offices amid an ongoing crisis marked by gang warfare in the country.
March 13 – The Artificial Intelligence Act, the world's first comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, is passed by the European Union.
March 14 – The United Nations estimates that at least 56% of Palestinian civilians killed in the Gaza war were women and children.
March 15–17 – 2024 Russian presidential election: Incumbent Vladimir Putin is reelected for a fifth term.
March 22 – Islamic State-affiliated gunmen attack concertgoers at Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia, killing at least 145 people and injuring 551.
March 24 – 2024 Senegalese presidential election: Bassirou Diomaye Faye is elected president after his party and its former candidate Ousmane Sonko were disqualified.
March 25 – The UN Security Council passes a resolution calling for an "immediate ceasefire" in the Gaza war and demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
March 26 – A container ship collides with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, causing a total collapse of the bridge and the deaths of six people.
March 31
Bulgaria and Romania become members of the Schengen Area through sea and air routes.
2024 Turkish local elections: CHP wins 37.8% of the vote, marking its first victory in a popular vote since 1977 and the first nationwide defeat for the AKP.
=== April ===
April 1 – Israel attacks the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing 16 people.
April 3 – A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 strikes off the eastern coast of Taiwan, with small tsunamis reaching heights of 20–30 cm (8–12 in) hitting Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.
April 4 – 2024 Kuwaiti general election: Opposition candidates maintain a majority in the National Assembly.
April 5 – Ecuadorian police raid the Mexican embassy in Quito in order to arrest former vice-president Jorge Glas, who had been granted political asylum by Mexico. This action violates the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and Mexico and Nicaragua break off diplomatic relations with Ecuador.
April 6 – Peter Pellegrini is elected President of Slovakia in the second round of the 2024 Slovak presidential election.
April 8 – A total solar eclipse is visible across North America.
April 9 – After Leo Varadkar resigned, Fine Gael leader Simon Harris becomes Ireland's youngest Taoiseach after a Dáil vote of 88–69 and being appointed by President Michael D. Higgins.
April 10 – 2024 South Korean legislative election: The Democratic Party and Democratic Alliance wins 176 seats, while the People Power and People Future, to which President Yoon Suk Yeol belongs, wins only 108 seats.
April 13 – Iran launches retaliatory strikes against Israel after an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus earlier in the month.
April 16 – 2024 Persian Gulf floods: At least 32 people are killed when heavy rainfall strikes the Middle East, causing flash flooding. This caused many disruptions for the airline Emirates at Dubai International Airport.
April 17
2024 Solomon Islands general election: Incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare's OUR Party wins a plurality of seats.
2024 Croatian parliamentary election: Incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's Croatian Democratic Union coalition wins a plurality of seats.
April 19 – Israel conducts airstrikes against Iran, in response to Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel earlier on April 13.
April 25 – Following the resignation of Haiti's acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the Transitional Presidential Council takes power as the new head of state of Haiti.
April 29
Floods in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul cause dozens of deaths and leave thousands homeless.
50 people are killed, and 84 are reported missing, when a railway embankment fails near Mai Mahiu, Kenya, adding to the devastation caused by wider floods in Kenya and Tanzania which have caused the deaths of 488 people and the displacement of 503,000.
April 30 – The G7 countries agree to phase out unabated coal power by 2030–2035.
=== May ===
May 5 – 2024 Panamanian general election: José Raúl Mulino is elected president.
May 6 – 2024 Chadian presidential election: Mahamat Déby wins election to a full term as president, succeeding his father Idriss Déby.
May 7–11 – The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 is held in Malmö, Sweden. Swiss contestant Nemo wins with the song "The Code".
May 8 – In North Macedonian elections, the right-wing party VMRO-DPMNE wins in a landslide in the parliamentary elections, while its presidential candidate Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova is elected as the first female president of the country in the second round of the presidential election.
May 10
The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution to grant the State of Palestine the right to be seated among member states in alphabetical order. This will go into effect at the next session of the UN General Assembly on 10 September 2024.
A series of solar storms and intense solar flares impact the Earth, rated G5 by NOAA, creating aurorae at more southerly and northerly latitudes than usual. This was the first G5 storm since 2003.
May 15
Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore since 2004, is succeeded by former Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong as prime minister, ahead of the next general election to be held by 2025.
Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico is shot and hospitalized while meeting with supporters at an event in Handlová.
May 19
2024 Dominican Republic general election: Incumbent Luis Abinader is reelected for a second term as president.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian are killed, along with seven other passengers and crew, in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan–Iran border.
A coup d'état attempt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reportedly led by Christian Malanga leads to unrest in Kinshasa. Government soldiers quickly intervene, arresting the coup leaders and reportedly restoring calm.
May 20 – The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court seeks arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar over alleged war crimes.
May 24
The UN's highest court, the ICJ, rules that Israel must halt its military offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza.
A major landslide in Papua New Guinea kills 160–2,000+ people, with many more buried.
May 26 – 2024 Lithuanian presidential election: Incumbent president Gitanas Nausėda wins a landslide victory for a second term in office.
May 28 – Spain, Ireland and Norway recognize the State of Palestine.
May 29
2024 South African general election: The ANC party fails to win a majority of the vote for the first time in South Africa's democratic history.
2024 Malagasy parliamentary election: President Andry Rajoelina's party, Tanora Malagasy Vonona, loses their majority at the National Assembly, winning only 80 seats out of 163.
May 30 – Former United States President Donald Trump is found guilty on 34 counts in his hush money trial, the first time any American president had been found guilty of a crime.
=== June ===
June 1
The 2024 Indian general election, which began on April 19, concludes. In the Lok Sabha, the BJP party loses its outright majority, but its electoral alliance, the National Democratic Alliance, retains its majority.
The 2024 Icelandic presidential election is held, with Halla Tómasdóttir elected president of Iceland.
June 1–29 – The 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup is co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States, and is won by India.
June 2 – The 2024 Mexican general election is held, with Claudia Sheinbaum elected as president of Mexico.
June 5 – Starliner Crewed Flight Test launches atop an Atlas V rocket to the ISS.
June 6–9 – The 2024 European Parliament election is held. The EPP, of incumbent Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, retains its status as the largest group in parliament amid notable gains by far-right political groups.
June 9
2024 San Marino general election: The Democracy and Freedom alliance, headed by the PDCS, wins a plurality in the Grand and General Council.
2024 Belgian federal election: The New Flemish Alliance remains the largest party in the Chamber of Representatives while Open Vld, the party of outgoing Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, loses seats.
June 2024 Bulgarian parliamentary election: Boyko Borisov's coalition GERB–SDS wins a plurality of seats but fails to form a stable government.
June 10 – A plane crash near Chikangawa, Malawi, kills nine people, including Vice President of Malawi Saulos Chilima.
June 12 – The United Nations' first inquiry into the October 7 attacks and resulting conflict finds that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes.
June 14 – 2024 South African general election: The ANC and other opposition parties agree to form a national unity government, with Cyril Ramaphosa being re-elected President of South Africa.
June 14 – July 14 – UEFA Euro 2024 is held in Germany, and is won by Spain.
June 20 – July 14 – The 2024 Copa América is held in the United States, and is won by Argentina.
June 23
On the Grand Duke's Official Birthday, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg announces that his son and heir Guillaume will assume royal duties beginning in October, in preparation for Henri's eventual abdication.
2024 Hajj disaster: More than 1,300 people are reported to have died due to extreme heat during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
2024 Dagestan attacks: Two coordinated attacks occur in the cities of Makhachkala and Derbent in the Republic of Dagestan in southern Russia, injuring 46 and killing 28 people.
June 24 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaves the United Kingdom after being freed from prison in a plea deal with the United States. He returns to his native Australia two days later.
June 25 – Negotiations on the accession of Moldova and Ukraine to the European Union have officially begun.
June 26 – A failed coup d'état attempt in La Paz, Bolivia is led by the former General Commander Juan José Zúñiga.
June 28 – 2024 Mongolian parliamentary election: The Mongolian People's Party wins a reduced majority of seats in the State Great Khural amid gains by the Democratic Party.
June 29
2024 Mauritanian presidential election: Incumbent president Mohamed Ould Ghazouani wins re-election to a second term.
2024 Borno State bombings: 30 people are killed and 100 are injured when three separate bomb blasts occur in the town of Gwoza in Borno State, Nigeria.
=== July ===
July 1 – Hurricane Beryl becomes the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record after devastating the island of Carriacou, Grenada.
July 4 – 2024 United Kingdom general election: Sir Keir Starmer leads the Labour Party to a landslide victory, returning the party to government for the first time in 14 years.
July 5 – 2024 Iranian presidential election: Masoud Pezeshkian is elected president of Iran.
July 7 – 2024 French legislative election: The left-wing New Popular Front wins the most seats in the National Assembly, upsetting a first-round victory by the far-right National Rally, but fails to achieve a majority.
July 9–11 – The 33rd NATO summit is held in Washington, D.C.
July 13 – While campaigning for the 2024 United States presidential election, President Donald Trump is shot in the right ear in an assassination attempt at a rally he held near Butler, Pennsylvania.
July 15 – 2024 Rwandan general election: Incumbent Paul Kagame is reelected for a fourth term.
July 19
Global IT outages impact a variety of businesses and organisations across the world.
75 people are killed during the 2024 Bangladesh quota reform movement. The government of Bangladesh imposes a curfew.
July 21 – Incumbent United States President Joe Biden ends his candidacy in the 2024 United States presidential election.
July 22 – Landslides kill 257 people and bury two villages in Geze Gofa, Gofa Zuria, Ethiopia.
July 23 – China brokers a unity agreement between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas to form a single government.
July 26 – August 11 – The 2024 Summer Olympics are held in Paris, France. The controversial opening ceremony and the boxing match of Luca Hámori and Imane Khelif spark international debate.
July 28 – 2024 Venezuelan presidential election: Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro declares victory against opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia amid alleged irregularities, causing numerous South American states to refuse to acknowledge the results or suspend diplomatic relations with the Maduro government and sparking nationwide protests.
July 30
At least 334 people are killed, over 200 injured, and 281 missing following landslides in Wayanad district, Kerala, India.
Israel carries out an airstrike in the Dahieh suburb of Beirut, killing Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, who it accused of ordering the Majdal Shams attack.
2024 United Kingdom riots: Far-right riots break out throughout the United Kingdom in response to a mass stabbing in Southport, England.
July 31
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, is assassinated at his residence in Tehran, Iran.
Moussa Dadis Camara, the former military ruler of Guinea, is found guilty of crimes against humanity in the massacres that occurred in 2009 and is sentenced to twenty years in prison by a Guinean court.
=== August ===
August 1 – 2024 American–Russian prisoner exchange: 26 individuals are released from Ankara Esenboğa Airport in the largest prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia since the Cold War.
August 3 – The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam elects Tô Lâm as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, succeeding Nguyễn Phú Trọng, who died on July 19.
August 5 – Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina announces her resignation and flees to India following nationwide protests.
August 6 – Yahya Sinwar, Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip, is appointed as the chairman of Hamas' political bureau.
August 7 – The Move Forward Party is dissolved and Pita Limjaroenrat, alongside other senior politicians from the party, are banned from politics by the Constitutional Court of Thailand.
August 8 – Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus assumes office as Chief Adviser of an interim government formed after Sheikh Hasina's resignation in Bangladesh.
August 9 – Voepass Flight 2283, an ATR 72, crashes near Vinhedo, São Paulo, Brazil, killing all 62 people on board.
August 11 – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announces that the Ukrainian military is conducting a cross-border offensive inside Russia's western Kursk Oblast. Russia says that 76,000 people have been evacuated from the region.
August 13 – 2024 Kolkata rape and murder: Thousands of doctors and students take part in protests and rallies against domestic violence in cities across the world after the rape and murder of a 31 year old post-graduate trainee doctor in Kolkata on 9 August.
August 14
The World Health Organization (WHO) declares mpox a public health emergency of international concern for the second time in two years, following the spread of the virus in African countries.
The Constitutional Court of Thailand dismisses the Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin for illegally appointing a minister to his cabinet who had a prison sentence. Paetongtarn Shinawatra succeeds him as Prime Minister of Thailand.
August 17 – Indonesia's 79th Independence Day celebration is held in Nusantara. The celebration is supposed to inaugurate Nusantara as the new capital of Indonesia, but this does not occur due to delays.
August 23 – In Solingen, Germany, a Syrian immigrant stabs three people to death, which leads to the intensification of the debate on migration in Germany.
August 24 – In Barsalogho, Burkina Faso, 600 civilians are victims of a massacre by Islamists associated with Al-Qaeda.
August 25 – The Israel Defense Forces begin a series of preemptive strikes against targets in the south of Lebanon.
August 28 – September 8 – The 2024 Summer Paralympics are held in Paris, France.
August 31 – A helicopter crashed in Kamchatka Krai, Russia, killing all 22 occupants on board.
=== September ===
September 2 – The Brazilian Supreme Court upholds a decision to block the social media platform X (also known as Twitter) over what the Brazilian government determined to be rampant disinformation and Elon Musk's failure to name a legal representative to the country.
September 7 – 2024 Algerian presidential election: Incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune is reelected for a second term.
September 12
Heavy rainfall in Central Europe triggers the worst flooding in the region since 2010.
The first commercial spacewalk is conducted by entrepreneur Jared Isaacman as part of the Polaris Dawn mission, which also includes the highest altitude orbit by a human crew since the Apollo program.
September 15 – Ryan Wesley Routh is accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump in Florida. Ryan is later captured and arrested, and a trial date has been set for 2025.
September 17–18 – Thirty-two people are killed and more than 3,200 are injured after pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants and medics explode in two massive cyberattacks. Israel is the presumed perpetrator.
September 20 – Israel assassinates Hezbollah leader Ibrahim Aqil and ten other senior leaders in Beirut following an intensification of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in the wake of the pager explosions that occurred earlier in the week.
September 21 – 2024 Sri Lankan presidential election: Anura Kumara Dissanayake is elected President of Sri Lanka, with a second round of vote counting held for the first time in Sri Lanka's history.
September 23 – The deadliest day of the Hezbollah–Israel conflict since 2006 occurs, with 569 people killed and 1,835 wounded by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.
September 26 – Hurricane Helene, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Maria in 2017, makes landfall in Florida as a category four hurricane. It has a death toll of 236 and leaves more than 685 missing.
September 27 – The Israeli Air Force bombs the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, killing several people, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
September 29 – 2024 Austrian legislative election: Far-right Freedom Party secures a historical victory, but does not reach a majority in the National Council. The results are deemed the first far-right win since World War II.
September 30 – The UK becomes the first G7 country to phase out coal power for electric generation, after 142 years of using the energy source.
=== October ===
October 1
The Israel Defense Forces invade southern Lebanon, escalating its conflict against Hezbollah.
The Japanese parliament elects Shigeru Ishiba as the new prime minister of Japan, with members from the Liberal Democratic Party forming the majority. Following his appointment, he reveals his cabinet and calls for a snap election on October 27, securing a national mandate.
Iran attacks Israel with ballistic missiles as a response to Israel's assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh.
October 3–20 – The 2024 ICC Women's T20 World Cup is held in the United Arab Emirates, and is won by New Zealand.
October 6
The 2024 Kazakh nuclear power referendum is held and approved.
2024 Tunisian presidential election: Incumbent Kais Saied is reelected for a second term.
October 7 – Hurricane Milton becomes the fourth most intense hurricane in the Atlantic Basin, and the most intense storm in the Gulf of Mexico tying with Hurricane Rita in 2005. Milton is also the first hurricane to reach a pressure below 900 millibars in nearly 20 years.
October 9 – 2024 Mozambican general election: Daniel Chapo is elected president while the ruling FRELIMO party retains a majority in the Assembly of the Republic.
October 12 – The long-period comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS), described as the "comet of the century", makes its closest approach to Earth.
October 13 – SpaceX achieves the first successful return and capture of a Super Heavy booster from Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly.
October 14 – The Europa Clipper spacecraft is launched to investigate Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter.
October 16 – Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas, is killed in a gunfight with Israeli forces in Rafah.
October 20
The 2024 Moldovan European Union membership constitutional referendum is held and narrowly approved.
Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka are inaugurated as the president and vice president of Indonesia.
October 21 – The National Assembly of Vietnam elects Lương Cường as the new president of Vietnam. He replaced Tô Lâm, who was formally promoted to the general secretary of the Communist Party.
October 24 – The first case of the 2024 Kwango province disease outbreak is reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
October 26
Israel launches airstrikes against Iran in retaliation to Iran's ballistic missile attacks earlier in the month.
2024 Georgian parliamentary election: Amid suspicions of interference, ruling pro-Russian party Georgian Dream wins a majority.
October 27
2024 Japanese general election: The governing LDP loses its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2009, but still wins the most seats. The CDP wins its best result in party history.
October 2024 Bulgarian parliamentary election: Boyko Borsiov's coalition GERB-SDS successfully forms a government after 6 snap elections.
2024 Lithuanian parliamentary election: The leftist opposition Social Democratic Party of Lithuania wins a majority.
October 29
2024 Spanish floods: Spain experiences its worst flooding in half a century, with over 200 killed and many more missing, as a year's worth of rain falls in eight hours.
October 30
2024 Botswana general election: The ruling BDP party is voted out of power, ending 58 years of uninterrupted governance. Duma Boko of the UDC party is elected President of Botswana.
=== November ===
November 3 – 2024 Moldovan presidential election: Incumbent Maia Sandu is re-elected for a second term.
November 5
2024 United States presidential election: Former U.S. President Donald Trump defeats incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris to win a second nonconsecutive term. Trump became the second person in American history to win a second nonconsecutive term, after Grover Cleveland in 1892.
2024 Palauan general election: Incumbent Surangel Whipps Jr. is reelected for a second term as president.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismisses FDP leader Christian Lindner from his position as finance minister, leading to two other FDP ministers resigning and the collapse of the governing coalition.
November 9 – A suicide bombing at the Quetta railway station in Balochistan, Pakistan kills at least 26 people. The bombing was orchestrated by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), and is the first time that the organization had attacked the center of Quetta.
November 10 – 2024 Mauritian general election: The electoral alliance Lepep of incumbent Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth is defeated by that of opposition leader and former Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, with the latter taking all but two seats.
November 11–22 – COP29 is held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
November 12 – Justin Welby announces his resignation as Archbishop of Canterbury following the publication of a report critical of his handling of the abuse of children within the Church of England by John Smyth.
November 13 – 2024 Somaliland presidential election: Opposition candidate Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi of the Waddani party is elected president.
November 14 – 2024 Sri Lankan parliamentary election: President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's National People's Power coalition wins a supermajority in the 17th Parliament of Sri Lanka.
November 15 – The spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) Is rediscovered in the Elba Protected Area of Southeast Egypt, 5,000 years after the species was believed to have been extirpated from the region.
November 16
The 2024 Gabonese constitutional referendum is held and approved.
French-Algerian dissident writer Boualem Sansal is put in custody by Algerian authorities after his landing in Algiers.
November 17 – 2024 Senegalese parliamentary election: President Bassirou Diomaye Faye's party PASTEF wins an absolute majority at the National Assembly.
November 21
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif on accusations of war crimes committed during the Gaza war.
Terrorists in Peshawar, Pakistan, ambush a group of vehicles carrying Shiite Muslims, killing 46 and injuring 20.
Researchers using the Very Large Telescope announce the first-ever "close-up" image of a star outside the Milky Way Galaxy, WOH G64.
November 24 – 2024 Uruguayan general election: Leftist opposition candidate Yamandú Orsi is elected president.
November 26 – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that a ceasefire deal has been agreed to end fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
November 27 – 2024 Namibian general election: Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the SWAPO party is elected as the first female president of Namibia.
November 29 – 2024 Irish general election: Centre-right party Fianna Fáil remains the largest party in Dáil Éireann, increasing its number of seats to 48.
November 30
2024 Icelandic parliamentary election: Opposition party Social Democratic Alliance wins 15 seats in the Althing, with the incumbent Independence Party winning 14 seats. However, no party achieved a majority.
Syrian civil war: Opposition forces seize control of most of Aleppo, Syria, prompting the first Russian airstrikes on the city since 2016.
=== December ===
December 1 – 2024 Romanian parliamentary election: The incumbent National Coalition for Romania wins a plurality of votes, with far-right parties making substantial gains.
December 3 – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law during a late-night address broadcast live on YTN television, accusing the country's main opposition Democratic Party of sympathizing with North Korea and engaging in anti-state activities.
December 4
2024 French political crisis: Michel Barnier becomes the first prime minister of France to lose a motion of no-confidence since Georges Pompidou in 1962.
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, is shot and killed by a lone gunman in Midtown Manhattan, sparking debate and criticism of the health insurance industry in the United States.
December 6 – 2024 Romanian presidential election: The Constitutional Court of Romania annuls the results of the first round, amid accusations of Russian interference after the unexpected advancement of pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu to the runoff.
December 7
2024 Ghanaian general election: John Mahama of the NDC is elected president for a second non-consecutive term.
The Notre-Dame Cathedral reopens to the public after previously being damaged by a structural fire in 2019.
December 8 – Syrian civil war: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad flees from Damascus to Moscow after being overthrown, ending his presidency and the Ba'athist Syria regime after a total of 61 years. The Syrian opposition forms the Syrian transitional government as a provisional government.
December 11 – FIFA announces that Morocco, Portugal and Spain will jointly host the 2030 World Cup, with anniversary matches to be held in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, while Saudi Arabia is confirmed as the host for 2034.
December 12 – Indian chess prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju defeats former world champion Ding Liren in the 2024 World Chess Championship, breaking the previous age record of 22 set by Garry Kasparov by becoming champion at 18 years, 195 days old.
December 14
2024 Georgian presidential election: Mikheil Kavelashvili of People's Power is elected unopposed.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's powers and duties are suspended after MPs vote to impeach him, following his martial law declaration the previous week.
Cyclone Chido makes landfall in Mayotte, causing at least 172 deaths and bringing devastating damage to the island.
December 17 – The capital of Vanuatu, Port Vila, suffers extensive damage after a Mw 7.3 earthquake. At least 16 people are killed.
December 19
The Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán has granted political asylum to Polish MP of Law and Justice Marcin Romanowski, who is wanted on the European Arrest Warrant for being accused of defrauding 100 million zł from the Fundusz Sprawiedliwości (Justice Fund) when he was deputy minister of justice during the PiS government.
Mazan rapes trial: The Judicial Court in Avignon, France, finds Dominique Pelicot guilty of the aggravated rape of his ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot and imposes the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The 50 other defendants in the case are also convicted of crimes ranging from attempted rape to aggravated rape, and receive prison sentences ranging from three to 15 years.
December 20 – Six people are killed, while another 235 are injured, after a car is driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany.
December 21 – Thirty-nine people died and another seven are injured after a multiple-vehicle collision occurs on the BR-116 highway in Teófilo Otoni, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It is the deadliest traffic accident on federal highways in Brazil since 2007, when numbers were first monitored.
December 24
The 2025 Jubilee in the Catholic Church begins.
The Parker Solar Probe breaks the previous record set in 2018 for the closest artificial object to the Sun by 6.1 million kilometers (3.8 million miles), becoming the closest and first man-made object to approach and "touch" the Sun.
December 25 – Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an Embraer ERJ-190AR, crashes in Kazakhstan. Twenty-nine out of the 67 on board survive the crash.
December 27 – Acting President of South Korea Han Duck-soo is impeached by MPs for failing to promulgate two bills related to president Yoon's legal proceedings. He is succeeded by deputy prime minister Choi Sang-mok.
December 29
Jeju Air Flight 2216, a Boeing 737-800 passenger flight from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, to Muan International Airport in Muan, South Korea, veers off the runway at Muan International Airport and crashes into a barrier, killing 179 people. Two injured survivors are reported.
A truck carrying passengers falls off a bridge over the Ganale Doria River in Bona Zuria, Sidama Region, Ethiopia, killing 71 people and injuring 4 others.
== Births ==
== Deaths ==
== Nobel Prizes ==
Chemistry – David Baker, for computational protein design, and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper, for protein structure prediction.
Economics – Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.
Literature – Han Kang, for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.
Peace – Nihon Hidankyo, for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
Physics – John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton, for their foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.
Physiology or Medicine – Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, for their discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.
== References ==
== Notes == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Briar_College#Presidents | Sweet Briar College | Sweet Briar College (Sweet Briar, SBC) is a private women's liberal arts college in Sweet Briar, Amherst County, Virginia. It was established in 1901 by Indiana Fletcher Williams in memory of her deceased daughter, Daisy. The college formally opened its doors in 1906 and granted the B.A. degree for the first time in 1910. It nearly closed in 2015 but was saved by donations and legal actions by alumnae.
Sweet Briar is known for its campus with its historic Georgian Revival architecture by Ralph Adams Cram and its 3,250 acres (13.2 km2) of hills, forests, and fields.
== History ==
=== Sweet Briar plantation ===
The college is named after the former plantation of Elijah Fletcher and his descendants. Fletcher was a 19th-century teacher, businessman and mayor of Lynchburg, Virginia. He married Maria Antoinette Crawford in 1813 and purchased the Sweet Briar plantation property from her aunt and uncle where he used slave labor to run the plantation and his household. The plantation was initially known as Locust Ridge; Crawford supposedly renamed it "Sweet Briar" after the roses which grew on the land. Their daughter, Indiana Fletcher, was born in 1828 in Lynchburg.
Indiana attended the Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, Doane Academy, and later toured Europe with her brother and sister. She met James Henry Williams, a student at Union Theological Seminary in 1858, and after reuniting in Virginia following the American Civil War, they were married in 1865.
Their daughter, Maria Georgiana "Daisy" Williams, was born in 1867. At Elijah Fletcher's death, Indiana inherited the plantation. James Williams gave up his initial career as a clergyman to maintain the property. Daisy Williams died at the age of 16 in 1884. Both James and Indiana Fletcher-Williams were devastated at her death, and James expressed a wish in his own will that a school might be established in honor of Daisy. William died in 1889, leaving his entire estate to his wife, and Indiana's brother Sidney also gave her additional property upon his death in 1898. When Indiana died in 1900, she bequeathed Sweet Briar plantation to become a school for young women.
By his death in 1858, Elijah Fletcher enslaved over 110 people. After the emancipation in 1865, several formerly enslaved people and descendants of enslaved people continued to work for pay and live at Sweet Briar, including Martha Penn Taylor, who worked for three generations of the Fletcher-Williams family, and Signora Hollins (who was Indiana Fletcher's childhood playmate). Some descendants of the people enslaved by the family still work at the college, and others hold family reunions on campus.
=== Indiana Fletcher Williams' bequest and official opening ===
In 1901, with the assistance of then Virginia state senator Carter Glass, the Virginia General Assembly issued a charter to Sweet Briar Institute as indicated in the will of Indiana Fletcher Williams. The will stated that the land of Sweet Briar plantation must be used as a "school or seminary to be known as the "Sweet Briar institute," for the education of white girls and young women. It shall be the general scope and object of the school to impart to its students such education in sound learning, and such physical, moral and religious training as shall, in the judgment of the directors, best fit them to be useful members of society".
In 1906, Sweet Briar College officially opened with 51 students and granted its first AB degrees in 1910. In 1932, Sweet Briar's study abroad exchange program with the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, was established. In 1948, the renowned Junior Year in France (JYF) program was launched, followed by a number of other study abroad programs.
=== Civil Rights era changes ===
Legal action to alter Indiana Fletcher Williams' will was required to admit African-American students, as it had limited the purpose of the college to the education of solely white women. On August 17, 1964, wishing to eliminate "white" from the charter and comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sweet Briar filed a bill of complaint with the Amherst County Circuit Court. The request was initially denied at the state level, with the Commonwealth's Attorney General stating that the will was "plain, unambiguous, conclusive, and binding".
After several years of unsuccessful state litigation, the college filed a complaint with the federal United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. On April 25, 1966, Judge Thomas J. Michie issued a temporary restraining order that prevented enforcement of the racial restriction. On July 17, 1967, a three-judge Charlottesville court confirmed permanence of the restraining order. The first African-American student, Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, was admitted to the college in September 1966.
=== Distinguishing features and early decades ===
Sweet Briar long held a robust academic reputation. During its first decade, Sweet Briar ran a "sub-college" department to prepare students for college-level work. The original board of trustees appointed in Williams' will maintained that the college would be the academic equivalent of Smith, Wellesley and Mount Holyoke. The difference in Sweet Briar's curriculum was the inclusion of "hands-on" or "practical" courses, as well as physical education, in accordance with Williams' directive that the school produce "useful members of society". This forward-thinking approach evolved into the college's core mission, where students have direct access to their disciplines while gaining real-world and classroom learning experience. During the first few years of the college, this concept quickly gave way to a more traditional liberal arts curriculum.
=== 2015 closure attempt ===
==== Pending closure announced by board ====
On March 3, 2015, the college's board of directors, following a unanimous vote on February 28, 2015, announced the college would close on August 25, 2015, due to "insurmountable financial challenges". They cited declining enrollment and an endowment insufficient to cover potentially large-scale changes needed to boost enrollment, like coeducation. Another possible factor presented by the board was a declining interest in the traditional women's college model. Sweet Briar had explored merging with other stronger institutions including the University of Virginia, but nothing came of it.
The board announced that academic activity was to cease on August 25, 2015, the college's pending closing date. Some professors said they received termination notices stating their last day of work would be May 30, 2015; the last day of employment for most was June 30, 2015.
Between 2011 and March 2015, Sweet Briar's endowment had dropped from $96.2 to $84 million, as the college drew on endowment for operating expenses. Most of the college's endowment is restricted, meaning the money must serve designated purposes, such as scholarships or faculty chairs. According to Standard & Poor's (S&P), which rates the college's bond debt, only $19 million was unrestricted, $18 million temporarily restricted, and $53 million permanently restricted. Sweet Briar is burdened with about $25 million in debt owed primarily to bondholders, and the college faced the possibility of default and an accelerated lump-sum payment of the entire amount.
College Board representatives explained that with insolvency inevitable—even though the college was still technically solvent—the Board felt the responsible course was an advance announcement of the closing. That would let enrolled students transfer at the beginning of a new academic year and prevent an entering first-year class from having to transfer after only one semester. It would also allow the college to honor financial obligations and provide severance to faculty and staff.
==== Efforts to forestall closing ====
A group of Sweet Briar alumnae, students, faculty, and supporters united to save the college from closing through legal action, social media and a fundraising campaign, "Saving Sweet Briar". Saving Sweet Briar, Inc. asserted that the financial decline cited as the reason for closing was overstated or illusory, and sought the resignation of interim President James F. Jones and the board of directors. In a return statement, the President and the Board declined resignation, saying that doing so would "further destabilize an already fragile situation", and that allegations against them were "wrong and unfair".
A majority of Sweet Briar faculty members passed a resolution opposing the Board's decision to close the college and subsequently issued a vote of no confidence in the school's Board and its president. Over 50 tenured and untenured Sweet Briar faculty members later joined a lawsuit against the college, seeking $42 million in damages, reinstatement of employment, and injunctions to prevent the closure of the college and termination of its faculty.
On March 30, 2015, the Amherst County Attorney filed a separate lawsuit, this one on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, seeking an injunction to block the closing of Sweet Briar College and to force the removal and replacement of the president and board of directors. Following an amicus curiae brief released by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who argued that the Amherst County Attorney did not have the standing to seek an injunction, a Bedford County judge ruled that the county attorney had standing to sue under Virginia's charitable solicitation law, but not under its trust law. At a hearing on the Amherst County Attorney's lawsuit on April 15, 2015, the judge granted a 60-day injunction to prevent the college from shifting endowment money solicited for its continued operation to its closing. The judge did not halt the closing, remove the president and board, require the college to continue operations, or appoint a special fiduciary to review college finances. The college's attorney said the college would continue the process of closing, using unrestricted funds.
On April 20, following the decision on the injunction, a group of Sweet Briar students, parents, and alumnae filed a third lawsuit calling the Board decision to close the school a breach of contract. Rather than monetary damages, the suit requested injunctions to prevent the college from taking more steps to shut down or sell assets, and a permanent injunction requiring Sweet Briar to continue operating. The college's spokeswoman contested the allegations. After a hearing on April 29, the same Bedford County judge ruled that the college could not sell any of its assets for six months, although he still did not enjoin the closing.
The college embarked on negotiations to transfer some time-sensitive assets despite the court's injunction. The parties negotiated an agreement to transfer hazardous chemicals, to sell to faculty their personal computers, and to keep Sweet Briar's study abroad program functioning. In adopting the agreed order, the judge declined to allow the transfer of the college's horses. On his own, he added to the injunction for the first time a restriction that the college shall "engage in no such act during the period of this injunction that has as its goals facilitating the closing of the college unless such act is authorized by further order of this court".
On behalf of the Commonwealth, the Amherst County Attorney filed an appeal of the judge's April 15 decision on trust law applicability with the Virginia Supreme Court. Following a hearing on June 4, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Commonwealth on June 9, stating that Virginia trust laws can apply to Sweet Briar, and referred the case back to the Bedford county circuit court judge for consideration of a temporary injunction to halt the closing of the college.
==== Agreement to keep the college open ====
On June 20, 2015, the Virginia Attorney General's office announced a mediation agreement to keep Sweet Briar College open for the 2015–16 academic year. The agreement called for Sweet Briar College president James Jones to resign, as well as at least 13 members of the college's board of directors to allow Saving Sweet Briar to appoint a new majority. Lawyers for Saving Sweet Briar contacted Phillip Stone, the former president of Bridgewater College, to ask him to serve as Sweet Briar's new president. Saving Sweet Briar agreed to contribute $12 million, and the state Attorney General agreed to release restrictions on an additional $16 million of endowment money, to pay for continuing operations. On June 22, 2015, the Bedford County judge approved the agreement, and dismissed the pending lawsuits.
=== Revitalization ===
==== Change of leadership ====
Sweet Briar's board is historically elected annually in the spring, however Saving Sweet Briar and plaintiffs in the litigations appointed an entirely new board in July 2015. In a conference call vote, the new board unanimously installed Phillip Stone as the new president and formally rescinded the previous board's announcement that the school was closing.
Stone announced in newspaper interviews that he did not regard this as an interim or one-year appointment, and that in years to come he intended to increase enrollment beyond Sweet Briar's highest past student count. Stone invited most faculty and staff members to remain in their positions; the settlement included paying six months' severance to any who elected to depart. The settlement required Saving Sweet Briar to deliver $12 million by September 2015 to help cover 2015–16 operating costs. The group met and exceeded its target, providing $12.143 million by September 2 In November 2015 the college finances proved strong enough that the board decided not to draw on the promised $16 million which the court had made available from the endowment, reserving the option to do so later if necessary.
On April 23, 2016, the Board of Directors announced that Stone would be stepping down as the president to allow the Board to appoint a permanent leader. On February 6, 2017, the college announced that Meredith Jung-En Woo would become the 13th president of the college, to be instated on May 15, 2017.
==== Academic re-structuring ====
Under Woo the college announced a radical departure from the traditional academic curriculum at Sweet Briar for the fall 2018 semester, restructuring it to remove historic academic departments and replace them with three "centers": Engineering, Science and Technology in Society; Human and Environmental Sustainability; and Creativity, Design and the Arts. The traditional general education requirements was replaced with a new core curriculum program based around women's leadership.
Semesters changed from a 15-week system to "3-12-12-3"-week semesters, with the three-week terms allowing for focus on opportunities such as intensive classes, study abroad, and research opportunities.
==== Financial status and enrollment ====
In January 2016, the college announced that it had received more than 1000 applications for the 2016–2017 academic year and that it did not plan to touch the $16 million of restricted funds initially planned to be released from the endowment by the attorney general.
In June 2018, the regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, placed Sweet Briar on "warning" status based on a review of its fiscal-year 2017 finances. The college was required to demonstrate to the accreditor within the subsequent 12 months that its finances were sound and soundly managed, or further action, including revocation of accreditation and loss of federal financial aid, could have followed. In June 2019, the commission lifted the warning status.
==== Admissions policy barring transgender students ====
In August 2024, Sweet Briar's leaders announced that the college would not accept transgender students. The Common Application, which Sweet Briar requires applicants to complete, had recently changed to list four possible genders, something the college's administrators found unacceptable saying that the change "presents a challenge both for students applying for admission and administrators and staff making admissions decisions".
College policy now says students can be admitted "if she confirms that her sex assigned at birth is female and that she consistently lives and identifies as a woman". Before this it just required a birth certificate. Sweet Briar's student government association and other campus groups have used social media to criticize the change. On August 26, 2024, the college's faculty senate approved a resolution in favor of reversing the new policy, writing that transgender students are "precisely the students who benefit from attending an institution that is historically dedicated to gender equity in a world where women were underserved and undervalued". John Gregory Brown, chair of the faculty senate, described the new policy as "morally repugnant".
=== Presidents ===
Mary K. Benedict (1906–1916)
Emilie Watts McVea (1916–1925)
Meta Glass (1925–1946)
Martha B. Lucas (1946–1950)
Anne Gary Pannell (1950–1971)
Harold B. Whiteman Jr. (1971–1983)
Nenah Elinor Fry (1983–1990)
Barbara A. Hill (1990–1996)
Elisabeth Showalter Muhlenfeld (1996–2009)
Jo Ellen Parker (2009–2014)
James F. Jones Jr. (interim president, 2014–2015)
Phillip C. Stone (2015–2017)
Meredith Jung-En Woo (2017–2023)
Mary Pope Maybank Hutson (2023–present)
== Academics ==
The college offers 17 majors, 21 minors, 3 preprofessional programs (pre-law, pre-medicine, and pre-veterinary), 2 certificate programs (arts management and equine studies), teacher licensure in 10 areas, and 1 graduate degree (Master of Arts in Teaching).
Sweet Briar offers the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Bachelor of Science degrees for undergraduate students. It is the second women's college to offer an ABET-accredited engineering degree.
Sweet Briar has a student/faculty ratio of 9 to 1 with 84% of classes having fewer than 20 students. For 2023, U.S. News & World Report ranked the college tied for #29 in Most Innovative Schools and tied for #35 in Top Performers on Social Mobility, both out of 210 national liberal arts colleges.
The college offers several study abroad programs, most with a focus on foreign language, such as its Junior Year in France (JYF) program. Other programs include the Japanese Studies Program at Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts, Wake Forest/Southern Atlantic States Association for Asian and African Studies (SASASAAS) Program in China-Beijing, Intercollegiate Center of Classical Studies in Rome, the American School of Classical Studies Summer Program at Athens, the National Security Education Program (NSEP) in multiple countries, and other programs in different locations. With approval, students earn credit for international internships.
Sweet Briar offers several academic fellowships and grants for its existing students, including:
Sweet Briar College's Honors Program offers fellowships to students to support independent-research projects under the supervision of faculty mentors. Projects may be interdisciplinary and include multiple mentors.
The Student Research and Creative Endeavors Grants provide up to $500 to offset costs associated with student research or creative projects. Grant applications may be from individual students or teams of students.
Student Travel Grants from the Honors Program supports academic-related travel during the academic year.
Several scholarships are available for academic travel, which may be used to attend conferences.
=== Undergraduate admissions ===
In 2024, Sweet Briar accepted 75.7% of undergraduate applicants, with admission standards considered difficult and with those enrolled having an average 3.54 high school GPA. The college does not require submission of standardized test scores, Sweet Briar being a test optional school. Those enrolled that submitted test scores had an average 1190 SAT score (22% submitting scores) or average 26 ACT score (15% submitting scores).
=== Rankings ===
Sweet Briar is ranked tied for No. 173 out of 211 National Liberal Arts Colleges by U.S. News & World Report, tied for No. 56 in Best Undergraduate Teaching, and tied for No. 78 in Top Performers on Social Mobility.
== Architecture ==
The college's architecture is dominated by the work of Ralph Adams Cram, who also lent his architectural expertise to the campuses of Princeton University and West Point, among others. Although Cram's forte was Gothic Revival, he designed Sweet Briar in the Colonial Revival style, using red brick buildings with white balustrades and arcades.
Twenty-one of the thirty campus buildings were designated as the "Sweet Briar College Historic District" by the National Register of Historic Places. Sweet Briar House, which traditionally houses the college president, is among these buildings.
The campus property includes the Sweet Briar plantation burial ground (known as the slave cemetery), where upwards of 60 slaves are buried.
Archaeologists have uncovered many slave artifacts on campus. A slave cabin from the 1840s, which was also used for early college employees, is behind Sweet Briar House.
Many of the college's faculty and staff live on campus, in homes that they rent or privately own. The land these homes are on belongs to the college.
== Campus life ==
Sweet Briar is a residential campus, and nearly all students live on campus. There are seven standard dormitories and additional independent living options for upperclasswomen in the Green Village and Patterson House. The college has over 50 clubs and organizations.
Like other women's colleges in the United States, Sweet Briar College has many traditions. The most prominent is the annual Founder's Day, when students, faculty and staff walk to Monument Hill to place daisies at Daisy Williams's grave site and memorial.
== Athletics ==
Sweet Briar athletic teams are the Vixens. The college is a member of the Division III level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) since the 1982–83 academic year.
Sweet Briar competes in nine intercollegiate varsity sports: Women's sports include cross country, equestrian, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming and tennis. Fencing is a Sweet Briar club sport.
Students also participate in recreational sports through the Sweet Briar Outdoor Program (SWEBOP), which organizes a number of trips throughout the year. These include hiking, fly fishing, caving, rock climbing and weekly kayaking and skiing.
=== Riding ===
The college is known for its horseback riding program, which focuses on show and field hunters, hunt seat equitation, and show jumping. The school has seven riding teams. These include a jumper team, a hunter show team, a JV hunter show team, an American National Riding Commission (ANRC) team, a field team and an Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) team. As part of its program, students can study for an Equine Studies Certificate with a focus in training or equine management.
Sweet Briar hosted the 23rd Annual ANRC Intercollegiate Equitation Championship judged by Victor Hugo Vidal & Dacia Funkhouser in 2000, and the 37th Annual ANRC Intercollegiate Equitation Championship judged by George H. Morris in 2014.
Sweet Briar's accolades include four ODAC titles (1987, 2012, 2015, 2016), nine ANRC team national championship titles (1978–1980; 1986–1990; 1999), and 10 ANRC team reserve national championships titles (1981–1985; 2000–2002; 2004–2005). Sweet Briar students have been individual national champions nine times, and individual reserve ANRC national champions seven times. In 2006, Sweet Briar's IHSA team won their region (Zone 4, Region 1) and placed second at Zones, qualifying the team for the Nationals Competition. The team placed third overall. In 2008, Sweet Briar's IHSA team again won their region and proceeded to the Nationals, where team members collected individual ribbons.
== Notable people ==
=== Alumnae ===
Irene Beasley, entertainer
Colleen Bell, former United States Ambassador to Hungary
Janet Lee Bouvier, mother of Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
Leah Busque, entrepreneur, founder of TaskRabbit
Kate Campanale, former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
Verda Colvin, Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia
Elaine Dundy, author and actress
Katherine Emery, actress
Sally Miller Gearhart, educator and writer
Lendon Gray, Olympic dressage rider
Angelia Lawrance Morrison Harris, First Lady of North Carolina
Molly Haskell, feminist film critic and author
Marie S. Klooz, American lawyer and pacifist
Felisha Leffler, current member of the Vermont House of Representatives
Marguerite McKee Moss, socialite
Diana Muldaur, actor and former president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
Anna Chao Pai, American geneticist and professor emerita at Montclair State University
Anne Poulet, art historian
Fleming Rutledge, Episcopal priest, author, and Tolkien scholar
Mary Lee Settle, author, winner of the National Book Award in 1978; founder of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction
Ann Taylor, newscaster
Elkanah East Taylor (1888–1945), poet; poetry magazine founder
Teresa Tomlinson, former mayor of Columbus, Georgia and candidate in the 2020 Democratic Primary to contest the Senate seat of David Perdue
Patsy Ticer, politician, former mayor of Alexandria, former member of Virginia senate
Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, first African-American student admitted to Sweet Briar College, director of the Developmental Disabilities Branch of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Carolyn L. Rose, archaeological conservator for the Smithsonian Institution, one of the first ethnographic conservators in the United States
=== Faculty ===
Carrie Brown – Former Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence, English professor, novelist
John Gregory Brown – English professor, novelist
=== Previous faculty ===
Adeline Ames – Botany professor
Marion Elizabeth Blake – Classics professor
Lincoln Pierson Brower- Entomology and Ecology Research Professor, advocate and world expert on monarch butterflies over six decades
Seth Clabough – English professor, novelist
Paul D. Cronin – Director of Riding Emeritus, author of Schooling and Riding the Sport Horse
Cornelius Eady – Poet
Connie Myers Guion – Professor of physics, Professor and head of the chemistry department at Sweet Briar College 1908–1913 who later earned an M.D. from Cornell University's Weill Medical College
Mary Harley – campus physician 1906–1935, taught physiology and hygiene classes
Elizabeth Friench Johnson – assistant professor of Modern Languages, 1917 to 1922
Iren Marik – Classical pianist
Constance Merritt – Former Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence
Eugenie Maria Morenus – taught mathematics and Latin
Elsie Murray – taught psychology from 1919 to 1922
Mary Oliver – Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Barbara A. Perry – Carter Glass Professor of Government, Author
Eva Matthews Sanford – History professor
Isabelle Stone – Physics professor
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Athletics website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Das#:~:text=Sunil%20Das%20(4%20August%201939,and%20his%20piece%20%22Woman%22.&text=He%20was%20the%20founder%20member%20of%20Society%20of%20Contemporary%20Artists. | Sunil Das | Sunil Das (4 August 1939 – 10 August 2015) was an Indian expressionist painter. He is known for the paintings in his Bull Series and his piece "Woman".
He was the founder member of Society of Contemporary Artists.
== Early life and background ==
Sunil Das was born in Calcutta, Kolkata, India.
He joined the Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata in 1955, then won a French Government scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Das is the only Indian to receive the prestigious Shiromani Kala Puraskar for his artistic excellence while studying for his undergraduate degree at the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata.
He died in 2015.
== Career ==
Das joined Government of India's Handloom division, Ministry of Textiles.
Sunil Das was one of India's most important post-modernist painters. He went through different styles of painting throughout his career. Das said,"To prevent myself from producing the same kind of work, I keep altering my vision. From the day people begun to see me as a painter, a huge responsibility fell upon me, particularly to respond to the feelings of the people at the grassroots level who are also my viewer, as also to delve deep into realities of life around me." At 60 years of age, he could look back at his nine to ten phases of paintings, all of them marked by supreme skill and a sense of integrity. An indefatigable painter, Das jumped from one style to another easily.
He was inspired by the force and the strength of the moving horse and went on to create a work made out of charcoal titled- Horses in Motion. His works revolved around Man-Woman relationships, Woman in her sexual empowerment and In her loneliness. He had around 88 solo exhibitions across the world including having his work included in the Paris Biennale.
Bull series
A woman in her failings (oil on canvas)
Horse series (charcoal)
== Exhibitions ==
=== Solo exhibitions ===
2008 ‘Endless Night’, Ganges Art, Kolkata
2005-06 ‘Art Moves – Works by Sunil Das’, organized by Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, Park Hotel, Kolkata and Rabindra Bhavan, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2005 ‘Horses…and Bulls – Paintings on Canvas and Paper by Sunil Das’, Jamaat, Mumbai
2003 ‘Sunil Das in Retrospect 1957-2003’,. ITC Sonar Bangla Art Gallery, Kolkata
2001 ‘Drawings – Bulls and Horses’, Dhoomimal Art Centre, New Delhi
2000 Art Heritage, New Delhi
=== Participations ===
1999 Annual Exhibition, 32nd Anniversary of Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata
1989 20th International Biennale, Sao Paulo, Brazil
1989 International Biennale, Havana, Cuba
1989 Festival of Japan, Tokyo
1989 International Triennale, New Delhi
== Awards ==
In 2014 the Government of India conferred upon Sunil its fourth-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri.
Recipient of the National Award in 1959 and 1978
== Death ==
In 2015, Sunil died due to a massive cardiac arrest, aged 76.
== References ==
Sunil Das' Official website
== External links ==
Profile on Delhi Art Gallery
Sunil Das' Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shonda_Rhimes | Shonda Rhimes | Shonda Lynn Rhimes (born January 13, 1970) is an American television producer and screenwriter, and founder of the production company Shondaland. Inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame, Rhimes became known as the first showrunner–creator, head writer, and executive producer–of the medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2005–present), its spin-off Private Practice (2007–2013) and the political thriller Scandal (2012–2018), becoming the first woman to create three television dramas that have achieved the 100 episode milestone.
She has served as the executive producer of the ABC thriller series How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020), the Netflix period series Bridgerton (2020–present) and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023), and drama Inventing Anna (2022). She has been nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award, won a Golden Globe Award and a Daytime Emmy Award, and received special honors at the British Academy Television Awards and International Emmy Awards.
In 2017, she was inducted as a Chair's Appointee of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences‘s executive committee. She is also part of the USC Film Council and the Writers Guild Inclusion Committee.
In 2007, 2013, and 2021, Rhimes was named by Time to the Time 100, their annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. As of 2023, she is one of the richest women entertainers in America, with a net worth of $250 million. In 2015, she published her first book, a memoir, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun, and Be Your Own Person. In 2016, Rhimes formed The Rhimes Family Foundation whose mission is to support arts, education, and activism.
== Early life and education ==
Rhimes was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of six children. Her mother, Vera P. (née Cain), was a college professor who earned a PhD in educational administration in 1991 while raising the family. Her father, Ilee Rhimes Jr., served as a university administrator and later became the chief information officer at the University of Southern California, a position he held until 2013.
Rhimes lived in Park Forest South (now University Park, Illinois), with her two older brothers and three older sisters. She has said she exhibited an early affinity for storytelling. While in high school, she served as a hospital volunteer, which inspired an interest in hospital environments.
Raised Catholic, Rhimes attended Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois. At Dartmouth College, she majored in English and film studies and earned her bachelor's degree in 1991. At Dartmouth, she joined the Black Underground Theater Association. She divided her time between directing and performing in student productions, and writing fiction. She also wrote for the college newspaper.
After college, she relocated to San Francisco with an older sibling and worked in advertising at McCann Erickson. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California and study screenwriting. Ranked at the top of her USC class, Rhimes earned the Gary Rosenberg Writing Fellowship. She obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
While at USC, Rhimes was hired as an intern by Debra Martin Chase. Rhimes credits her early success, in part, to mentors such as Chase, a prominent African-American producer. Chase later again served as a mentor to Rhimes on The Princess Diaries 2. Rhimes also worked at Denzel Washington's company, Mundy Lane Entertainment.
== Career ==
=== Career beginnings: 1995–2004 ===
After graduation, Rhimes was an unemployed scriptwriter in Hollywood. To make ends meet, Rhimes worked at a variety of day jobs, including as an office administrator and then a counselor at a job center that taught job skills to people with housing instability and mental illness. During this period, Rhimes worked as research director on the documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream (1995), which won the 1995 Peabody Award. In 1998, Rhimes made a short film, Blossoms and Veils, starring Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jeffrey Wright, which is her only credit as a film director. New Line Cinema purchased a feature script of hers. Rhimes received an assignment to co-write the HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999), which earned numerous awards for its star, Halle Berry.
In 2001, Rhimes wrote Crossroads, the debut film of pop singer Britney Spears. Despite being panned by critics, the film grossed more than $60 million worldwide.
Rhimes next worked on writing Disney's sequel to its popular movie The Princess Diaries (2001). Although The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) did not score as well at the box office, Rhimes later said that she treasured the experience, if only for the opportunity to work with its star, Julie Andrews. In 2003, Rhimes wrote her first TV pilot for ABC about young female war correspondents, but the network turned it down.
=== Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal and other projects with ABC ===
Rhimes is the creator and currently executive producer and head writer of Grey's Anatomy. The series debuted as a mid-season replacement on March 27, 2005. The series features the surgical staff at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital (later to be named Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital), in Seattle, Washington. The series features an ensemble cast with Ellen Pompeo serving as titular character Meredith Grey, who provides narration for a majority of the series' episodes.
In 2007, Rhimes created and produced the Grey's Anatomy spin-off series Private Practice, which debuted September 26, 2007, on ABC. The show chronicles the life of Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) as she leaves Seattle Grace Hospital for Los Angeles to join a private practice. The series also features an ensemble cast, including Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Audra McDonald and Taye Diggs among others. The first season was shortened because of a writers' strike; it has nine episodes. In May 2012, ABC picked up Private Practice for the 2012–13 television season with 13 episodes. The series finale aired January 22, 2013.
In 2010, Rhimes created a new pilot for ABC called Inside the Box, a female-centric ensemble drama set in a Washington, D.C. network news bureau. The lead character is Catherine, an ambitious female news producer who, with her colleagues, pursues "the story" at all costs while juggling their personal animosities and crises of conscience. It was not picked up by the network.
In 2011, Rhimes served as executive producer for the medical drama, Off the Map, which was created by Grey's Anatomy writer, Jenna Bans. It focuses on a group of doctors who practice medicine at a remote clinic in the Amazon jungle. The series was officially cancelled by the ABC network on May 13, 2011.
In May 2011, ABC ordered Rhimes' pilot script Scandal to series. Kerry Washington starred as Olivia Pope, a political crisis management expert. The character is partially based on former Bush administration press aide Judy Smith. The series debut aired on April 5, 2012.
In 2012, Rhimes developed a pilot for a period drama, Gilded Lilys, but it was not picked up to series.
In December 2013, ABC ordered a pilot for a new Rhimes series, How to Get Away with Murder. Actress Viola Davis joined the cast as the lead character in February 2014. It was officially picked up to series on May 8, 2014.
In March 2016, ABC premiered The Catch, a comedy-drama led by Rhimes based on a treatment by British author Kate Atkinson. It stars Mireille Enos and Peter Krause. Later that month, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder and Grey's Anatomy were respectively picked up for their sixth, third and 13th seasons. The following year, it was announced that Scandal would conclude after its upcoming seventh season, while The Catch was cancelled after its second.
=== Netflix deal ===
On August 14, 2017, Netflix announced that it had entered into an exclusive multi-year development deal with Rhimes, under which all of her future productions will be Netflix Original series. The service had already purchased American streaming rights to past episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal. Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos described Rhimes as being a "true Netflixer at heart" since "she loves TV and films, she cares passionately about her work, and she delivers for her audience". The deal was considered to be a coup for Netflix due to Rhimes' prominence at ABC; it was also considered to be a counter toward the effort by Disney, ABC's parent company, to reduce the availability of their content on Netflix in favor of a planned subscription streaming service of their own.
As of October 2020, she was working on more than 12 projects for Netflix. In July 2021, Rhimes extended her deal with Netflix. The first production was Bridgerton, which was released in 2020 and became the most-watched series ever on the platform, leading to the production of three seasons by 2024. In 2021, Rhimes produced the drama miniseries Inventing Anna. In April 2022, the production of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story conceived by Rhimes was announced, as a spin-off of Bridgerton.
Rhimes won her first competitive Emmy Award at the 52nd Daytime Creative Arts & Lifestyle Emmy Awards, where she took home the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Arts and Popular Culture Program for Black Barbie: A Documentary (2023).
== Personal life ==
Rhimes adopted her first daughter in June 2002 and adopted another daughter in February 2012. In September 2013, Rhimes welcomed her third daughter via gestational surrogacy.
In 2014, Rhimes gave a commencement address at her alma mater, Dartmouth College, where she received an honorary doctorate.
In September 2015, Rhimes revealed she had lost 117 pounds (53 kg) via exercise and dieting.
=== Activism ===
In April 2017, Rhimes joined the national board of Planned Parenthood. Later that same year, Rhimes and Katie McGrath co-founded Time's Up, and both of them donated the funds to hire its first seven employees.
In 2019, Rhimes joined the organization When We All Vote as a co-chair. This organization was founded to get out the vote prior to the 2020 general election.
== Shondaland ==
Shondaland is the name of Rhimes's production company. Shondaland and its logo also refer to the shows Rhimes has produced and to Rhimes herself. Shows included in Shondaland are:
Grey's Anatomy (2005–present)
Private Practice (2007–2013)
Off the Map (2011)
Scandal (2012–2018)
How to Get Away with Murder (2014–2020)
The Catch (2016–2017)
Still Star-Crossed (2017)
For the People (2018–2019)
Station 19 (2018–2024)
Bridgerton (2020–present)
Inventing Anna (2022)
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023)
The Residence (2025)
== Filmography ==
== Bibliography ==
Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person, November 2015. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1476777092. OCLC 1026348497.
=== Essays and reporting ===
"Scoop Dreams". Work for Hire. The New Yorker. Vol. 92, no. 32. October 10, 2016. p. 64.
== Awards and nominations ==
Winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama in 2006 for Grey's Anatomy, Rhimes won the International Emmy Founders Award and the Special Award at the British Academy Television Awards. She also received special honorees for her works at the Costume Designers Guild Awards, Directors Guild of America Award, ICG Publicists Awards, Writers Guild of America Award and Producers Guild of America Awards.
== References ==
== External links ==
Shonda Rhimes at IMDb
Shonda Rhimes at TED
"'Grey Matter' Writer's Blog" on ABC.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Evans_(journalist) | Trevor Evans (journalist) | Sir Trevor Maldwyn Evans (21 February 1902 – 10 June 1981) was a Welsh journalist and the industrial correspondent for The Daily Express. Born in Abertridwr, Glamorganshire, he started life as a miner and electrician but entered journalism after losing his job during the 1921 miner's strike.
== Biography ==
Evans was born in Abertridwr, Glamorgan on 21 February 1902. His father, Samuel Evans, was a police sergeant and his mother was Margaret Jones.
He attended Pontypridd Grammar School until he was fifteen, when his father was killed in an accident at a railway crossing. Instead of training to become a teacher, he started work as a miner at the local mine. In 1921, he started training as an electrician during a miners strike, and attended night school. Soon after, he started training as to become a teacher while working as a freelance reporter for Glamorgan Free Press.
Over the course of the following years, he worked multiple newspapers, Daily Dispatch in 1926, Daily Mail in 1928 and Daily Express in 1930. In the latter he became an editor. In 1930 he married Margaret Speers "Madge" Gribbin and they had two children together (Marilyn Butler and Richard Trevor Evans).
He remained with the Daily Express, joining their editorial team in London, and acting as their industrial correspondent. He attended industrial conferences, and was invited to stand for parliament, though he declined. He eventually became a director of Express Newspapers, and was appointed to the Press Council in 1964. He was appointed CBE in 1963 and knighted in 1967. Evans died suddenly on 10 June 1981.
== References ==
== External links ==
https://www.dailydrone.co.uk/a-hard-working-man-of-integ.html |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_Mana_series | Music of the Mana series | The Mana series, known in Japan as Seiken Densetsu (聖剣伝説; lit. "Holy Sword Legend"), is a role-playing video game series from Square Enix, created by Koichi Ishii. The series began as a handheld side story to Square's flagship franchise Final Fantasy, although most Final Fantasy-inspired elements were subsequently dropped, starting with the second installment, Secret of Mana. It has since grown to include games of various genres within the fictional world of Mana. The music of the Mana series includes soundtracks and arranged albums of music from the series, which is currently composed of Final Fantasy Adventure and its remake Sword of Mana, Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana, Legend of Mana, Dawn of Mana, Children of Mana, Friends of Mana, Heroes of Mana, Circle of Mana, and Rise of Mana. Each game except for Friends and Circle has produced a soundtrack album, while Adventure has sparked an arranged album as well as a combined soundtrack and arranged album, Legend of Mana has an additional promotional EP, and music from Secret and Trials were combined into an arranged album. For the series' 20th anniversary, a 20-disc box set of previously released albums was produced, as well as an album of arrangements by Kenji Ito, composer for several games in the series.
The music of Final Fantasy Adventure was composed by Kenji Ito, while Hiroki Kikuta composed Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana and Yoko Shimomura wrote the score to Legend of Mana. The music of the World of Mana subseries, composed of Children, Dawn, Friends, and Heroes of Mana, was composed by many different composers, with Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Ryuichi Sakamoto composing Dawn, Ito, Masaharu Iwata, and Takayuki Aihara writing Children, and Shimomura composing the music of Friends and Heroes. Rise of Mana was composed by an ensemble group including Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura, Sekito, Yasuhiro Yamanaka, and Kokia. Music from the series has been performed in live concerts such as the Orchestral Game Concerts and the Symphonic Game Music Concerts, and made up one fourth of the Symphonic Fantasies concert in Cologne, Germany. Music from the Mana series has also been arranged for the piano and published as sheet music books.
== Final Fantasy Adventure ==
Final Fantasy Adventure, released as Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden in Japan and Mystic Quest in Europe and marketed as a Final Fantasy spin-off, was composed by Kenji Ito; it was his second original score after that of SaGa 2 and his first solo work. The game was released in 1991 on the original Game Boy. It was remade in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance as Sword of Mana, wherein features of the original game were reworked to be brought more in line with the direction the Mana series had taken with the later games. It also severed the game from the Final Fantasy series. Ito was also the composer for the 2003 Sword of Mana, for which he remixed some pieces from Final Fantasy Adventure as well as composing new ones. Ito's music is mainly inspired by images from the game rather than outside influences, but he never played the games themselves. Final Fantasy Adventure received a soundtrack album and an arranged album, which were later released again as a single album. Sword of Mana also sparked a soundtrack album.
=== Original Sound Version ===
Seiken Densetsu Original Sound Version is a soundtrack album of music from Final Fantasy Adventure. It was composed by Kenji Ito, with the exception of "Theme of Chocobo", which was composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the Final Fantasy series. The album covers 27 tracks and has a duration of 34:40. It was published by NTT Publishing/Square on July 15, 1991, with the catalog number N23D-003.
The album was well received by critics such as Ryan Mattich of RPGFan, who termed it full of "quality compositions and timeless melodies" that created a "nostalgic listening experience". Another reviewer, in their review of the combined album, claimed that the sound hardware limitations of the Game Boy "forces composers to create strong melodies" and that the Final Fantasy Adventure soundtrack was "a perfect example of what quality Gameboy music should sound like".
=== Let Thoughts Ride on Knowledge ===
Seiken Densetsu: Let Thoughts Ride on Knowledge is a soundtrack album of music arranged from the Final Fantasy Adventure soundtrack. The original music was composed by Kenji Ito, while the versions on the album were arranged by Takayuki Hattori. The album covers 7 tracks and has a duration of 35:11. Each track covers several different songs from the original soundtrack. The pieces are arranged in an orchestral style, with moods ranging from "soft" to "powerful". It was published by NTT Publishing/Square on September 30, 1991, with the catalog number N30D-005.
The album was well received by critics such as Ryan Mattich of RPGFan, who called it "an album of epic ambition" and said that it let "these timeless melodies live on, freed from the shackles of sound hardware limitations". Kero Hazel of Square Enix Music Online agreed, saying that "those 35 minutes of arranged music are worth every penny" in their review of the combined album. Another reviewer of the combined album called the tracks a "combination of great compositions and excellent arranging" and said that the tracks "flow smoothly between each other" creating "a superb thirty-five minutes of music".
=== Sound Collections ===
Final Fantasy Gaiden: Seiken Densetsu Sound Collections is a soundtrack album of music from Final Fantasy Adventure combining its soundtrack album and arranged album. The music was composed by Kenji Ito, while the arranged tracks, which comprise the first seven tracks of this album, were arranged by Takayuki Hattori. The album covers 34 tracks and has a duration of 69:51. It was published by NTT Publishing on August 25, 1995, with the catalog number PSCN-5029, and republished on October 1, 2004, with the catalog number NTCP-5029.
The combined album was as well received as the individual albums that make it up, with RPGFan calling it "one fantastic CD" that combined the "superb" arranged tracks with the "expressive" original tracks. Kero Hazel said that the album was worth buying for either component CD alone, if one did not already have them, but that the combination together made it a "fantastic album" of "great music".
=== Sword of Mana ===
Sword of Mana Premium Soundtrack is a soundtrack album of music from Sword of Mana, the enhanced remake of Final Fantasy Adventure. It was composed by Kenji Ito, and included reworked tracks from the original game as well as new material. The second disc of the album contains piano arrangements of songs from the soundtrack, while a bonus disc included in the first edition of the album contains an orchestra arrangement of "Rising Sun ~ Endless Battlefield". The album covers 48 tracks and has a duration of 1:42:51, including the bonus disc. It was published by DigiCube on August 27, 2003, with the catalog numbers SSCX-10097~8, and republished by Square Enix on October 20, 2004, with the catalog numbers SQEX-10038~9.
The album reached #118 on the Japan Oricon charts. Patrick Gann of RPGFan enjoyed it, calling it a "truly a gem". Estimating that around twenty percent of the original tracks had received "significant changes", he applauded the increase in sound quality and said that he "enjoy[ed] the OST tracks a great deal". The addition of the piano tracks and the orchestral track made the album a "fine soundtrack" and he said that acquiring the soundtrack would be a "very, very good idea". RPGamer, in their review of the game, said that the arrangements by Ito were "quite pleasing to the ear", though they noted that the quality of the music was diminished by the "terrible speakers" of the Game Boy Advance.
Track list
== Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana ==
The scores for 1993's Secret of Mana, originally released as Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan, and 1995's Trials of Mana, originally released as Seiken Densetsu 3 in Japan, were both composed by Hiroki Kikuta. Kikuta was chosen for Secret of Mana after Kenji Ito, who was originally slated for the project, was unable to work on the sequel due to other demands, including the soundtrack to Romancing SaGa. At the time, Square typically had composers dedicated to one game throughout its development, and so Ito could not take on both projects at once. It was Kikuta's first video game score. Both games were produced for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Despite difficulties in dealing with the hardware limitations, Kikuta tried to express in the music of Secret of Mana two "contrasting styles", namely himself and the game. The purpose of this was to create an original score which would be neither pop music nor standard game music.
Kikuta worked on the music for the two games mostly by himself, spending nearly 24 hours a day in his office, alternating between composing and editing to create an immersive three-dimensional sound. Rather than create MIDI versions of his compositions and rely on the sound engineers to create the sampled instruments (like most game music composers of the time), Kikuta made his own samples that matched the hardware capabilities of the Super NES so that he would know exactly how the pieces would sound on the system's hardware instead of having to deal with audio hardware differences between the original composition and the limited palette of the Super NES. The first track he composed as "The Child of the Fairy Tribe". Kikuta considers the score for Secret of Mana his favorite creation. His compositions for Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana were partly inspired by natural landscapes, as well as music from Bali. In addition to the soundtrack albums for the two games, in 1995, Kikuta released an experimental album of arranged music from the two installments, titled Secret of Mana +, which features one 50-minute-long track. Kikuta said in 2024 that he made the arranged album as a response to the stress of dealing with the restrictions of creating the original soundtrack, by instead creating something unrestrained and free.
=== Secret of Mana ===
Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack is a soundtrack album of music from Secret of Mana, released as Seiken Densetsu 2 Original Sound Version in Japan; the releases are identical aside from the packaging and localized English song titles. Secret of Mana was one of the first soundtrack releases in North America for the North American version of a game. The soundtrack was composed by Hiroki Kikuta. The soundtrack's music covers both "ominous" and "light-hearted" tracks, and is noted for its use of bells and "dark, solemn pianos". The title track to the game, "Fear of the Heavens", was designed by Kikuta to sync up with the title screen as it slowly faded in due to hardware limitations; at the time trying to match the audio and visual effects in a game was rare. Kikuta also started the track off with a "whale noise", rather than a traditional "ping", in order to try to "more deeply connect" the player with the game from the moment it started up; getting the sound to work with the memory limitations of the Super NES system was a difficult technical challenge. The album covers 44 tracks and has a duration of 1:06:01. It was published by NTT Publishing/Square on August 6, 1993, with the catalog number N25D-019, and reprinted by NTT Publishing on August 25, 1995, and October 1, 2004, with the catalog numbers PSCN-5030 and NTCP-5030. A remastered version of the soundtrack, also titled Secret of Mana Original Soundtrack, was released by Square Enix on February 21, 2018, to correspond with the 3D remake of the game. The remastered album contains 53 tracks across 3 discs and has a duration of over 3 hours.
The album was well received by reviewers such as Eve C. of RPGFan, who called it "a beautifully composed CD" and said that it was one of the best soundtracks of any Super NES game. She said that the largest complaint with the album was the synthetic quality of the music necessitated by the Super NES's sound hardware, though she noted that the music pushed the limits of the system's hardware further than any other Super NES game. Jason Walton of RPGFan agreed, saying that "the music is composed extremely well, full of variety", though he did not like that the tracks were kept short instead of looping in order to fit all of the songs on one disc. Damian Thomas, in his review of the North American version of the album, also noted that the music was impressive for a Super NES game, and recommended the album as worth hunting for. Gamasutra, in an interview with Kikuta, described the music of Secret of Mana as leaving "a lasting impression on international audiences". IGN named the title track as the seventh best RPG title track in a 2006 feature, calling it "soft" and "magical", and saying that Kikuta "uses a mix of upbeat pipes and tinkering piano keys to bring the world of Mana to life". In a Reddit AMA, Kikuta said the track "Ceremony" is based on Indonesian gamelan music.
=== Trials of Mana ===
Seiken Densetsu 3 Original Sound Version is a soundtrack album of music from Trials of Mana. The soundtrack was composed by Hiroki Kikuta. Kikuta completed it primarily by himself, doing the sound selection, editing, effect design, and data encoding. He was assisted by a sound programmer, Hidenori Suzuki, which along with his experience from the previous game allowed him to compose over three times the amount of music he had created for Secret of Mana. Kikuta decided to take the music in a "different direction" than Secret of Mana's, as he did not think he could surpass it with the same concept, and tried to create a mix of multiple simultaneous instruments using the six sound channels of the Super NES. The music has been described as ranging from "bouncy" and "energetic" to "flowing" and "serene". The soundtrack features 60 tracks on 3 discs and spans a duration of 3:19:21. The album was published by NTT Publishing on August 25, 1995, with the catalog numbers PSCN-5026~8 and republished by Square Enix on October 1, 2004, with the catalog numbers NTCP-5026~8. The main theme from Secret of Mana, "Where Angels Fear to Tread", called "Fear of the Heavens" there, makes a return in this installment.
Freddie W. of RPGFan, in his review of the album, named it as "one of the high points of Hiroki Kikuta's work on the series". He described it as having a very cohesive "feel", and as being a "more refined and matured" version of the "feeling" of the Secret of Mana soundtrack. Square Enix Music Online's review agreed with the quality of the music, calling it "among the finest ever heard on the Super Nintendo". They also termed it "in many ways superior to the score of Seiken Densetsu 2", which they described as having been an "instant winner" due to the work of Kikuta.
Track list
=== Secret of Mana+ ===
Secret of Mana+ is an arranged album of music from Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana. The music was composed and arranged by Hiroki Kikuta. The album is composed of a single track titled "Secret of Mana" that has a duration of 49:28. This track incorporates themes from the music of Secret as well as a few themes from Trials, which was still under development at the time. The style of the album is described as "experimental", using "strange sounds" such as waterfalls, bird calls, cell phone sounds, and "typing" sounds. The music has also been described as covering many different musical styles, such as "Debussian impressionist styles, his own heavy electronic and synth ideas, and even ideas of popular musicians". It was published by NTT Publishing/Square on October 29, 1993, with the catalog number N30D-021, and reprinted by NTT Publishing on August 25, 1995, and October 1, 2004, with the catalog numbers PSCN-5031 and NTCP-5031.
Daniel Kalabakov, in his review for RPGFan, said that while popular opinion of the album was split between those who liked and extremely disliked the album, he personally "loved" it. He praised it for being an "unorthodox arrangement" and trying something new rather than being merely a piano or orchestral arranged album, the most common types. Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online had similar feelings about the album, praising the wide range of styles and sounds and calling it an "unparalleled achievement". Simon of Square Enix Music Online added that it was "refreshing to see there is no compromise" between Kikuta's artistic vision and more traditional commercial styles.
== Legend of Mana ==
Legend of Mana, released for the PlayStation in 1999, features music composed by Yoko Shimomura. She had previously composed for several Square games including Live A Live and Parasite Eve and had originally joined Square for the purpose of composing music for fantasy role-playing games. She was initially hesitant to compose for the Mana series, as she felt that it was so associated with the music of Ito and Kikuta. In 2002, Shimomura said that of all her compositions to date, she considered the soundtrack to Legend the one that best expresses herself. Shimomura claims that she prefers "passionate music that comes from the heart", and that she has to "feel the emotions of a piece in the extreme before I am able to write" the music by putting herself in the same mood as the piece is supposed to be in. Legend of Mana featured the first vocal track of any Mana game, "Song of Mana", which also serves as the game's opening theme. It was sung by Swedish vocalist and then-Rednex group member Annika Ljungberg, who was chosen by Shimomura because she "wanted to stay away from working with someone popular that everyone already knows". After hearing a sample of Annika's music, she flew to Sweden "straight away" to do an analog recording of the song. Four of the game's tracks were released as part of Drammatica: The Very Best Works of Yoko Shimomura, an arranged album highlighting the composer's work: "Legend of MANA ~Title Theme~", "Hometown Domina", "Colored Earth", and "Bejeweled City Ruined". Shimomura carefully chose the songs to be included on the album based on their apparent popularity among fans and how suitable they are for orchestra. In addition to the soundtrack album, a promotional album of music from Legend of Mana was produced and was included with preorders of the game in North America.
=== Original Soundtrack ===
Seiken Densetsu / Legend of Mana Original Soundtrack is a soundtrack album of music from Legend of Mana, composed by Yoko Shimomura. The soundtrack features 55 tracks on 2 discs and spans a duration of 2:10:37. It includes "Song of Mana", sung by Swedish vocalist Annika Ljungberg. The song was later made available on the Square Vocal Collection album in 2001. The music covers many styles including piano, hard rock, and techno. The soundtrack was published by DigiCube on July 23, 1999, with the catalog number SSCX-10034, and reprinted by Square Enix on October 20, 2004, with the catalog numbers SQEX-10036~7.
The album reached #65 on the Japan Oricon charts and stayed there for two weeks. Patrick Gann of RPGFan heavily praised it, and cited the "town" themes as Shimomura's weakest, but said that the more "emotional" pieces were much better. Gann also noted Ljungberg as an "amazing" vocalist. RPGamer's review of the album was also praising, calling the composition "excellent", the sound quality "superb", and that it kept the "atmosphere" of previous Mana game soundtracks.
Track list
=== Music Selection ===
Legend of Mana Music Selection is a promotional album of music from Legend of Mana included in preorders of the game in North America. The music was composed by Yoko Shimomura. The soundtrack features five tracks and spans a duration of 18:34. It was published by Square on June 1, 2000, with the catalog number 3TP-0012K.
=== Legend of Mana Arrangement Album: Promise ===
Square Enix has also made a Legend of Mana arrangement album named "Promise".
== World of Mana ==
In 2005, Square Enix announced plans for World of Mana, a new series of titles in the Mana franchise, whose titles would span more video game genres than the original series. Koichi Ishii, the creator of the Mana series, decided even before he worked on 2002's Final Fantasy XI about creating new Mana games, but first wanted to create a goal for the new series, and eventually decided to make it about exploring how to add "the feeling of touch" to a game. After he saw the game Half-Life 2 at E3 in 2003, he felt that its physics engine was the one he needed. World of Mana went on to comprise four new games in addition to the remake of Final Fantasy Adventure; Koichi Ishii served as director or producer for all of them as he had for the previous games in the series. In 2006, a Mana installment for the Wii was considered but did not enter development. In April 2007, a month after the release of the final game of the World of Mana, Ishii left Square Enix to lead his own development company, named Grezzo; no further games in the series have been announced since. Three of the new games of World of Mana sparked soundtrack releases, with each composed by a different artist or group of artists: Children of Mana, released in 2006 for the Nintendo DS, Dawn of Mana, released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2, and Heroes of Mana, released for the Nintendo DS in 2007. The music of Dawn of Mana also formed the basis of a promotional album included with preorders of the game in Japan, while the music of Yoko Shimomura for Seiken Densetsu: Friends of Mana, a 2006 multiplayer role-playing game for Japanese mobile phones never saw any album releases.
=== Children of Mana ===
Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana Original Soundtrack is a soundtrack album of music from Children of Mana, known as Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana in Japan. The soundtrack was composed by Kenji Ito, Masaharu Iwata, and Takayuki Aihara, and covers a range of musical styles including rock and roll, jazz, and classical orchestra. Ito served as the lead composer. The instruments themselves, however, due to the limitations of the Nintendo DS hardware, have been described as not being "especially aesthetic or realistic". The soundtrack features 33 tracks on 2 discs and spans a duration of 1:24:13. It was published by Square Enix on May 9, 2006, on the Japanese iTunes Store, but has not been released as a physical album.
Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online, in his review of the album, reacted positively to the score, calling it a "colourful, diverse, and rich experience overall". He called the tracks by Iwata and Aikara the "core" of the album, saying that the tracks by Ito felt "banal" and "formulaic" which he attributed to Ito being too overworked to focus on the album. RPGamer, in their review of the game, called the music "pretty nice". They noted that the music did not stand out as much as the visuals of the game, though they still "conveyed the theme", and that the "town" tracks were in their opinion weaker than the rest of the soundtrack.
Track list
=== Dawn of Mana ===
Seiken Densetsu 4 Original Soundtrack -Sanctuary- is a soundtrack album of music from Dawn of Mana, known as Seiken Densetsu 4 in Japan. The soundtrack was composed by Kenji Ito, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, Hiroki Kikuta, Yoko Shimomura, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, with many of the tracks composed by one artist arranged by another. The styles portrayed on the soundtrack cover "soft, heartwarming tunes", fast-paced "rock and roll style" tracks, and "dark and dramatic tunes", while the arranged songs that appear on the fourth disc of the soundtrack album are split between orchestral and rock and roll styles. The theme song to the game, "Dawn of Mana", was composed by Grammy-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, and was inspired by the image of the Mana tree shown at the title screen. The composition of the soundtrack was done under a great deal of time pressure; Soken has said that he composed 32 tracks in 52 days at a breakneck pace, and Sekito has said that Ito conducted the orchestral recordings while ill to make the deadline. The soundtrack features 106 tracks on 4 discs and spans a duration of 4:19:41. It was published by Square Enix on January 24, 2007, with the catalog numbers SQEX-10083~6.
Dennis Rubinshteyn of RPGFan was pleased by the soundtrack, saying that the music met his high expectations for what he called the "only redeeming quality left" to the series since Legend of Mana. Summing the album up as a "solid soundtrack with great songs and a lot of variety", he named Sekito's tracks as the least appealing on the soundtrack, causing some parts of the album as a whole to be "hit or miss". Bryan Matheny of Square Enix Music Online held the opposite opinion, calling Sekito's pieces what "made this work bearable" and saying that he "just can't get into this soundtrack", especially the first three discs, which were full of "boring and underdeveloped" tracks. Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online's review, however, was more in line with RPGFan's, wherein he praised the "diversity" and "glorious spectrum of emotion" found in the soundtrack. He cited the synthesizer operation as a weak point as well as the order of the tracks, and singled out Sekito's tracks as "forgettable" and "repetitive".
Track list
=== Breath of Mana ===
Breath of Mana is a promotional album of music from Dawn of Mana included with preorders of the game in Japan. Despite the many composers of the full soundtrack, the five songs on Breath were all composed and arranged by Kenji Ito. Three of the songs, "Breath of MANA", "Unforgotten Memories", and "Rising Sun (piano solo ver.)", did not appear on the full soundtrack album. The songs on the disc are "gentle melodies" using orchestra and piano. The five songs cover a duration of 13:41. The disc was published by Square Enix on December 21, 2006. A review of the album by Dennis Rubinshteyn of RPGFan called it a "good showcase" of the strengths of the full album, which were in his opinion the tracks by Ito. He felt that the tracks on the single were "superb", and said that it was a shame that two of the tracks were not found on the soundtrack album.
=== Heroes of Mana ===
Seiken Densetsu: Heroes of Mana Original Soundtrack is a soundtrack album of music from Heroes of Mana, known as Seiken Densetsu: Heroes of Mana in Japan. The soundtrack was composed by Yoko Shimomura. The musical style of the tracks is primarily orchestral, with the addition of a strong piano and drums that sometimes verge on a more tribal rhythm. The soundtrack features 49 tracks on 2 discs and spans a duration of 2:24:28. Three of the game's tracks were released as part of Drammatica: The Very Best Works of Yoko Shimomura, an arranged album highlighting the composer's work: "To the Heroes of Old ~Opening Theme from Heroes of Mana~", "The Way the Heart Is" (as "Tango Appassionata"), and "The Tale Told by the Wind ~Ending Theme from Heroes of Mana~". Shimomura carefully chose the songs to be included on the album based on their apparent popularity among fans and how suitable they are for orchestra. The Heroes of Mana soundtrack was published by Square Enix on April 18, 2007, with the catalog numbers SQEX-10095~6.
Denis Rubinshteyn, in his review of the album, said that while the game itself was poor, "the music is a treat". Calling the music "solid" and "enjoyable", he highlighted Shimomura's use of drums and variations on themes as particularly worthy of praise. Don Kotowski of Square Enix Music Online agreed, saying that Square Enix "made the right decision" in asking Shimomura to compose the soundtrack, as she was able to "capture the spirit of the Mana series extremely well". He singled out the "battle tracks and event themes" as the weakest tracks and "'The Tale Told by the Wind' and the final battle" as some of the best.
Track list
== 20th Anniversary ==
For the 20th anniversary of the Mana series in 2011, Square Enix released a number of albums. These included several arranged albums, as well as a box set of every soundtrack album from the series plus Let Thoughts Ride on Knowledge and Secret of Mana+. The twenty-disc set, entitled Seiken Densetsu Music Complete Book, was released on September 14. It includes music composed by Kenji Ito, Nobuo Uematsu, Hiroki Kikuta, Yoko Shimomura, Masaharu Iwata, Takayuki Aihara, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Masayoshi Soken, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The album has a total length of 19:35:19.
=== Re:Birth ===
As a part of the anniversary celebration, Square Enix released an album of arrangements of music from the series, Re:Birth/Seiken Densetsu Kenji Ito Arrange Album. The album features ten arrangements by Kenji Ito of music he composed for Final Fantasy Adventure, Sword of Mana, Children of Mana, and Dawn of Mana. Six tracks are from the original game, two from Dawn, and one each from the other two games. The album was published by Square Enix on October 19, with a duration of 45:06. The arrangements cover a wide variety of genres, from vocal and chamber music to techno and dubstep. The album was originally planned to be followed soon after by two more similar albums, one each from Hiroki Kikuta and Yoko Shimamura, but those albums were never released.
Patrick Gann of RPGFan felt that the album's tracks were "hit-or-miss", containing some stellar arrangements mixed in with lackluster ones. He recommended it to any collector of Mana music. Jayson Napolitano of Original Sound Version was more complimentary towards the album, enjoying many of the tracks that Gann did not, though he too was not as impressed by the Dawn of Mana arrangements.
== Rise of Mana ==
In 2014, Square Enix released Rise of Mana, a free-to-play action role-playing game for iOS and Android. The music of Rise of Mana was composed by a group of different composers: the majority of the music was handled by Tsuyoshi Sekito. In addition to Sekito, the soundtrack was also contributed to by three previous Mana composers: Kenji Ito (Final Fantasy Adventure, Children of Mana, Dawn of Mana), Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana) and Yoko Shimomura (Legend of Mana, Heroes of Mana). Also joining the team was sound engineer Yasuhiro Yamanaka. In all, 21 out of the 28 composed pieces were done by Sekito. Ito, Kikuta, Shimomura and Yamanaka each contributed one track. The soundtrack featured an arrangement for piano of "Rising Sun", the series' main theme. Yamanaka acted as sound director, while poro@lier created the piano arrangements for both "Rising Sun" and the game's theme song.
The game's theme song, "Believe in the Spirit", was composed, written and sung by Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia. Prior to coming on board, she had little knowledge of the Mana series. As with her previous compositions for video games, Kokia tried to get a feel for the game's atmosphere before starting, either through playing the game directly or looking at behind-the-scenes material related to the game's world. With "Believe in the Spirit", she worked to create a song that would appeal to both players and the production team. The track was performed using strings, a tin whistle, an acoustic guitar and percussion. The arrangement was done by Mina Kubota.
Seiken Densetsu: Rise of Mana Original Soundtrack was released on April 23, 2014, through Square Enix's music label. Andrew Barker of RPGFan was cautiously positive about the album: he described "Believe in the Spirit" as being "hit-or-miss" for different listeners while evoking memories of earlier Mana games. The rest of the soundtrack was generally praised: the first half's restful melodies were the stand-out tracks and said to be the strongest, while the later upbeat tracks were praised for their various energizing qualities. Some tracks, such as "The Drip Drip Drip of Memory", being fairly weak and forgettable. Barker generally compared the music to that of Final Fantasy XII, recommending it for fans of the latter and finishing that the album was generally good despite some unmemorable pieces. Chris Greening of Video Game Music Online gave the album a 2.5-star rating: he was most positive about the tracks from the guest composers like Ito and Shimomura. While he praised Sekito for moving away from his traditional musical style, he felt that the result was fairly mixed, with some tracks lacking the proper emotional drive and others "falling flat". "Believe in the Spirit" was praised for avoiding J-pop elements and sticking with its Celtic style, being favorably compared to the theme songs of Xenogears. Overall, Green felt that, while it had good production value and was substantially better than other mobile game soundtracks, but lacked the emotional impact of previous Mana titles in the majority of its tracks. Many reviewers of the game also praised the soundtrack.
== Legacy ==
The track "Fear of the Heavens" from Secret of Mana was performed by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra for the third Orchestral Game Concert in 1993, while "Meridian Child" from Trials of Mana was performed for the fifth Orchestral Game Concert in 1996. "Fear of the Heavens" was also performed at the fifth Symphonic Game Music Concert in 2007 in Leipzig, Germany. Legend of Mana's title theme was also performed by the Australian Eminence Symphony Orchestra for its classical gaming music concert A Night in Fantasia 2007. Kenji Ito, along with other players, performed "Fool's Dance" from Dawn of Mana at the Extra: Hyper Game Music Event 2007 concert in Tokyo on July 7. Sinfonia Drammatica, an August 4, 2009 concert performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Stockholm, Sweden, featured several Mana songs as part of a combination of Yoko Shimomura's album Drammatica and the previous Stockholm Symphonic Shades concert. These tracks, all from Drammatica, were "Colored Earth", "Sparkling City", "Title Theme", and "Hometown Domina" from Legends of Mana; none of the Heroes of Mana tracks on the album were played at the concert.
Music from the series made up one-fourth of the music in the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in Cologne and Oberhausen in September 2009 which were produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series and conducted by Arnie Roth. The concerts featured a suite comprising Secret of Mana songs "Fear of the Heavens", "Flight into the Unknown", "Eternal Recurrence", "Premonition", "The Sorcerer", and "Rose and Spirit", as well as a boss battle encore suite which included "Meridian Festival". The Eminence Symphony Orchestra played a concert in Tokyo on February 6, 2011 as part of the Game Music Laboratory concert series as a tribute to the music of Kenji Ito and Hiroki Kikuta. The concert included "Bodorui", "Mana Temple", and "Rising Sun" from Final Fantasy Adventure; "Kind Memories", "Crisis", and "Meridian Dance" from Secret of Mana; and "Meridian Child" from Trials of Mana. The Final Fantasy Adventure pieces were played on the piano by Ito. A concert composed of music from the Re:Birth album and the Re:Birth II SaGa series album was performed in Tokyo on May 9, 2015, and in Osaka on May 10. The concert was produced by Ito, and featured him on piano.
Music from the original soundtracks of the Mana games has been arranged for the piano and published by DOREMI Music Publishing. Books are available for the soundtracks to Dawn of Mana, Legend of Mana, and Sword of Mana. Two companion books have also been published as Seiken Densetsu Best Collection Piano Solo Sheet Music first and second editions, with the first edition covering tracks from Final Fantasy Adventure, Secret of Mana, and Trials of Mana, while the second adds tracks from Legend of Mana and Dawn of Mana. All songs in each book have been rewritten by Asako Niwa as beginning to intermediate level piano solos, though they are meant to sound as much like the originals as possible. Additionally, KMP Music Publishing has published a book of the piano album included in the Sword of Mana soundtrack album, which was arranged by Kenji Ito.
== See also ==
Music of the Final Fantasy series
== References ==
== External links ==
Official World of Mana website (archived) (in Japanese) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram#:~:text=On%20December%206%2C%202016%2C%20Instagram,likes%20in%20their%20notification%20inbox. | Instagram | Instagram is an American photo and short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users' content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. It supports 33 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Korean.
Instagram was originally distinguished by allowing content to be framed only in a square (1:1) aspect ratio of 640 pixels to match the display width of the iPhone at the time. In 2015, this restriction was eased with an increase to 1080 pixels. It also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature—similar to its main competitor, Snapchat, which allowed users to post their content to a sequential feed, with each post accessible to others for 24 hours. As of January 2019, Stories was used by 500 million people daily.
The Burbn Beta app was made available for iOS on October 6, 2010, by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger — still as a prototype, but for the first time available as a real app on the App Store rather than a web-based prototype. The app received around 25,000 registrations that day, though it remained a public beta. Six days later, on October 12, 2010, the final stable non-beta version was officially released under a new name — Instagram. This renaming gave an even bigger response, it rapidly gained popularity, reaching 1 million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion in June 2018. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, an app for Windows 10 in October 2016, and an app for iPadOS in September 2025. Although often admired for its success and influence, Instagram has also been criticized for negatively affecting teens' mental health, its policy and interface changes, its alleged censorship, and illegal and inappropriate content uploaded by users.
== History ==
Instagram began development in San Francisco as Burbn, a mobile check-in app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. On March 5, 2010, Systrom closed a $500,000 (equivalent to $700,000 in 2024) seed funding round with Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working on Burbn. Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare, they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users. They renamed it Instagram, a portmanteau of instant camera and telegram.
=== 2010–2011: Beginnings and major funding ===
Josh Riedel joined the company in October as Community Manager, Shayne Sweeney joined in November as an engineer, and Jessica Zollman joined as a Community Evangelist in August 2011.
On October 21, 2009, the first web-based prototype of Burbn was released online, although it was basic and non-functional, it featured a registration waiting list. The first Burbn post was a photo of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38, posted by Mike Krieger at 5:26 p.m. on July 16, 2010. On October 6, 2010, the Burbn Beta iOS app was made available through the App Store, though this was still just a prototype only. The final stable non-beta version was officially released 6 days later, on October 12, 2010 with a new name, Instagram. In February 2011, it was reported that Instagram had raised $7 million (equivalent to $9,601,662 in 2024) in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D'Angelo. The deal valued Instagram at around $20 million. In April 2012, Instagram raised $50 million (equivalent to $67,320,000 in 2024) from venture capitalists with a valuation of $500 million (equivalent to $673,200,000 in 2024). Joshua Kushner was the second largest investor in Instagram's Series B fundraising round, leading his investment firm, Thrive Capital, to double its money after the sale to Facebook.
=== 2012–2014: Additional platforms and acquisition by Facebook ===
On April 3, 2012, Instagram released a version of its app for Android phones, and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day. The Android app has since received two significant updates: first, in March 2014, which cut the file size of the app by half and added performance improvements; then in April 2017, to add an offline mode that allows users to view and interact with content without an Internet connection. At the time of the announcement, it was reported that 80% of Instagram's 600 million users were located outside the U.S., and while the aforementioned functionality was live at its announcement, Instagram also announced its intention to make more features available offline, and that they were "exploring an iOS version". On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) bought Instagram for $1 billion (equivalent to $1,346,000,000 in 2024) in cash and stock, with a plan to keep the company independently managed. Britain's Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012, and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed. On September 6, 2012, the deal between Instagram and Facebook officially closed with a purchase price of $300 million in cash and 23 million shares of stock.
The deal closed just before Facebook's scheduled initial public offering according to CNN. The deal price was compared to the $35 million Yahoo! paid for Flickr in 2005. Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently". According to Wired, the deal netted Systrom $400 million.
In November 2012, Instagram launched website profiles, allowing anyone to see user feeds from a web browser with limited functionality, as well as a selection of badges, and web widget buttons to link to profiles. Since the app's launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging. In March 2014, Instagram started to test and switch the technology to use Facebook Places.
=== 2015–2017: Redesign and Windows app ===
In June 2015, the desktop website user interface was redesigned to become more flat and minimalistic, but with more screen space for each photo and to resemble the layout of Instagram's mobile website. Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match the mobile layout. The slideshow banner on the top of profile pages, which simultaneously slide-showed seven picture tiles of pictures posted by the user, alternating at different times in a random order, has been removed. In addition, the formerly angular profile pictures became circular.
In April 2016, Instagram released a Windows 10 Mobile app, after years of demand from Microsoft and the public to release an app for the platform. The platform previously had a beta version of Instagram, first released on November 21, 2013, for Windows Phone 8. The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages. Similarly, an app for Windows 10 personal computers and tablets was released in October 2016. In May, Instagram updated its mobile website to allow users to upload photos, and to add a "lightweight" version of the Explore tab.
On May 11, 2016, Instagram revamped its design, adding a black-and-white flat design theme for the app's user interface, and a less skeuomorphistic, more abstract, "modern" and colorful icon. Rumors of a redesign first started circulating in April, when The Verge received a screenshot from a tipster, but at the time, an Instagram spokesperson simply told the publication that it was only a concept. On December 6, 2016, Instagram introduced comment liking. However, unlike post likes, the user who posted a comment does not receive notifications about comment likes in their notification inbox. Uploaders can optionally decide to deactivate comments on a post.
The mobile website allows uploading pictures since May 4, 2017. Image filters and the ability to upload videos were not introduced then. On April 30, 2019, the Windows 10 Mobile app was discontinued, though the mobile website remains available as a progressive web application (PWA) with limited functionality. The app remains available on Windows 10 computers and tablets, also updated to a PWA in 2020.
=== 2018–2019: IGTV, removal of the like counter, management changes ===
To comply with the GDPR regulations regarding data portability, Instagram introduced the ability for users to download an archive of their user data in April 2018. IGTV launched on June 20, 2018, as a standalone video application. The application was shut down and removed from app stores in March 2022, citing low usage and a shift to short-form video content. On September 24, 2018, Krieger and Systrom announced in a statement they would be stepping down from Instagram. On October 1, 2018, it was announced that Adam Mosseri would be the new head of Instagram.
During Facebook F8, it was announced that Instagram would, beginning in Canada, pilot the removal of publicly displayed "like" counts for content posted by other users. Like counts would only be visible to the user who originally posted the content. Mosseri stated that this was intended to have users "worry a little bit less about how many likes they're getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people that they care about." It has been argued that low numbers of likes in relativity to others could contribute to a lower self-esteem in users. The pilot began in May 2019, and was extended to 6 other markets in July. The pilot was expanded worldwide in November 2019. Also in July 2019, Instagram announced that it would implement new features designed to reduce harassment and negative comments on the service.
In August 2019, Instagram also began to pilot the removal of the "Following" tab from the app, which had allowed users to view a feed of the likes and comments made by users they follow. The change was made official in October, with head of product Vishal Shah stating that the feature was underused and that some users were "surprised" when they realized their activity was being surfaced in this manner. Instagram later restricted the ability to view public profiles without logging in, prompting users to sign in after viewing a limited number of posts. Following the change, after viewing a number of posts a pop-up requires the user to log in to continue viewing content.
In the same month, Instagram launched a separate app known as Threads. Similar to Snapchat, the app allowed users to communicate through messaging and video chats. It was integrated with Instagram's "Close friends" feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram's photo editing system embedded into the app. However, Instagram discontinued this version of Threads in December 2021, mainly due to most of its features being rolled out on Instagram itself, as well as low usage compared to other social media applications. Threads was not well-received among Instagram's user base. Since its launch, only approximately 220,000 users globally downloaded the app, which represented less than 0.1% of Instagram's monthly active users, indicating a lack of success in driving adoption.
=== 2020–present ===
In March 2020, Instagram launched a new feature called "Co-Watching". The new feature allows users to share posts with each other over video calls. According to Instagram, they pushed forward the launch of Co-Watching in order to meet the demand for virtually connecting with friends and family due to social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In August 2020, Instagram began a pivot to video, introducing a new feature called "Reels". The intent was to compete with the video-sharing site TikTok. Instagram also added suggested posts in August 2020. After scrolling through posts from the past 48 hours, Instagram displays posts related to their interests from accounts they do not follow. In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok. The same month, they also began testing the removal of ability to share feed posts to stories. In March 2021, Instagram launched a new feature in which four people can go live at once. Instagram also announced that adults would not be allowed to message teens who don't follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies.
In May 2021, Instagram began allowing users in some regions to add pronouns to their profile page. On October 4, 2021, Meta services suffered their worst outage since 2008, bringing down Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Security experts identified the problem as possibly being DNS-related. On March 17, 2022, Zuckerberg confirmed plans to add non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the platform.
In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see "recent" posts from various hashtags. This change became permanent and system wide a year later, and now hashtags can only be used to see a selection of curated content from "top" users. These changes are ostensibly an attempt to hinder the spread of misinformation, while Instagram has also repeatedly stated that hashtags do not help posts get views.
In September 2022, Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors. After being trialled in mid-2022, Instagram introduced Notes in December 2022. This feature allows users to share updates as short text posts of up to 60 characters with certain people, who can then reply to them using messaging on Instagram.
In February 2023, Instagram introduced a new feature allowing users to browse and post GIFs in their comments. Also in February 2023, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue "verified" badges on Instagram and Facebook.
On July 5, 2023, Meta launched Threads, a social network platform connected to Instagram that allows users to make public shortform blog posts comprising text, photos, and videos, as well as to converse with other users and reblog other users' posts. Threads aims to compete with Twitter. In December 2023, Instagram launched a podcast titled "Close Friends Only" featuring conversations among celebrities. The first episode featured rappers Ice Spice and Doja Cat. Subsequent episodes in June and August 2024 featured Reneé Rapp, Rachel Sennott, Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla.
In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools "within weeks" to fight sextortion, a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online. On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. In December 2024, Instagram and MTA collaborated and sold Metrocards ft. creators such as New York Nico, Overheard In New York, and SubwayTakes.
On September 3, 2025, Instagram launched a native iPadOS app, which before relied on the iOS app and did not utilize the larger screen size of tablets.
== Features and tools ==
Users can upload photographs and short videos, follow other users' feeds, and geotag images with the name of a location. Users can set their account as "private", thereby requiring that they approve any new follower requests. Users can connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites, enabling them to share uploaded photos to those sites. In September 2011, a new version of the app included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high-resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon. Photos were initially restricted to a square, 1:1 aspect ratio; since August 2015, the app supports portrait and widescreen aspect ratios as well. Users could formerly view a map of a user's geotagged photos. The feature was removed in September 2016, citing low usage.
Since December 2016, posts can be "saved" into a private area of the app. The feature was updated in April 2017 to let users organize saved posts into named collections. Users can also "archive" their posts in a private storage area, out of visibility for the public and other users. The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don't garner a desired number of "likes" or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the "emergent behavior" of deleting photos, which deprives the service of content. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies.
Since February 2017, up to ten pictures or videos can be included in a single post, with the content appearing as a swipeable carousel. The feature originally limited photos to the square format, but received an update in August to enable portrait and landscape photos instead. In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called "focus mode", which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. In November, Instagram began to support Alt text to add descriptions of photos for the visually impaired. They are either generated automatically using object recognition (using existing Facebook technology) or manually specified by the uploader.
On March 1, 2021, Instagram launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content.
=== Hashtags ===
In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users.
Users on Instagram have created "trends" through hashtags. The trends deemed the most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on. Examples of popular trends include #SelfieSunday, in which users post a photo of their faces on Sundays; #MotivationMonday, in which users post motivational photos on Mondays; #TransformationTuesday, in which users post photos highlighting differences from the past to the present; #WomanCrushWednesday, in which users post photos of women they have a romantic interest in or view favorably, as well as its #ManCrushMonday counterpart centered on men; and #ThrowbackThursday, in which users post a photo from their past, highlighting a particular moment.
In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds. The ability to search "Recent" hashtags was temporarily disabled during the 2020 U.S. elections, to prevent the spread of misinformation. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. Now, users are only able to see a curated selection of "popular" posts using a given hashtag. Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers.
=== Explore ===
In June 2012, Instagram introduced "Explore", a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. In April 2016, Instagram added a "Videos You Might Like" channel to the tab, followed by an "Events" channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October. The tab was later expanded again in November 2016 after Instagram Live launched to display an algorithmically curated page of the "best" Instagram Live videos currently airing. In May 2017, Instagram once again updated the Explore tab to promote public Stories content from nearby places.
=== Photographic filters ===
Instagram offers a number of photographic filters that users can apply to their images. In February 2012, Instagram added a "Lux" filter, an effect that "lightens shadows, darkens highlights and increases contrast". In December 2014, Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Aden, and Perpetua were five new filters added to the Instagram filter family.
=== Video ===
Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook's attempt at competing with the then-popular video-sharing application Vine. In August 2015, Instagram added support for widescreen videos. In March 2016, Instagram increased the 15-second video limit to one minute. Albums were introduced in February 2017, which allow up to 10 minutes of video to be shared in one post.
==== IGTV ====
IGTV was a vertical video application launched by Instagram in June 2018. Basic functionality is also available within the Instagram app and website. IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to one hour in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB. The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video. In March 2022, the application was shut down.
==== Edits ====
Edits is a video editing application only available on Android and iOS. The app includes some AI features and the ability to post directly to Instagram or Facebook. Users can also view statistics on their videos and see other user's videos that are trending in the Inspiration tab. Announced in January 19, 2025 (as a response to the U.S. government's actions against TikTok and CapCut), which was available for pre-order on the iOS App Store and set for an Android launch in February 2025, and had an initial release date of March 13, 2025, for iOS, after some delays, officially released for both iPhone and Android devices on April 21, 2025.
=== Instagram Reels ===
Instagram Reels is the short-form section of the American social media platform Instagram. Reels focuses on vertical videos that are less than 90 seconds of duration and various features for user interaction. As of November 2024, Reels averages at 150 billion views a day. Creators earn money based on the amount of views they receive, or through ad revenue.
In November 2019, it was announced that Instagram would start to roll out a new feature to Brazil known as Instagram Reels. It would then expand to France and Germany. Instagram Reels was officially launched in Pakistan in August 2022, two years after its global rollout in August 2020. It functions similarly to the Chinese video service TikTok, focusing on allowing users to create short videos already set to existing sounds from other clips. Users could make up to 15 (later 30) second videos using this feature. Reels also uses existing Instagram filters and editing tools.
In July 2020, Instagram rolled out Reels to India after TikTok was banned in the country. Then, the following month, Reels officially launched in 50 countries including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Then in August of that year, Instagram introduced a reels button on the home page. On June 17, 2021, Instagram launched full-screen advertisements in Reels. The ads are similar to regular reels and can run up to 30 seconds. They are distinguished from regular content by the "sponsored" tag under the account name. Despite the "TikTokification" of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. Then Instagram started rolling out a new feature with made Reels up to 90 seconds long beginning in June 2022. After a period of testing, a duration of up to three minutes was announced in January 2025.
In a study published in 2021, researcher Devadas Menon explored the various factors influencing Instagram Reels usage behaviours. This study identified seven motivations behind Reels usage; socially rewarding self-promotion, entertainment, escape, surveillance, novelty, documentation, and trendiness. The research findings suggested that user motivations and socio-psychological predictors influence people's usage behaviours with Instagram Reels. The study observed that narcissist users exhibits higher usage behaviours with Instagram Reels; socially rewarding self-promotion and entertainment motivations predicted Reels creation and participation; escapist users exhibited higher consumption and participation behaviour, and entertainment seekers created more videos and actively participated Reels. Confirming 'lurking', this study found that those who use Reels for peeking neither created any content nor participated, instead they were only keen on watching others content.
On February 26, 2025, Instagram Reels came under fire after numerous users reported a sudden surge in violent and graphic content appearing in their feeds. Meta issued a public apology, stating that a technical error led to the unintended recommendation of such content. A Meta spokesperson explained, "We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake."
Since its inception in 2020, the usage of Instagram Reels has continuously increased. In September 2022, Instagram Reels generated over 140 billion views daily. The number of monthly users also increased from 1.5 billion in 2022 to 1.8 billion as of 2024. Researchers from the Guizhou University of Finance and Economics and Western Michigan University found that short-form videos like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels may make it easier for young adults and children to develop addictive behavior because short-form videos provide "short bursts of thrills". These researchers found that college students in the U.S. and China watch short-form videos for entertainment, knowledge, and to build social identities.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some parents are concerned about the effects of short-form videos on their children, as there is no way to disable Instagram or set limits. When children watch short-form videos, they learn to expect continual stimulation and fast-paced changes, which can cause problems when engaging in activities that require greater focus, such as reading. Recent studies highlighted the connection between short-form videos such as Instagram Reels and the brain's reward system, specifically dopamine release. According to Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and chief of Stanford University's dual diagnosis addiction clinic, brief attention-grabbing videos act as powerful stimuli triggering dopamine surges akin to other addictive behaviors. The rapid and easily consumable nature of short-form videos can elicit high levels of dopamine; since dopamine serves as a motivator rather than a direct source of pleasure, individuals are compelled to seek rewarding activities and become addicted to them. Such neurochemical responses lead to addictive patterns and behaviors, entering a vicious cycle. Digital addiction can lead to shorter attention spans and slower cognitive processing.
=== Instagram Direct ===
In December 2013, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a feature that lets users interact through private messaging (colloquially called "DM" OR "DMs"; in some regions, the messages may be known simply as "direct"/"directs"). Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place. When users receive a private message from someone they don't follow, the message is marked as pending and the user must accept to see it. Users can send a photo to a maximum of 15 people. The feature received a major update in September 2015, adding conversation threading and making it possible for users to share locations, hashtag pages, and profiles through private messages directly from the news feed. Additionally, users can now reply to private messages with text, emoji or by clicking on a heart icon. A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation. A new update in November 2016 let users make their private messages "disappear" after being viewed by the recipient, with the sender receiving a notification if the recipient takes a screenshot.
In April 2017, Instagram redesigned Direct to combine all private messages, both permanent and ephemeral, into the same message threads. In May, Instagram made it possible to send website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping.
In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using WebSocket technology. In August 2020, Facebook started merging Instagram Direct into Facebook Messenger. After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon.
In March 2021, a feature was added that prevents adults from messaging users under 18 who do not follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In August 2023, Instagram introduced new adjustments to protect user privacy and prevent harassment and spam. Users can now only receive one direct message from accounts that they do not follow, and must approve the message request before further messages can be sent. This setting can be changed to allow unlimited messages from other accounts that the user does not follow.
In September 2024, Instagram added a sticker editor which allows users to cut out elements of photos and send them privately. It also enabled sticker addition and writing on photos.
=== Instagram Stories ===
In August 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to their Instagram story. Images uploaded to a user's story expire after 24 hours. The media noted the feature's similarities to Snapchat. In response to criticism that it copied functionality from Snapchat, CEO Kevin Systrom told Recode that "Day One: Instagram was a combination of Hipstamatic, Twitter [and] some stuff from Facebook like the 'Like' button. You can trace the roots of every feature anyone has in their app, somewhere in the history of technology". Although Systrom acknowledged the criticism as "fair", Recode wrote that "he likened the two social apps' common features to the auto industry: Multiple car companies can coexist, with enough differences among them that they serve different consumer audiences". Systrom further stated that "When we adopted [Stories], we decided that one of the really annoying things about the format is that it just kept going and you couldn't pause it to look at something, you couldn't rewind. We did all that, we implemented that." He also told the publication that Snapchat "didn't have filters, originally. They adopted filters because Instagram had filters and a lot of others were trying to adopt filters as well."
In November, Instagram added live video functionality to Instagram Stories, allowing users to broadcast themselves live, with the video disappearing immediately after ending. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories.
In April 2017, Instagram Stories incorporated augmented reality stickers, a "clone" of Snapchat's functionality.
In May 2017, Instagram expanded the augmented reality sticker feature to support face filters, letting users add specific visual features onto their faces. Later in May, TechCrunch reported about tests of a Location Stories feature in Instagram Stories, where public Stories content at a certain location are compiled and displayed on a business, landmark or place's Instagram page. A few days later, Instagram announced "Story Search", in which users can search for geographic locations or hashtags and the app displays relevant public Stories content featuring the search term.
In June 2017, Instagram revised its live-video functionality to allow users to add their live broadcast to their story for availability in the next 24 hours, or discard the broadcast immediately. In July, Instagram started allowing users to respond to Stories content by sending photos and videos, complete with Instagram effects such as filters, stickers, and hashtags. Stories were made available for viewing on Instagram's mobile and desktop websites in late August 2017.
On December 5, 2017, Instagram introduced "Story Highlights", also known as "Permanent Stories", which are similar to Instagram Stories, but don't expire. They appear as circles below the profile picture and biography and are accessible from the desktop website as well. In June 2018, the daily active story users of Instagram had reached 400 million users, and monthly active users had reached 1 billion active users.
In December 2024, Instagram announced that it was trialing a feature designed to help users reconnect with content they may have missed from their mutual followers. This new functionality showcases unseen Story Highlights at the end of the Stories tray, which is situated at the top of the feed. By doing so, users can easily access curated Stories from the past week that they might not have seen previously. Importantly, this feature will only display Story Highlights—curated collections of Stories saved by users—rather than standard Stories that disappear after 24 hours. Users will only be able to view these Highlights after they have gone through all current Stories in their tray, meaning that those who follow many accounts may find it challenging to see these updates.
=== Interface redesign tests (2025) ===
In September 2025, Instagram began testing a Reels-first user interface in India and South Korea. The redesign displays the Reels page as the default home tab, with Stories remaining at the top and the direct messages (DM) button moved to the center of the navigation bar. The Reels tab now occupies the second position in the navigation, while a new Following tab sits alongside it, offering three feed options: "All" (recommended posts and Reels from followed accounts), "Friends" (content from mutual connections), and "Latest" (the newest posts and Reels). Meta stated that the test would initially reach a limited number of users, with plans for a global rollout depending on feedback.
=== Verified badges on Instagram ===
Instagram introduced a verification feature, known as the blue verified badge, in December 2014. The feature allows users to verify their accounts to confirm their authenticity.
Instagram began allowing users to request verification for their accounts in August 2018. This marked a significant shift from the previous system where verification was typically initiated by Instagram itself for accounts it deemed to be of public interest or high-profile. With the introduction of this feature, eligible users could apply for verification directly through the Instagram app.
The Instagram blue verified badge is a symbol displayed next to an account's name to signify that the account is authentic, credible, and belongs to a public figure, celebrity, brand, or entity of significant public interest. It helps users easily identify legitimate accounts amidst the vast number of profiles on the platform. The badge appears as a blue checkmark located next to the account's username in search results, profile pages, and comments.
Obtaining the blue verified badge typically requires meeting certain criteria set by Instagram, such as being notable, authentic, unique, complete, and adhering to the platform's terms of service and community guidelines. Instagram verifies accounts based on its own discretion, and not all accounts meeting the criteria may be verified. Users can apply for verification through Instagram's settings, but the decision to grant verification ultimately rests with Instagram's team.
Meta (formerly Facebook) launched paid verification on Instagram in 2021. Paid verification allowed eligible Instagram users to request verification for their accounts via paying a fee, rather than relying solely on meeting the platform's traditional criteria for verification.
=== Advertising ===
Emily White joined Instagram as Director of Business Operations in April 2013. She said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September 2013 that the company should be ready to begin selling advertising by September 2014 as a way to generate business from a popular entity that had not yet created profit for its parent company. White left Instagram in December 2013 to join Snapchat. In August 2014, James Quarles became Instagram's Global Head of Business and Brand Development, tasked with overseeing advertisement, sales efforts, and developing new "monetization products", according to a spokesperson.
In October 2013, Instagram announced that video and image ads would soon appear in feeds for users in the United States, with the first image advertisements displaying on November 1, 2013. Video ads followed nearly a year later on October 30, 2014. In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn. In March 2015, Instagram announced it would implement "carousel ads", allowing advertisers to display multiple images with options for linking to additional content. The company launched carousel image ads in October 2015, and video carousel ads in March 2016.
In February 2016, Instagram announced that it had 200,000 advertisers on the platform. This number increased to 500,000 by September 2016, and 1 million in March 2017. In May 2016, Instagram launched new tools for business accounts, including business profiles, analytics and the ability to promote posts as ads. To access the tools, businesses had to link a corresponding Facebook page. The new analytics page, known as Instagram Insights, allowed business accounts to view top posts, reach, impressions, engagement and demographic data. Insights rolled out first in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, and expanded to the rest of the world later in 2016.
In November 2018, Instagram added the ability for business accounts to add product links directing users to a purchase page or to save them to a "shopping list". In April 2019, Instagram added the option to "Checkout on Instagram", which allows merchants to sell products directly through the Instagram app. In March 2020, via a blog post, Instagram announced that they are making major moderation changes in order to decrease the flow of disinformation, hoaxes and fake news regarding COVID-19 on its platform, "We'll remove COVID-19 accounts from account recommendations, and we are working to remove some COVID-19 related content from Explore unless posted by a credible health organization. We will also start to downrank content in feed and Stories that has been rated false by third-party fact-checkers."
In June 2021, Instagram launched a native affiliate marketing tool creators can use to earn commissions based on sales. Commission-enabled posts are labeled "Eligible for Commission" on the user side to identify them as affiliate posts. Launch partners included Sephora, MAC, and Kopari.
=== Stand-alone apps ===
Instagram has developed and released three stand-alone apps with specialized functionality. In July 2014, it released Bolt, a messaging app where users click on a friend's profile photo to quickly send an image, with the content disappearing after being seen. It was followed by the release of Hyperlapse in August, an iOS-exclusive app that uses "clever algorithm processing" to create tracking shots and fast time-lapse videos. Microsoft launched a Hyperlapse app for Android and Windows in May 2015, but there has been no official Hyperlapse app from Instagram for either of these platforms to date. In October 2015, it released Boomerang, a video app that combines photos into short, one-second videos that play back-and-forth in a loop.
=== Third-party services ===
The popularity of Instagram has led to a variety of third-party services designed to integrate with it, including services for creating content to post on the service and generating content from Instagram photos (including physical print-outs), analytics, and alternative clients for platforms with insufficient or no official support from Instagram (such as in the past, iPads).
In November 2015, Instagram announced that effective June 1, 2016, it would end "feed" API access to its platform in order to "maintain control for the community and provide a clear roadmap for developers" and "set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences on the platform", including those oriented towards content creation, publishers, and advertisers. Additionally, third-party clients have been prohibited from using the text strings "insta" or "gram" in their name. It was reported that these changes were primarily intended to discourage third-party clients replicating the entire Instagram experience (due to increasing monetization of the service), and security reasons (such as preventing abuse by automated click farms, and the hijacking of accounts). In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Instagram began to impose further restrictions on its API in 2018.
Third-party services can be used for unlimited browsing of public Instagram profiles without having to create an account, as well as for anonymous browsing of someone else's Stories. Stories are more authentic than typical photos posted as posts because users know that in 24 hours their Stories will disappear if they don't add them as highlighted (however users can check who saw their Story for 48 hours after it was published). For this reason, they are very valuable for market research.
=== Fact-checking ===
On December 16, 2019, Facebook announced it would expand its fact-checking programs towards Instagram, by using third-party fact-checkers organizations false information is able to be identified, reviewed and labeled as false information. Content when rated as false or partly false is removed from the explore page and hashtag pages, additionally content rated as false or partly false are labeled as such. With the addition of Facebook fact-checking program came the use of image matching technology to find further instances of misinformation. If a piece of content is labeled false or partly false on Facebook or Instagram then duplicates of such content will also be labeled as false.
=== Algorithm and design changes ===
In April 2016, Instagram began rolling out a change to the order of photos visible in a user's timeline, shifting from a strictly chronological order to one determined by an algorithm. Instagram said the algorithm was designed so that users would see more of the photos by users that they liked, but there was significant negative feedback, with many users asking their followers to turn on post notifications in order to make sure they see updates. The company wrote a tweet to users upset at the prospect of the change, but did not back down, nor provide a way to change it back, which they reaffirmed in 2020. However, in December 2021, Adam Mosseri, in a Senate hearing on child safety issues, stated that the company is developing a version of the feed that would show user posts in chronological order. He later clarified the company would introduce two modes: a classic chronological feed and a version of it that would let users pick "favorite" users whose posts would be shown at the top in chronological order while other posts would be mixed in below.
Since 2017, Instagram has employed the ability to reduce the prominence of accounts ("shadowbanning") it believes may be generating non-genuine engagement and spam (including excessive use of unneeded hashtags), preventing posts from appearing in search results and in the app's Explore section. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Instagram wrote that "When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags". Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material.
Instagram caused the userbase to fall into outrage with the December 2018 update. They found an attempt to alter the flow of the feed from the traditional vertical scroll to emulate and piggy-back the popularity of their Instagram Stories with a horizontal scroll, by swiping left. Various backtracking statements were released explaining it as a bug, or as a test release that had been accidentally deployed to too large an audience.
In November 2020, Instagram replaced the activity feed tab with a new "Shop" tab, moving the activity feed to the top. The "new post" button was also relocated to the top and replaced with a Reels tab The company states that "the Shop tab gives you a better way to connect with brands and creators and discover products you love" and the Reels tab "makes it easier for you to discover short, fun videos from creators all over the world and people just like you." However, users have not responded well to the change, taking their complaints to Twitter and Reddit, and The New York Times has shunned Reels in particular, saying "Not only does Reels fail in every way as a TikTok clone, but it's confusing, frustrating and impossible to navigate".
Also in 2020, Instagram rolled out a feature titled "suggested posts", which adds posts from accounts Instagram thinks a user would like to such user's feed. The feature was met with controversy from The Verge, which reported that suggested posts would keep users glued to their feed, give Instagram more advertising space, and ultimately harm the mental health of users, while Instagram executive Julian Gutman rebutted, stating the feature was not intended to keep users glued to their screens. Suggested posts received more controversy after Fast Company stated that the feature would be impossible to turn off.
On June 23, 2021, Instagram announced a test change to the "suggested posts" feature. The company will put suggested posts ahead of posts from people who the user is following in the Instagram feed, citing positive reception as the reason for this change.
== Mental health ==
=== Internal data from Meta ===
In 2021, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) obtained and published internal research Meta had conducted. The leak included presentations seen by company executives, and the findings mentioned CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.
The slides presented findings from three qualitative studies. The first interviewed 15 monthly Californian instagram users with low body image and self esteem, aged 13-21. The second recruited 10 monthly users for a 5-day diary study, where they recorded their online habits. The third selected 7 users from the diary study for a 30-minute interview. No study was designed to be a randomized controlled trial or case-control, meaning they were incapable of drawing causal inferences. The WSJ reported that Instagram can worsen poor body image of young people, with girls particularly vulnerable. Instagram has had negative effects on the body image of one in three teenagers. Instagram makes 20% of the teens feel worse about themselves and 40% better about themselves. 70% of teen girls and 40% of teen boys experience negative social comparison. According to the research, Instagram has a higher impact on appearance comparison than TikTok or Snapchat. 13% of British and 6% of American teenager users with suicidal thoughts could trace them to Instagram use.
Instagram responded to the story, saying it "focused on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light." Meta defended not publishing its research, saying it was "kept confidential to promote frank and open dialogue and brainstorming internally." In the wake of the backlash, Meta announced it had "paused" development of Instagram Kids. The company stated it was looking into concerns raised by the regulators and parents.
=== Depression, anxiety and stress ===
Khodarahimi & Fathi 2017 found evidence users displayed higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms compared to non-users. However, Frison & Eggermont 2017 found that, among boys and girls, browsing could predict depressive symptoms; liking and posting seemed to have no effect. Their study showed presence of depressive symptoms in a user could positively predict they would post. The study showed viewing celebrity and peer pictures could make the moods of women negative. In a 2021 study, Mun & Kim pointed out users with a strong need for approval were more likely to falsely present themselves, which increased the likelihood of depression.
Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms. Multiple studies have found that increasing time spent on Instagram increases anxiety.
=== Body image ===
Users report higher body surveillance (habitual monitoring of one's shape and size), appearance-related pressure, eating-disorder-related-pathology and lower body satisfaction than non-users. Studies have shown users who take more selfies before making a post, and those who strategically present themselves by editing selfies, report higher levels of body surveillance and body dissatisfaction, and lower esteem overall. Tiggermann et al. showed facial satisfaction can decrease when one spends greater time editing selfies. Comments related to appearance on Instagram can lead to higher dissatisfaction with one's body.
=== Loneliness and social exclusion ===
Mackson et al. 2019 found users were less lonely than non-users and Instagram membership predicts lower self-reported loneliness. A 2021 study by Büttner & Rudertb showed that not being tagged in an Instagram photo triggers the feeling of social exclusion and ostracism, especially for those with higher needs to belong. However, Brailovskaia & Margraf 2018 found a significant positive relationship between Instagram membership and extraversion, life satisfaction, and social support. Their study showed only a marginally significant negative association between Instagram membership and self-conscientiousness. Fioravanti et al. 2020 showed that women who had to take a break from Instagram for seven days reported higher life satisfaction compared to women who continued their habitual use. No significant differences were observed for men. The relationship between Instagram use and the fear of missing out, or FOMO, has been confirmed in multiple studies. Research shows Instagram browsing predicts social comparison, which generates FOMO, which can lead to depression.
=== Eating disorders ===
A comparison of users with non-users showed boys with an account differ from boys without in terms of over-evaluation of their shape and weight, skipping meals, and levels of reported disordered eating cognitions. Girls with an account only differed from girls without in skipping meals; they also had a stricter exercise schedule, a pattern not found in boys. This suggests a possible negative effect of usage on body satisfaction and disordered eating for boys and girls. Appel et al. 2016 and Feltman et al. 2017 found a positive link between the intensity of Instagram use, body surveillance and disordered eating.
=== Suicide and self-harm ===
Picardo et al. 2020 examined the relationship between self-harm posts and actual self-harm offline and found such content had negative emotional effects on some users. The study reported evidence of online posts affecting offline behavior, but stopped short of claiming causality. Some benefits for those who engage with self-harm content have been suggested. Instagram has published resources to help users in need of support.
=== Sharenting risks ===
Sharenting is when parents post content, including images, about their children. Instagram is one of the main sites for sharenting. The hashtag #letthembelittle contains over 10 million images related to children on Instagram. Bare 2020 analysed 300 randomly selected images under the hashtag and found they tended to contain children's personal information, including name, age and location.
=== Addiction ===
Sanz-Blas et al. 2019 showed that users who feel they spend too much time on Instagram report higher levels of "addiction" to Instagram, which was related to higher levels of stress induced by the app. Foroughi et al. 2021 found that the desire for recognition and entertainment were predictors of students' addiction to Instagram. The study proved addiction to Instagram negatively affected academic performance. Gezgin & Mihci 2020 found frequent Instagram usage correlated with smartphone addiction.
== User characteristics and behavior ==
=== Users ===
After being released in October 2010, Instagram had one million registered users in December 2010. In June 2011, it announced that it had 5 million users, which increased to 10 million in September. This growth continued to 30 million users in April 2012, 80 million in July 2012, 100 million in February 2013, 130 million in June 2013, 150 million in September 2013, 300 million in December 2014, 400 million in September 2015, 500 million in June 2016, 600 million in December 2016, 700 million in April 2017, and 800 million in September 2017.
In June 2011, Instagram passed 100 million photos uploaded to the service. This grew to 150 million in August 2011, and by June 2023, there were over 50 billion photos uploaded to the service. In October 2016, Instagram Stories reached 100 million active users, two months after launch. This increased to 150 million in January 2017, 200 million in April, surpassing Snapchat's user growth, and 250 million active users in June 2017.
In April 2017, Instagram Direct had 375 million monthly users.
==== Demographics ====
As of 2014, Instagram's users are divided equally, with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners. While Instagram has a neutral gender-bias format, 68% of Instagram users are female and 32% are male. Instagram's geographical use is shown to favor urban areas, as 17% of U.S. adults who live in urban areas use Instagram, while only 11% of adults in suburban and rural areas do so. While Instagram may appear to be one of the most widely used sites for photo sharing, only 7% of daily photo uploads, among the top four photo-sharing platforms, come from Instagram. Instagram has been proven to attract the younger generation, with 90% of its 150 million users under the age of 35. From June 2012 to June 2013, Instagram approximately doubled their number of users. With regards to income, 15% of U.S. Internet users who make less than $30,000 per year use Instagram, while 14% of those making $30,000 to $50,000 and 12% of users who make more than $50,000 per year do so. With respect to the education demographic, respondents with some college education proved to be the most active on Instagram, with 23%. Following behind, college graduates consist of 18% and users with a high school diploma or less make up 15%. Among these Instagram users, 24% say they use the app several times a day.
=== User behavior ===
Ongoing research continues to explore how media content on the platform affects user engagement. Past research has found that media which show people's faces receive more 'likes' and comments and that using filters that increase warmth, exposure, and contrast also boosts engagement. Users are more likely to engage with images that depict fewer individuals compared to groups and they are also more likely to engage with content that has not been watermarked, as they view this content as less original and reliable compared to user-generated content. Recently Instagram has come up with an option for users to apply for a verified account badge; however, this does not guarantee every user who applies will get the verified blue tick.
The motives for using Instagram among young people are mainly to look at posts, particularly for the sake of social interactions and recreation. In contrast, the level of agreement expressed in creating Instagram posts was lower, which demonstrates that Instagram's emphasis on visual communication is widely accepted by young people in social communication.
=== Performative activism ===
In June 2020, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, Instagram became more widely used as a social justice platform. Instagram-based activism (as well as other social media) has been criticized and dismissed for being performative, reductionist, and overly focused on aesthetics.
== Censorship and restricted content ==
Like many social media sites, Instagram employs a combination of automated algorithms, user reports and human review to identify and remove illegal content such as child abuse and encouragement of terrorism. The system also aims to identify cyberbullying, hate speech and misinformation.
Although the U.S. government has little direct power to force social media sites to remove specific content, Instagram has on occasion done so voluntarily, especially to avoid being seen as aiding the spread of fake news. On October 30, 2020, Instagram temporarily removed the "recent" tab on hashtag pages to prevent the spread of misinformation regarding the 2020 United States presidential election. On January 7, 2021, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, Trump was banned from Instagram "indefinitely". Zuckerberg stated "We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great."
Instagram has been criticized in India for not taking steps to counter homophobic and transphobic contents. According to the LGBT activist Indrajeet Ghorpade, "Hateful homophobic content in English is removed but the same in Indian languages is allowed to remain on the platform... despite flagging the hateful and homophobic content to Instagram, no action has been taken." In 2023, a 16-year-old queer artist allegedly died by suicide after receiving thousands of hate comments on Instagram.
=== Illicit drugs ===
Instagram has been the subject of criticism due to users publishing images of drugs they are selling on the platform. In 2013, the BBC discovered that users, mostly located in the United States, were posting images of drugs they were selling, attaching specific hashtags, and then completing transactions via instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp. Corresponding hashtags have been blocked as part of the company's response and a spokesperson engaged with the BBC explained:
Instagram has a clear set of rules about what is and isn't allowed on the site. We encourage people who come across illegal or inappropriate content to report it to us using the built-in reporting tools next to every photo, video or comment, so we can take action. People can't buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos.
However, new incidents of illegal drug trade have occurred in the aftermath of the 2013 revelation, with Facebook, Inc., Instagram's parent company, asking users who come across such content to report the material, at which time a "dedicated team" reviews the information. In 2019, Facebook announced that influencers are no longer able to post any vape, tobacco products, and weapons promotions on Facebook and Instagram.
=== Women's bodies ===
In October 2013, Instagram deleted the account of Canadian photographer Petra Collins after she posted a photo of herself in which a very small area of pubic hair was visible above the top of her bikini bottom. Collins claimed that the account deletion was unfounded because it broke none of Instagram's terms and conditions. Audra Schroeder of The Daily Dot further wrote that "Instagram's terms of use state users can't post 'pornographic or sexually suggestive photos.'" You can indeed find more sexually suggestive photos on the site than Collins', where women show the side of "femininity" the world is "used to" seeing and accepting." Nick Drewe of The Daily Beast wrote a report the same month focusing on hashtags that users are unable to search for, including #sex, #bubblebutt, and #ballsack, despite allowing #faketits, #gunsforsale and #sexytimes, calling the discrepancy "nonsensical and inconsistent".
Similar incidents occurred in January 2015, when Instagram deleted Australian fashion agency Sticks and Stones Agency's account because of a photograph including pubic hair sticking out of bikini bottoms, and March 2015, when artist and poet Rupi Kaur's photos of menstrual blood on clothing were removed, prompting a rallying post on her Facebook and Tumblr accounts with the text "We will not be censored", gaining over 11,000 shares.
The incidents have led to a #FreetheNipple campaign, aimed at challenging Instagram's removal of photos displaying women's nipples. Although Instagram has not made many comments on the campaign, an October 2015 explanation from CEO Kevin Systrom highlighted Apple's content guidelines for apps published through its App Store, including Instagram, in which apps must designate the appropriate age ranking for users, with the app's current rating being 12+ years of age. However, this statement has also been called into question due to other apps with more explicit content allowed on the store, the lack of consequences for men exposing their bodies on Instagram, and for inconsistent treatment of what constitutes inappropriate exposure of the female body.
The Iranian government offered moderators bribes up to $9,000 to delete specific accounts, with Masih Alinejad being targeted in particular.
=== Criticisms and controversies ===
On January 2020, after the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the United States, Instagram removed posts expressing support for General Soleimani. Instagram stated that this action with U.S. sanctions against Iran. Officials described the move as " undemocratic".
on May 2021, in The eviction of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah, which became emblematic of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle over land rights, identity, and sovereignty in Jerusalem, Users, including journalists and human rights activists, reported that Instagram removed content, limited visibility (shadow banning), and restricted accounts referencing the potential eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem. Instagram denied intentional censorship and attributed the deletion of Palestinian posts to glitches. Digital rights groups such as 7amleh and Access Now argue that the removal of Palestinian content reflects broader issues of digital discrimination and have called for greater transparency from social media platforms.
On October 2023, Instagram labeled some users' profile bios as containing the term "terrorist" if they included the Palestinian flag emoji and the Arabic phrase "Alhamdulillah (Arabic: ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّٰهِ, al-Ḥamdu lillāh)," which means "Praise be to God." The platform's automated translation system incorrectly interpreted the phrase as "Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom." Instagram attributed the error to a computerized translation system, apologized, and corrected the translation.
=== Censorship by countries ===
Censorship has occurred in several countries.
==== China ====
Instagram has been blocked by China following the 2014 Hong Kong protests as many confrontations with police and incidents occurring during the protests were recorded and photographed. Hong Kong and Macau were not affected as they are part of special administrative regions of China. Sometimes the phrase "Chinese Instagram" is used to refer to Xiaohongshu, a competitor social media app which is not to be confused with Instagram.
==== Cuba ====
The Cuban government blocked access to several social media platforms, including Instagram, to curb the spread of information during the 2021 Cuban protests.
==== Iran ====
Instagram was one of the last freely available global social media sites in Iran. According to the IFJ, Instagram is popular among Iranians because it is seen as an outlet for freedom and a "window to the world".
Still, Iran has sentenced citizens to prison for posts made on their Instagram accounts. The Iranian government blocked Instagram periodically during anti-government protests in 2019-20. In July 2021, Instagram temporarily censored videos with the phrase "death to Khamenei".
As of September 2022, it was blocked permanently, along with WhatsApp, with an exception made for tourists and corporations who request its use.
==== North Korea ====
A few days after a fire incident that happened in the Koryo Hotel in North Korea on June 11, 2015, authorities blocked Instagram to prevent photos of the incident from being spread.
==== Russia ====
On March 11, 2022, Russia announced it would ban Instagram due to alleged "calls for violence against Russian troops" on the platform during the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On March 14, the ban took effect, with almost 80 million users losing access to Instagram. Instagram along with Facebook are labelled as extremist by Russian government, making it illegal to use with VPN if the law was passed in 17 July 2025 to criminalise searching and accessing to extremist materials even with VPN, with a fines from 3000 to 5000 rubles (€30 to €50) by the 1 September 2025.
==== Turkey ====
On August 2, 2024, Instagram was banned by Information and Communication Technologies Authority (Turkey) after the Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. The ban lasted for nine days and was lifted on August 10, 2024, with Instagram accepting the government's demands and agreeing to work with authorities.
==== United States ====
In the U.S., there is relatively little government regulation of social media content, with most content removal taking place on a voluntary basis by the companies. One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts "that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions".
Following the election of Donald Trump in 2025, various sources noted possible censorship related to the Democratic Party on Instagram and other Meta platforms.
== Reception ==
=== Awards ===
Instagram was the runner-up for "Best Mobile App" at the 2010 TechCrunch Crunchies in January 2011. In May 2011, Fast Company listed CEO Kevin Systrom at number 66 in "The 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2011". In June 2011, Inc. included co-founders Systrom and Krieger in its 2011 "30 Under 30" list.
Instagram won "Best Locally Made App" in the SF Weekly Web Awards in September 2011. 7x7Magazine's September 2011 issue featured Systrom and Krieger on the cover of their "The Hot 20 2011" issue. In December 2011, Apple Inc. named Instagram the "App of the Year" for 2011. In 2015, Instagram was named No. 1 by Mashable on its list of "The 100 best iPhone apps of all time", noting Instagram as "one of the most influential social networks in the world." Instagram was listed among Time's "50 Best Android Applications for 2013" list.
=== Mental health ===
In May 2017, a survey conducted by the United Kingdom's Royal Society for Public Health, featuring 1,479 people aged 14–24 and asking them to rate social media platforms depending on anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image, concluded that Instagram was the "worst for young mental health". Some have suggested it may contribute to digital dependence, whilst this same survey noticed its positive effects, including self-expression, self-identity, and community building. In response to the survey, Instagram said that "Keeping Instagram a safe and supportive place for young people was a top priority". The company filters out the reviews and accounts. If some of the accounts violate Instagram's community guidelines, it will take action, which could include banning them.
In 2017, researchers from Harvard University and University of Vermont demonstrated a machine learning tool that successfully outperformed general practitioners' diagnostic success rate for depression. The tool used color analysis, metadata components, and face detection of users' feeds. In 2019, Instagram began to test the hiding of like counts for posts made by its users, with the feature later made available to everyone. In 2021, Instagram announced that like counts would return to be publicly viewable by default. Users can choose to switch them off for their whole feed or on a per-post basis.
Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one's body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. In a recent survey, half of the applicants admitted to photo editing behavior which has been linked with concerns over body image. In October 2021, CNN published an article and interviews on two young women, Ashlee Thomas and Anastasia Vlasova, saying Instagram endangered their lives due to it having toxic effects on their diets.
In October, 2023, 42 U.S. states filed a lawsuit against Instagram and parent company Meta, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis due to the addictive nature of the platforms. The lawsuit claimed that Meta and its Instagram unit repeatedly misled the public about the dangers of its platforms and knowingly induced young children and teenagers into addictive and compulsive social media use. Meta representatives replied that they were disappointed with the lawsuit and were hoping instead to continue working with other companies from the industry to create new and better standards for applications teens use.
==== Negative comments ====
In response to abusive and negative comments on users' photos, Instagram has made efforts to give users more control over their posts and accompanying comments field. In July 2016, it announced that users would be able to turn off comments for their posts, as well as control the language used in comments by inputting words they consider offensive, which will ban applicable comments from showing up. After the July 2016 announcement, the ability to ban specific words began rolling out early August to celebrities, followed by regular users in September. In December, the company began rolling out the abilities for users to turn off the comments and, for private accounts, remove followers. In June 2017, Instagram announced that it would automatically attempt to filter offensive, harassing, and "spammy" comments by default. The system is built using a Facebook-developed deep learning algorithm known as DeepText (first implemented on the social network to detect spam comments), which utilizes natural-language processing techniques, and can also filter by user-specified keywords.
In September 2017, the company announced that public users would be able to limit who can comment on their content, such as only their followers or people they follow. At the same time, it updated its automated comment filter to support additional languages. In July 2019, the service announced that it would introduce a system to proactively detect problematic comments and encourage the user to reconsider their comment, as well as allowing users the ability to "restrict" others' abilities to communicate with them, citing that younger users felt the existing block system was too much of an escalation.
An April 2022 study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that Instagram failed to act on 90% of abusive direct messages (DMs) sent to five high-profile women, despite the DMs being reported to moderators. The participants of the study included actress Amber Heard, journalist Bryony Gordon, television presenter Rachel Riley, activist Jamie Klingler and magazine founder Sharan Dhaliwal. Instagram disputed many of the study's conclusions.
=== Culture ===
On August 9, 2012, English musician Ellie Goulding released a new music video for her song "Anything Could Happen". The video only contained fan-submitted Instagram photographs that used various filters to represent words or lyrics from the song, and over 1,200 different photographs were submitted.
=== Security ===
In August 2017, reports surfaced that a bug in Instagram's developer tools had allowed "one or more individuals" to gain access to the contact information, specifically email addresses and phone numbers, of several high-profile verified accounts, including its most followed user, Selena Gomez. The company said in a statement that it had "fixed the bug swiftly" and was running an investigation. However, the following month, more details emerged, with a group of hackers selling contact information online, with the affected number of accounts in the "millions" rather than the previously assumed limitation on verified accounts. Hours after the hack, a searchable database was posted online, charging $10 per search. The Daily Beast was provided with a sample of the affected accounts and could confirm that, while many of the email addresses could be found with a Google search in public sources, some did not return relevant Google search results and thus were from private sources. The Verge wrote that cybersecurity firm RepKnight had found contact information for multiple actors, musicians, and athletes, and singer Selena Gomez's account was used by the hackers to post naked photos of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. The company admitted that "we cannot determine which specific accounts may have been impacted", but believed that "it was a low percentage of Instagram accounts", though TechCrunch stated in its report that six million accounts were affected by the hack, and that "Instagram services more than 700 million accounts; six million is not a small number".
In 2019, Apple pulled an app which let users stalk people on Instagram by scraping accounts and collecting data. Iran has DPI blocking for Instagram.
In September 2024, Meta paid out a $101 million fine for storing up to 600 million passwords of Instagram and Facebook users in plain text. The practice was initially discovered in 2019, though reports indicate passwords were stored in plain text since 2012.
=== Content ownership ===
On December 17, 2012, Instagram announced a change to its Terms of Service policy, adding the following sentence:
To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.
There was no option for users to opt out of the changed Terms of Service without deleting their accounts before the new policy went into effect on January 16, 2013. The move garnered severe criticism from users, prompting Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom to write a blog post one day later, announcing that they would "remove" the offending language from the policy. Citing misinterpretations about its intention to "communicate that we'd like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram", Systrom also stated that it was "our mistake that this language is confusing" and that "it is not our intention to sell your photos". Furthermore, he wrote that they would work on "updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear".
The policy change and its backlash caused competing photo services to use the opportunity to "try to lure users away" by promoting their privacy-friendly services, and some services experienced substantial gains in momentum and user growth following the news. On December 20, Instagram announced that the advertising section of the policy would be reverted to its original October 2010 version. The Verge wrote about that policy as well, however, noting that the original policy gives the company right to "place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content", meaning that "Instagram has always had the right to use your photos in ads, almost any way it wants. We could have had the exact same freakout last week, or a year ago, or the day Instagram launched".
The policy update also introduced an arbitration clause, which remained even after the language pertaining to advertising and user content had been modified.
=== Facebook acquisition as a violation of U.S. antitrust law ===
Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu has given public talks claiming that Facebook's 2012 purchase of Instagram was a felony. On February 26, 2019, the New York Post released an article stating that the FTC had discovered a memo authored by a senior Facebook official, revealing that the purpose behind the acquisition of Instagram was to remove a potential rival. Wu explains this is a violation of US antitrust law (see monopoly). Wu stated that this document was an email directly from Mark Zuckerberg, whereas the Post article had stated that their source had declined to say whether the high-ranking executive was the CEO.
=== Algorithmic advertisement with a rape threat ===
In 2016, Olivia Solon, a reporter for The Guardian, posted a screenshot to her Instagram profile of an email she had received containing threats of rape and murder towards her. The photo post had received three likes and countless comments, and in September 2017, the company's algorithms turned the photo into an advertisement visible to Solon's sister. An Instagram spokesperson apologized and told The Guardian that "We are sorry this happened – it's not the experience we want someone to have. This notification post was surfaced as part of an effort to encourage engagement on Instagram. Posts are generally received by a small percentage of a person's Facebook friends." As noted by the technology media, the incident occurred at the same time parent company Facebook was under scrutiny for its algorithms and advertising campaigns being used for offensive and negative purposes.
=== Human exploitation ===
In May 2021, The Washington Post published a report detailing a "black market" of unlicensed employment agents luring migrant workers from Africa and Asia into indentured servitude as maids in Persian Gulf countries and using Instagram posts containing their personal information (including in some cases, passport numbers) to market them. Instagram deleted 200 accounts that had been reported by the Post, and a spokesperson stated that Instagram took this activity "extremely seriously", disabled 200 accounts found by the Post to be engaging in these activities, and was continuing to work on systems to automatically detect and disable accounts engaging in human exploitation.
=== July 2022 updates ===
In July 2022, Instagram announced a set of updates which immediately received widespread backlash from its userbase. The changes included a feed more focused on Instagram's content algorithms, full-screen photo and video posts, and changing the format of all of its videos to Reels. The primary criticisms for these updates was that Instagram was more like TikTok than photo sharing. The backlash originated from an Instagram post and Change.org petition created by photographer Tati Bruening (under the username @illumitati) on July 23, 2022, featuring the statement "Make Instagram Instagram again. (stop trying to be TikTok; i just want to see cute photos of my friends.) Sincerely, everyone.". The post and petition gained mainstream attention after influencers Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian reposted the Instagram post; subsequently, the original post gained over 2 million likes on Instagram and over 275,000 signatures on Change.org. Instagram walked back the update on July 28, with Meta saying "We recognize that changes to the app can be an adjustment, and while we believe that Instagram needs to evolve as the world changes, we want to take the time to make sure we get this right." Despite repeated attempts by Meta to shape Instagram to appear and operate more like TikTok, user engagement continued to lag far behind its rival as of 2022.
=== Propaganda usage ===
Instagram has been used for propaganda purposes by a variety of different countries for different reasons. The reasons can be for domestic promotion of certain goals or foreign policy objectives. During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Instagram was used for propaganda purposes.
== Statistics ==
The most-liked photo on Instagram is a carousel of photos from footballer Lionel Messi celebrating winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup, The post has over 76 million likes.
In 2022, Instagram was the second most downloaded mobile app of the year.
== In popular culture ==
Social Animals (documentary film): A 2018 documentary film about three teenagers growing up on Instagram
Instagram model: a term for models who gain their success as a result of the large number of followers they have on Instagram
Instapoetry is a style of poetry which formed by sharing images of short poems by poets on Instagram.
Instagram Pier: a cargo working area in Hong Kong that gained its nickname due to its popularity on Instagram
== System ==
Instagram is written in Python. Instagram artificial intelligence describes content for visually impaired people who use screen readers.
== See also ==
Criticism of Facebook
Dronestagram
Instagram face – Beauty standard based on digitally altered photographs
Instagram husband – Unacknowledged photographer behind another's social media posts
Internet celebrity – Person who has become famous through their use of the Internet
List of social networking services
Pheed – Pay-per-view social media platform
Pixnet – Taiwanese social media service
Social media and suicide – Social media's influence on suicide
Timeline of social media
== Explanatory notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Frier, Sarah (2020). No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2680-3.
== External links ==
Official website
Instagram on Instagram
Instagram on Facebook
Instagram on Threads
Instagram on Twitter
Rose, Kevin (May 30, 2013). "A #Nofilter Conversation with the founders of Instagram" (podcast). Commonwealth Club.
"Instagram: Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger" (podcast). How I Built This. NPR. September 19, 2016. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Adal%C4%B1 | Sibel Adalı | Sibel Adalı is a Turkish-American computer scientist who studies trust in social networks and uncertainty in decision-making. She is a professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the associate dean for research in the Rensselaer School of Science.
== Education and career ==
Adalı graduated in 1991 from Bilkent University, with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and information science. She went to the University of Maryland, College Park for her graduate studies in computer science, earning a master's degree in 1994 and completing her Ph.D. in 1996. Her dissertation, Query Processing in Heterogeneous Mediated Systems, was supervised by V. S. Subrahmanian.
She became a faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1996.
== Book ==
Adalı wrote the book Modeling Trust Context in Networks (Springer, 2013).
== Personal ==
Adalı maintains a website of Turkish poetry, with translations into many other languages.
She is the sister of electrical engineer Tülay Adalı.
== References ==
== External links ==
Home page
Sibel Adalı publications indexed by Google Scholar |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Super_14_season#Round_1 | 2007 Super 14 season | The 2007 Super 14 season started in February 2007 with preseason matches held from mid-January. It finished on 19 May with the final at Kings Park Stadium in Durban, in the first final between two South African teams in the history of Super Rugby. The visiting Bulls won the 2007 Super 14 Final, scoring a try in the 83rd minute and narrowly defeating the Sharks 20–19, thereby becoming the first South African side to win the Super Rugby title in the professional era.
Super 14 is a provincial rugby union competition with 14 teams from New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. This season is the second of the expansion, which led to the name change to the Super 14. The 2007 season saw an old team emerge with a new name, as the Cats changed their name to the Lions effective 8 September 2006.
There was also some confusion over the inclusion of the Southern Spears franchise, who were in the end not included. The season is also notable of the New Zealand sides resting several All Blacks players in the first half of the season. There were 94 matches held over the 3½ months, with each team playing one full round robin against the 13 other teams, 2 semi-finals and a final. Every team will get one bye over the 14 rounds.
== Player withdrawal ==
With the Rugby World Cup in September, all three countries would have some of their top players rested, to avoid injuries. All Blacks coach Graham Henry made clear his wish for up to 30 of New Zealand's best players to miss around half of the Super 14, with the five New Zealand franchises supporting him in May 2006. The mandatory stand-down period meant that the 30 players who toured at the end of 2006 would miss at least the first week of competition.
John Connolly, the Wallabies coach, was also interested in lightening the load for his top players. It was expected that the Australians would want to rest only a few players, especially veterans such as Stephen Larkham and George Gregan, as they are seen as key to Australia's World Cup chances. Springboks coach Jake White met the board of SA Rugby, the commercial arm of the South African Rugby Union, in Cape Town on 25 May 2006 to put forward his suggestion to rest key players between then and the World Cup at regular intervals. White was also keen to rest some players during the Boks' 2006 mid-year internationals against Scotland and France.
It was revealed in September 2006 that the All Blacks would rest 22 players, who would go into a "conditioning group" for the first 7 weeks of competition. The 22 players named were: Jerry Collins, Jason Eaton, Carl Hayman, Andrew Hore, Chris Jack, Richie McCaw, Chris Masoe, Keven Mealamu, Anton Oliver, Greg Somerville, Rodney So'oialo, Reuben Thorne, Ali Williams, Tony Woodcock, Dan Carter, Byron Kelleher, Leon MacDonald, Aaron Mauger, Mils Muliaina, Joe Rokocoko, Sitiveni Sivivatu and Piri Weepu. Seven of these players were from the Crusaders, six from the Hurricanes, four from the Blues, three from the Chiefs and two from the Highlanders. These players would be available for their franchises from Week 8. From these 22 players, Jason Eaton and Piri Weepu didn't make the final All Blacks squad for the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
After the NZRU announced the resting of 22 leading players, Pat Wilson, Australian High Performance Manager, revealed that leading Wallabies would only be rested for one match, which was to be chosen by their state's union. This decision has drawn criticism from former Wallabies coach and current Queensland Reds coach Eddie Jones, who said that while resting the older players could be beneficial, it is better for younger players, such as his own Rodney Blake, to receive game time.
The SARU decided against resting their top players for the 2007 Super 14 but conceded that it was likely that players would be rested for some games. It is expected that News Corp and the other SANZAR nations will request compensation from the New Zealand Rugby Union.
== Southern Spears saga ==
During the 2006 Super 14 season, SA Rugby announced that, contrary to the original plans, the Southern Spears would not replace the lowest ranked South African based side.
In August 2006, however, the Spears won a court case for inclusion into the 2007 season, which would be at the expense of the Cats, who changed their name to the Lions the following month. SA Rugby and the South African Rugby Union were expected to appeal the High Court of South Africa's decision. In November 2006, SA Rugby and the Spears reached a settlement. The financially troubled Spears abandoned the court case. They will still exist as an organisation to promote and develop rugby in the Southern and Eastern Cape region, with the support of SA Rugby and the SARU, but will now not be a part of Super Rugby in the foreseeable future. With the settlement, the season's Super 14 line-up was set, with the Lions taking up the final South African place.
== Table ==
== Results ==
The draw for the 2007 season was released on 2006-10-13. The season started 8 days earlier than the 2006 season, with the first match being between the Blues and the Crusaders at Auckland's Eden Park, the second time in the last two years the Blues had hosted the first match. In total, 94 matches were played, comprising 91 regular season matches, 2 semi-finals and the final. There were 29 Friday night match-ups and 61 Saturday matches. One match, the Brumbies-Waratahs regional derby in Week 10, was played on a Sunday night.
=== Round 1 ===
The 2007 Super 14 started in contrast to that of 2006. The game of the week was the Blues from Auckland beating the defending champions the Crusaders, which was the first loss to a New Zealand side that the Crusaders had suffered since May 2004 and was ironically the Blues' first win over a New Zealand team for two years. The other upset was 2006 Finalists the Hurricanes losing to last years 12th placed Queensland Reds.
=== Round 2 ===
Week two saw the New Zealand teams have a strong week with the Hurricanes, Crusaders, Blues notching wins. Western Force began to show vast improvement from 2006 winning only their second match since entering the competition in 2006. Apart from the Force all other Australian teams suffered a loss.
=== Round 3 ===
In week three a Super rugby record was broken, although not one to be proud of. The Reds and Brumbies played in the lowest scoring match ever, a dire affair that resulted in a Brumbies win 6–3. The 22 All Blacks missing from New Zealand teams started to have a visible effect on the kiwi sides with only the Hurricanes claiming a tight win over the Blues. Another relatively low scoring match saw even the last years powerhouse champions the Crusaders beaten by last years 13th placed Lions, it was the first match in six years the Crusaders hadn't scored a single try.
* Note: This match was the lowest-scoring in Super Rugby history at the time.
=== Round 4 ===
Week Four saw the Brumbies lose their second game by conceding a try in the final seconds to the Hurricanes (the first was to the Blues in Week Two). The Blues convincingly put away the Queensland Reds while the Force surrendered in the final seconds to the Lions leaving them yet to win a home game. The Bulls beat the Chiefs while the Crusaders began the show the form that they have displayed in past years by beating the Cheetahs 49–28.
=== Round 5 ===
Week 5 saw the Blues defeat the Highlanders, the Chiefs drew with the Cheetahs in the final moments of the game, the Hurricanes lost at | home to bottom placed Stormers and the Crusaders suffered their 3rd defeat of the season losing in the final minute because of a blunder by Rico Gear. The Brumbies also suffered a loss at | home to the Bulls whereas the controversial game of the round saw the Waratahs draw with the Western Force because of a blunder by Waratahs utility back Sam Norton-Knight who decide to run with the ball in the final minute instead of taking the penalty shot which could have won them the game and for his mistake Lote Tuqiri shoved him and walked off the pitch looking very disappointed.
=== Round 6 ===
Week 6 saw the Reds travel to the "House of Pain" to play the Highlanders. Recent signing Andrew Walker was rushed into the starting team, however the Reds lost 17–33. The next game saw the Brumbies looking to rectify a three-game losing streak at their home ground. They did so with a convincing 26–13 win against the Stormers. The Force were also looking to end a | home ground hoodoo against the Hurricanes. Seeking their first ever victory at Subiaco the Force looked to have squandered an 11–10 lead upon conceding a try with two minutes left to put the score at 17–11. However a try on the sideline and followed by an unlikely conversion by Force wing Cameron Shepherd gave the Force a maiden | home victory. The next day opened with the Blues thrashing an in-form Lions outfit 41–14. The game saw Doug Howlett score two tries and in doing so becoming the equal highest try scorer in Super Rugby history (with Joe Roff of the Brumbies). The Waratahs then played a | home game against the Bulls – who won 32–19 thanks to two tries apiece to Bryan Habana and Fourie du Preez.
Note: Doug Howlett became the joint top try scorer in Super Rugby with Joe Roff on 57 Tries
=== Round 7 ===
The Chiefs put on a convincing win against the Lions to start week seven. This was followed later that evening with the Force easily putting away the bottom of the table Reds in Perth. The Crusaders began to show their regular form with a win against the Bulls and the Waratahs season slumped to a new low with a home loss at the hands of the Stormers. The Cheetahs pulled off an unexpected win against the Brumbies and the undefeated Sharks continued their streak – beating the Hurricanes.
=== Round 8 ===
The Waratahs fell to another loss – being convincingly beaten by the Blues in Auckland. The Bulls were not worried about the "House of Pain" moniker of Carisbrook – instead they turned in on the Highlanders to win 22–13. The Crusaders continued their quick ascent up the ladder with a bonus-point win over the Stormers. Queensland slipped to another loss – albeit a close one – against the Chiefs. The Sharks suffered their first loss of the season as the Brumbies recording a big upset at ABSA Stadium. It was also the Brumbies first ever away win against the Sharks. The Lions continued the Hurricanes bad season with an easy win.
=== Round 9 ===
The Highlanders recorded a home win over the Cheetahs to open the round before the Force subjected the Sharks to their second loss in as many matches in Perth. The Hurricanes pulled off a win over the Bulls and the Blues put in a hard-fought win over the Chiefs. The Blues' Doug Howlett took sole possession of the all-| time try scoring lead in Super Rugby during the latter match. The Crusaders pulled away from the Waratahs early in the game before slacking off in the second half and seeing their lead evaporate to 34–28. The Waratahs scored a try late in the game to seemingly secure a win with the kick to come – but Peter Hewat missed a relatively easy kick to hand the Crusaders a 34–33 win. The Brumbies won a second game in South Africa – this time a close encounter against the Lions. A late Julian Huxley try securing a 14–9 win for the Canberra-based side.
=== Round 10 ===
The Blues easily put away the Cheetahs in the sole Good Friday game. The next day saw the Chiefs beat the Highlanders before a startling mountain backdrop in Queenstown. The Crusaders annihilated the Force 53–0. It was the largest score ever conceded by the Force and the largest losing margin – but for the Crusaders it didn't come close to their 96–19 win against the Waratahs in 2002. The Sharks continued the high scoring – putting 57 points on the Reds in Brisbane for a big win. The Stormers upset the Lions 30–8 in Cape Town. In the sole Easter Sunday clash the Waratahs failed to resurrect their season against the Brumbies – going down 36–10 in the interstate grudge match between the rivals. The win put the Brumbies into the top four for the first time in 2007.
=== Round 11 ===
This week saw the Hurricanes take on the Cheetahs and Hosea Gear became the Hurricanes' hero after scoring a 90-metre try in the final moments of the game. It was also the team's fourth try of the game which gave them a bonus point on top of the win. The following day, the Chiefs thrashed the Western Force 64–36, a game which saw a total of 14 tries being scored, nine of which were scored by the Chiefs, with Roy Kinikinilau and Brendon Leonard each getting hat-tricks. The Crusaders then defeated the Highlanders to climb to the top of the table. The Blues lost to the Sharks at home, going down by 7 points, and the Waratahs won only their second game this season, defeating the Reds, who sit at the bottom of the table. In the last match of the week, the Bulls thrashed the Stormers 49–12.
=== Round 12 ===
The Crusaders defeated the Hurricanes in a thrilling encounter which saw Jerry Collins being stretchered off after injuring his neck in a tackle on Rua Tipoki. The Brumbies defeated the Western Force in an all-Australian derby by just two points and the Reds won their second game of the season defeating the Cheetahs. Ben Tune (who is leaving the club after the season) scored the winning try in that match, but the match of the round saw the Chiefs defeat the Sharks to put themselves in contention for a semi-final spot. The Waratahs lost to the Highlanders by a point after Peter Hewat missed another conversion, and in a South African derby, the Bulls thrashed the Lions 31–7. Finally, the Blues lost their away match to the Stormers, but they remain second in the table nonetheless.
=== Round 13 ===
With the semi-final week just around the corner, Week 13 saw some close matches including the opener between the Highlanders and the Hurricanes at the cake tin. The score was 22 – 16 to the Hurricanes at 80 minutes but a final minute try to Toby Morland in the corner turned things around. Nick Evans needed to get the kick over to win the game but was unsuccessful allowing the Hurricanes to win the game lucky to not have the same situation when the Hurricanes lost to the Force in week 6. The force continued their up and down season by comfortably beating the cheetahs. The Waratahs narrowly lost going down to the chiefs. The Brumbies pulled an upset win over the Crusaders to keep their semi final hopes alive. The Sharks dominated the lions to make sure they would at least get a home semi final. The Blues lost their third game in a row going down to the Bulls which slimmed the chances of the Blues securing a semi final spot and helped the Bulls secure a semi final spot. The last game of the week saw the stormers easily put away the Reds.
=== Round 14 ===
This was an exciting week for the two South African contenders the Bulls and the Sharks, both with possibilities of a home semi final. The action-packed weekend started with an upset, the in-form Chiefs beating the Crusaders 30–24 at Lancaster Park. This result gave the Sharks the opportunity to take the top spot if they won in Cape Town. The Blues smashed the Western Force 33–6 to keep their title dreams alive. Later, the Brumbies kept their semi final hopes alive by defeating the tired and weary Highlanders 29–10. Waratahs defeated the Hurricanes away in Wellington 38–14. Cheetahs gave the Lions the South African wooden spoon by beating them 16–10. The first main game of the day was the Stormers vs the Sharks. The Sharks played an efficient and professional game whilst the Stormers played their usual erratic hot and cold game that had seen them beat some good teams during the season, but in the end the Sharks easily claimed a 36–10 victory to be the first South African side to finish at the top of the table at the end of the round-robin stage in the Super 14 competition's history. The last game of the weekend promised to be a huge one for the Bulls, who were chasing a semi final spot. They came up against a feeble Reds team, who after going ahead 3–0 in the beginning, had no idea of the onslaught they were going to receive. The Bulls, who needed a bonus-point win to reach the semifinals, easily achieved this goal a quarter of the way into the "match". Early in the second half they reached the 45-point margin needed to push them up to third place. Then the impossible became possible. If the Bulls went 72 points clear of the Reds, they would leapfrog to second, giving them a home semifinal in the high-altitude cauldron of noise that is Loftus Versfeld. They seemed to reach this goal with little effort against a humiliated Reds side, setting a new Super Rugby record for winning margin of 89 points.
== Finals ==
=== Semi finals ===
=== Grand final ===
The match had four tries – two by each team, and the last of which was scored by Bulls' wing Bryan Habana in the 82nd minute to give his team the trophy. It was the first Super rugby final to be played in South Africa, as well as the first all South African final, and the first final with a South African winner.
Man of the Match:Victor Matfield (Bulls)
Assistant referees:Lyndon Bray (New Zealand)Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)
Television match official:Kelvin Deaker (New Zealand)
Assessor: Tappe Henning (South Africa)
== Player statistics ==
=== Leading try scorers ===
=== Leading point scorers ===
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Thrill_2 | Top Thrill 2 | Top Thrill 2 is a launched roller coaster located at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. The ride originally opened as Top Thrill Dragster in 2003, becoming the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, as well as the first ever strata coaster. The original was an Accelerator Coaster model from Intamin designed by Werner Stengel, featuring a height of 420 feet (130 m) and a drop distance of 400 feet (120 m). It could accelerate from 0 to 120 mph (190 km/h) in 3.8 seconds and was themed to Top Fuel drag racing, with a launch track designed to resemble a dragstrip. Although its height and speed records were surpassed by Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in 2005, the ride consistently ranked as one of the world's top steel coasters.
Following a serious incident on August 15, 2021, in which a guest was struck by a metal object that detached from the ride while they were standing in line, Top Thrill Dragster was indefinitely closed by Cedar Point pending an investigation and assessment of the ride's future. In 2023, the park announced that Italian ride manufacturer Zamperla would be redesigning the roller coaster. The updated version, renamed Top Thrill 2, features a second 420-foot (130 m) vertical spike tower and replaces the original hydraulic launch system designed by Intamin with a linear synchronous motor (LSM) launch system. Although the LSM launch generates less instantaneous power than the original hydraulic system, it uses a triple-launch sequence—forward, backward, and forward again—to accelerate the train to its original top speed of 120 mph (190 km/h).
The coaster reemerged as Top Thrill 2 on May 4, 2024, featuring a new, longer ride experience. However, its inaugural season was cut short after only a week of operation due to issues with the trains, which required modifications. The ride reopened for the 2025 season and reclaimed the title of tallest roller coaster in the world following the permanent closure of Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure.
== History ==
According to Rob Decker, Vice President of Planning and Design, the park began working on a new project shortly after the debut of Millennium Force in 2000. The goal, as he stated to Intamin, "was to set another world record, and our parameters were the tallest, fastest roller coaster". After considering modern propulsion methods used on coasters at the time, Intamin ultimately decided to design a new hydraulic launch system that would provide the most cost effective solution in a small footprint.
=== Construction ===
After the 2001 season ended, one of the park's Dodgem rides, which was located across from Magnum XL-200's entrance, was relocated to Michigan's Adventure to clear the way for the new ride. In April 2002, work began on the concrete foundation. The concrete footings were kept hidden behind a fence when the park opened for the 2002 season. In August, an informal announcement from Cedar Point confirmed the park was building a new ride for the 2003 season. Track pieces identified as Intamin were previously spotted near Mean Streak. Vertical construction by Martin & Vleminckx began in the fall season, months before the formal announcement. By October, the roller coaster had reached 200 feet (61 m) in height, and the highest peak was topped off in December. The construction of the record-breaking top hat element, which stands 420 feet tall (130 m), required the use of two cranes that could extend up to 480 feet (150 m) in height. At the time, only four such cranes existed in the US.
An official announcement revealing details on the new ride was made the following month on January 9, 2003. Officials for the park stated the goal was to build "the tallest and fastest roller coaster on earth", reaching 420 feet (130 m) in height and accelerating up to 120 mph (190 km/h) in 4 seconds. Its height also classified it as the world's first strata coaster, which is any full-circuit roller coaster with a height or drop between 400 to 499 feet (122 to 152 m). The large investment tied it with Millennium Force as being the most expensive in park history. The structure was built by Intamin's subcontractor Stakotra. In March, Cedar Fair registered a trademark for the name "Top Thrill Dragster".
=== Operation as Top Thrill Dragster (2003-2021) ===
Top Thrill Dragster's media day was held on May 1, 2003, and it officially opened to the public three days later. It became the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world, surpassing Superman: The Escape at Six Flags Magic Mountain in height, which had opened in 1997, and surpassing Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland in speed, which had opened in 2001. It lost both records to Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in May 2005. Intamin designed both Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster, and the two shared a similar design and layout that differed primarily by theme and an additional hill featured on Kingda Ka. Shortly after it opened, a faulty valve on the hydraulic system caused a short-term closure. The ride continued to experience a variety of issues dealing with its hydraulic system and launch cable, which frequently led to downtime early on in its tenure.
During the 2017 season's opening weekend, Cedar Point temporarily renamed the ride "Top Thrill Cubster", referencing a lost wager with Six Flags Great America over the World Series. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, timed boarding passes called "Access Passes" were used temporarily to comply with social distancing guidelines.
==== Closure ====
On August 15, 2021, a guest waiting in line to ride Top Thrill Dragster was struck in the head by a small metal piece that dislodged from a train, resulting in a severe injury that was described as a "serious accident". The ride remained closed the following two seasons pending an investigation by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) and a redesign of the roller coaster, described as a "new and reimagined ride experience".
At the time of its closure, Top Thrill Dragster had accommodated 18 million riders over 19 seasons. An update was released on social media in September 2022 stating, "Top Thrill Dragster, as you know it, is being retired." Officials provided limited details but confirmed that the roller coaster would reopen as a "new and reimagined ride experience". A portion of the roller coaster's track near the station was dismantled in late 2022. In January 2023, the park released the tagline "A New Formula For Thrills" on social media to describe the planned modifications.
=== Reemergence as Top Thrill 2 ===
There was speculation that Top Thrill Dragster's hydraulic launch system would be replaced. In August 2023, the speculation was confirmed after Cedar Point announced plans to transform Top Thrill Dragster into a triple-launched roller coaster using a linear synchronous motor (LSM) launch system, hiring Zamperla to redesign the ride. Although Zamperla was not a well-known name among major coaster manufacturers, they had experience working on large projects previously, had been growing their coaster division for most of a decade, and their 2019 "Lightning Train" model was well-equipped for the task. Adam Sandy, Zamperla's Director of Roller Coaster Sales and Marketing, noted that the switch to LSM would increase reliability and allow for lighter trains, which in turn would be manufactured with larger wheels to reduce cool down time and overall maintenance. Tony Clark, director of communications at Cedar Point, stated that the goal of the transformation was to "enhance the experience, make it more reliable".
The modified coaster was set to reopen as Top Thrill 2. Zamperla reused the existing 420-foot (130 m) top hat element and added an equally-sized vertical spike at the opposite end of the track. While the maximum height and speed remained the same, the track length increased from 2,800 to 3,422 feet (853 to 1,043 m). The vertical spike was topped out during construction in early December 2023, and testing began in early 2024.
Cedar Point held a soft opening media day event on April 25, 2024. The ride officially opened on May 4, 2024. A short time later on May 12, Cedar Point closed Top Thrill 2 unexpectedly, describing it as an "extended closure" while Zamperla worked to make mechanical modifications to the coaster trains.
The ride remained closed indefinitely through months of speculation and sporadic testing. On August 23, 2024, the park announced that Top Thrill 2 would not reopen for the remainder of the season, but that work would continue with the goal of reopening the ride in 2025. The issue with the trains was fixed in the offseason, and Top Thrill 2 reopened with the park for the 2025 season. It also reopened as the tallest roller coaster in the world following the closure of Kingda Ka in late 2024, although Falcons Flight will capture the title when it opens later in 2025.
== Ride experience ==
=== Layout ===
==== As Top Thrill Dragster (2003-2021) ====
After leaving the station, the train entered the launch area. To the left of the launch area was a "Christmas tree" light, similar to those employed at the starting line of a drag strip. A brief message was played to the riders before the launch: "Keep arms down, head back, and hold on." Once the train was prepared to launch, a motor revving sound effect was played and its magnetic braking fins were lowered from the launch track. It then launched, accelerating to a speed of 120 mph (190 km/h) in 3.8 seconds. Shortly after reaching its maximum velocity, the catch car disengaged, and the train began its ascent up a 90-degree incline, twisting 90 degrees clockwise before climbing over the 420-foot (130 m) top hat. Upon descending, the track twisted 270 degrees before leveling out, allowing the train to be stopped by the magnetic brakes.
==== As Top Thrill 2 ====
After leaving the station, the train passes through a switch and makes an S-turn to the right to join the launch track. To the left of the launch area is a modified version of the original "Christmas tree" light. As soon as the switch changes positions behind the train, the train is launched forward towards the original top hat at 74 mph (119 km/h), rolling backward partway up the tower. Reaching the launch track again, the train is launched in reverse at 101 mph (163 km/h), past the station, and up a 420-foot (130 m) vertical spike in reverse, crossing over Iron Dragon in the process. Rolling forward onto the launch track once again, the station roof creates a headchopper effect and the train is accelerated to 120 mph (190 km/h) to crest the top hat. After descending the 270 degree spiral drop, the train hits the brake run, while the switch track is reset to allow another train to launch.
=== Station, theme, and trains ===
==== As Top Thrill Dragster (2003-2021) ====
The roller coaster was themed to Top Fuel drag racing, a category of motor racing that involved the world's fastest accelerating cars. An actual Top Fuel dragster weighs approximately one ton, while each train on the coaster weighed 15 tons. Originally, the design called for five cars on each train, but when the ride first opened, there were only four. A fifth car was added to each by midseason.
Each dragster-themed train was also decorated with a spoiler, a set of tires, and an engine at the rear of each train, but these were removed after the fifth car was added to allow an extra row of seats to take their place.
The track was mostly painted red, with the launch and approach to the tower having white stripes alternating with red sections. The supports were white on the launch and brake area and yellow on the tower.
==== As Top Thrill 2 ====
As Top Thrill 2, the top fuel theming was dropped in favor of a more general racing theme, similar to that of Formula One. The ride area, as well as the trains, are decorated with a stylized logo of "CP Racing." The redesigned ride runs three 5-car trains supplied by Zamperla, holding 20 people per train. The trains are of Zamperla's Lightning model, which is notable for using a milled aluminum chassis and carbon fiber bodywork. For safety, riders can not bring loose items onto the ride, and metal detectors are installed at the beginning of the queue.
As part of the refurbishment, the ride was repainted to have white track and dark grey supports, with the highest points on both the spike and top hat towers being accented with red sections alternating with white sections.
=== Rollbacks ===
Occasionally a train will launch without sufficient speed to reach the top of the tower and roll back onto the launch track, hence the term "rollback". This typically happens in cool, wet, or breezy weather, or when the wind is significantly working against it. As Top Thrill Dragster, the launch track was equipped with retractable magnetic brake fins, which were raised after each launch to slow the train down in case it did not reach the top of the tower. As Top Thrill 2, if the train does not crest over the top after the third launch, the LSM fins also function as braking fins to slow the train down.
On very rare occasions, a combination of the weight distribution of the train, the force of the launch, and the wind could stall a train on top of the tower. When this happened, a mechanic took the elevator to the top and pushed the train down the hill.
== Records and rankings ==
When Top Thrill Dragster debuted in 2003, it set three world records:
World's tallest roller coaster
World's fastest roller coaster
World's longest roller coaster drop
Top Thrill Dragster opened as the tallest roller coaster ever built with the longest drop, standing 420 feet tall (130 m) and featuring a drop length of 400 feet (120 m). The previous record holder at the time was Superman: The Escape (later renamed Superman: Escape from Krypton), which stood 415 feet (126 m), located at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Top Thrill Dragster also became the fastest roller coaster in the world with a maximum speed of 120 mph (190 km/h), surpassing Dodonpa at Fuji-Q Highland, which reached a top speed of 107 mph (172 km/h).
The records were short-lived, however. In May 2005, Kingda Ka opened at Six Flags Great Adventure and became the new record holder in all three categories, with a height of 456 feet (139 m), a drop height of 415 feet (126 m), and a top speed of 128 mph (206 km/h).
In the last operational year of the Top Thrill Dragster in 2021, the roller coaster had the second tallest height, the third fastest speed, and the second-highest drop among steel roller coasters in the world. Top Thrill Dragster was the second hydraulically launched roller coaster from Intamin following Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm, and along with Kingda Ka, it is one of two strata coasters ever built. Its marketing tagline was "Race for the Sky".
As Top Thrill 2, the ride has been marketed as the "tallest and fastest triple launch strata coaster" by Cedar Point, with Zamperla using the more general "tallest and fastest triple launch coaster" in its marketing material.
=== GTA: Top Thrill Dragster ===
=== Records Held ===
== Incidents ==
While in operation as Top Thrill Dragster, there have been several reported incidents while riders were on board, including a major occurrence that led to a significant transformation of the ride. In its second year of operation, four people were struck by small metal pieces and other debris on July 14, 2004, resulting in minor injuries such as cuts and abrasions. The flying debris deflected off the ride's launch cable according to a park official. Another issue involving the launch cable occurred on August 7, 2016, where it became detached, leading to the shutdown of the ride. Two guests were evaluated at Cedar Point's first aid center and later returned to the park, while Top Thrill Dragster underwent a thorough inspection and reopened two days later.
On August 15, 2021, in what was described as a "serious accident", a guest waiting in line was struck in the head by a small metal L-shaped bracket, called a flag plate, that dislodged from a train as it was nearing the end of its run. The guest was severely injured and treated at a nearby hospital. Top Thrill Dragster was closed for the remainder of the season.
An investigation by the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) was completed in February, 2022 and found that half of the bolts securing the flag plate had dislodged. The report confirmed that the ride underwent regular maintenance, including an inspection the night before the accident, which determined the metal plate to be in "normal, working condition". ODA did not find evidence that Cedar Point violated state laws or that the park had any reason to believe the ride was in "unsafe condition". In order to reopen the ride, Cedar Point would be required to perform a list of repairs including the replacement of "different or improper grade" bolts and damaged track sections. Instead of repairing, Cedar Point opted to hire Zamperla to create a new version of the ride, which became Top Thrill 2 in 2024.
The injured guest was later reported to have suffered a traumatic brain injury, and the family sued Cedar Point in 2023. A settlement with confidential terms was reached on April 13, 2024.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_E._Moore_Medal_(SCI)#:~:text=)%5B6%5D-,2021%2C%20Carla%20Pereira,-(ExxonMobil) | Gordon E. Moore Medal (SCI) | The Gordon E. Moore Medal is an award given yearly by the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI America) to someone who has displayed early career success involving innovation in chemical industries. Success is judged in terms of both market impact and effects on quality of life of their work.
== Recipients ==
2025, Linqian Feng, (Eastman Chemical Company)
2024, Caleb Funk (DuPont)
2023, Kaoru Aou (Dow)
2022, Kevin Maloney (Merck)
2021, Carla Pereira (ExxonMobil)
2020, Wei Wang (PPG)
2019, John Sworen (Chemours Company)
2018, Steven Swier (Dow Corning)
2017, Melinda H. Keefe (Dow)
2016, Abhishek Roy (Dow)
2015, John A. McCauley (Merck)
2014, Andrew E. Taggi (DuPont)
2013, Jerzy Klosin (Dow)
2012, Dean E. Rende (Honeywell)
2011, Doron Levin (ExxonMobil)
2010, Emmett Crawford (Eastman Chemical Company)
2009, Emma Parmee (Merck & Co.)
2008, Edmund M. Carnahan (Dow)
2007, Paul A. Sagel (Procter & Gamble)
2006, Jonathan M. McConnachie (ExxonMobil)
2005, Jeffery John Hale (Merck & Co.)
2004, George G. Barclay (Rohm and Haas)
== Gallery ==
== External links ==
Gordon E. Moore Medal, SCI
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schreider | Schreider | Schreider is a Northern American and German family name. Notable people with the surname include:
Helen Schreider (b. 1926), American explorer
Gary Schreider (1934–2011), Canadian football player
Frank Schreider (1924–1994), American explorer
== Fictional people ==
Schreider (or Shredder), a character of Log Horizon
== See also ==
Schröder
Schreiter |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Melly | George Melly | Alan George Heywood Melly (17 August 1926 – 5 July 2007) was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer, and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973, he was a film and television critic for The Observer; he also lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.
== Early life and career ==
Melly was born at The Grange, St Michael's Hamlet, Toxteth, Liverpool, Lancashire, the elder son and eldest of three children of wool broker Francis Heywood Melly and (Edith) Maud, née Isaac. His mother was Jewish. Melly was a descendant of the shipowner and Liberal MP George Melly. He was also a relative of the philanthropist Emma Holt, of Sudley House Liverpool; her mother had married Melly's great-grandfather.
Melly was educated at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire where he discovered his interest in modern art, jazz and blues and started coming to terms with his sexuality.
Melly was an atheist. Interviewed by Nigel Farndale in 2005, Melly said: "I don't understand people panicking about death. It's inevitable. I'm an atheist; you'd think it would make it worse, but it doesn't. I've done quite a lot in the world, not necessarily of great significance, but I have done it."
== Interest in surrealist art ==
Melly once said that he may have been drawn to surrealism by a particular experience he had during his teenage years. A frequent visitor to Liverpool's Sefton Park near his home, he often entered its tropical Palm House and there chatted to wounded soldiers from a nearby military hospital. It was the incongruity of this sight, men smoking among the exotic plants, dressed in their hospital uniforms and usually missing a limb, that he felt he later recognised in the work of the Surrealists.
He joined the Royal Navy at the end of the Second World War because, as he quipped to the recruiting officer, the uniforms were "so much nicer". As he related in his autobiography Rum, Bum and Concertina, he was crestfallen to discover that he would not be sent to a ship and was thus denied the "bell-bottom" uniform he desired. Instead he received desk duty and wore the other Navy uniform, described as "the dreaded fore-and-aft". Later, however, he did go to sea but never saw action; he was almost court-martialled for distributing anarchist literature.
== Postwar life and career ==
After the war Melly found work in a London surrealist gallery, working with E. L. T. Mesens and eventually drifted into the world of jazz, finding work with Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz Band. This was a time (1948 onwards) when New Orleans and "New Orleans Revival" style jazz were very popular in Britain. In January 1963, the British music magazine NME reported that the biggest trad jazz event to be staged in Britain had taken place at Alexandra Palace. The event included Alex Welsh, Diz Disley, Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer, Monty Sunshine, Bob Wallis, Bruce Turner, Mick Mulligan and Melly.
In 1956 he became a writer on the Daily Mail's satirical newspaper strip Flook, illustrated by Trog. He continued this until 1971. He retired from jazz in 1962 when he became a film critic for The Observer. He was also scriptwriter on the 1967 satirical film Smashing Time. The period from 1948 until 1963 is described in Owning Up. He returned to jazz in the early 1970s with John Chilton's Feetwarmers, a partnership that ended in 2003. He later sang with Digby Fairweather's band. He released six albums in the 1970s including Nuts in 1972 and Son of Nuts the next year. He wrote a light column, Mellymobile, in Punch magazine describing their tours.
He was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. Melly was President of the BHA 1972–4, and was also an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Association. He was also a member of the Max Miller Appreciation Society and, on 1 May 2005, joined Roy Hudd, Norman Wisdom, and others to unveil a statue of Miller in Brighton.
His singing style, in particular for the blues, was strongly influenced by his idol, Bessie Smith. While many British musicians of the time treated jazz and blues with almost religious solemnity, Melly rejoiced in their more bawdy side, and this was reflected in his choice of songs and exuberant stage performances. He recorded a track called "Old Codger" with The Stranglers in 1978, the lyrics of which were specially written for him by then band member, Hugh Cornwell.
Melly, who was bisexual, moved from strictly homosexual relationships in his teens and twenties to largely heterosexual relationships from his thirties onwards. He married twice and had a child from each marriage, though his first child Pandora was not known to be his until she was much older.
He married his second wife, Diana Moynihan (née Dawson), in 1963 and they lived on Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town. She brought with her two children (Candy and Patrick) from two previous marriages. Patrick died from a heroin overdose in his twenties. Their own son, Tom, was born two days after the wedding. Diana published an autobiography, Take a Girl Like Me, describing their life and open marriage together, in 2005.
== Scethrog ==
George and Diana Melly had a country retreat, Scethrog Tower in the Usk Valley, between 1971 and 1999. This was somewhere Melly could escape the jazz world and indulge his love of fishing on the River Usk. Jazz followed him and this led to a series of celebrated performances in the area and in the valleys. In 1984 the Brecon Jazz Festival was conceived by a group of jazz enthusiasts who gained widespread support from the local community. Melly was the first musician to be contracted for the opening festival and remained a supporter until his death. He was a factor in the festival's success and served as its president in 1991.
As well as being the President of the Contemporary Arts Society for Wales, Melly was a contemporary art collector. His passion for surrealist art continued throughout his life and he lectured and wrote extensively on the subject. His passion for fly-fishing never dwindled and in later life he sold several important paintings (by Magritte and Picasso) enabling him to buy a mile of land by the River Usk. In 2000 he published Hooked!, a book on fly-fishing.
== Later years and death ==
Melly was still active in music, journalism, and lecturing on surrealism and other aspects of modern art until his death, despite worsening health problems such as vascular dementia, incipient emphysema, and lung cancer. His encouragement and support to gallery owner Michael Budd led to a posthumous exhibition for the modern abstract artist François Lanzi.
Melly suffered from environmental hearing loss because of long-term exposure to stage sound systems, and his hearing in both ears became increasingly poor. Despite these problems, Melly would often joke that he found some parts of his ailing health to be enjoyable. He often equated his dementia to a quite amusing LSD trip, and took a lot of pleasure from his deafness, which he said made many boring conversations more interesting. On Sunday 10 June 2007, Melly made an appearance, announced as his last ever performance, at the 100 Club in London. This was on the occasion of a fund-raising event to benefit the charity supporting his carers.
He died at his London home of lung cancer and emphysema (which he had for the last two years of his life), aged 80, on 5 July 2007. His humanist funeral was held at the West London Crematorium, in Kensal Green. The hearse was led by a jazz band, including Kenny Ball on trumpet, playing a New Orleans funeral march. His cardboard coffin was covered with old snapshots and cartoons of Melly by his friends, as well as hand-drawn decorations.
On 17 February 2008 BBC Two broadcast George Melly's Last Stand (produced by Walker George Films), an intimate portrayal of Melly's last months. His sister Andrée Melly was an actress, who lived in Ibiza with her husband, Oscar Quitak. In 2018 writer, musician and film maker Chris Wade made a documentary about Melly entitled The Certainty of Hazard, featuring his wife Diana, son Tom, and various friends and associates.
Diana Melly died on 2 February 2025, at the age of 87.
== Bibliography ==
I, Flook (cartoon strip in the Daily Mail with Wally Fawkes illustrating, 1962).
Owning Up (autobiography, covering his career during the trad-jazz boom, 1965)
Flook by Trog: A Flook's Eye View of the Sixties (selection of four Melly-scripted stories, with an introduction by Laurie Lee, 1970)
Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain (1970)
Rum, Bum and Concertina (autobiography, covering his years in the Navy in the 1940s, 1977)
The Media Mob (with Barry Fantoni, 1980)
A Tribe of One: Great Naive and Primitive Painters of the British Isles (1981)
Great Lovers (1981, text only—art and research by Walter Dorin)
Swans Reflecting Elephants: A Biography of Edward James (1982)
Mellymobile (1982)
Scouse Mouse (autobiography, covering his childhood in Liverpool, 1984)
It's All Writ Out for You: Life and Work of Scottie Wilson (1986)
Paris and the Surrealists (1991)
Don't Tell Sybil: An Intimate Memoir of E. L. T. Mesens (1997)
Hooked! Fishing Memories (2000)
Slowing Down (memoir, 2005)
== Books partly about Melly ==
Take a Girl Like Me (autobiography by his wife, Diana Melly, 2005)
Hot Jazz, Warm Feet (autobiography of his long-time colleague John Chilton, 2007)
On the Road with George Melly (memoir by Digby Fairweather, 2013)
The Life and Work of George Melly (book on Melly's books and music, written by Chris Wade, 2018)
== Selected discography ==
=== Singles ===
George Melly Trio
"Rock Island Line" b/w "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" (Tempo A96) (1951)
George Melly With Alex Welsh and his Dixielanders
"Frankie and Johnny" b/w "I'm Down in the Dumps" (Decca 45-F 10457) (1952)
George Melly
"Kitchen Man" b/w "Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town" (Tempo A104)
George Melly With Mick Mulligan and his Band
"Kingdom Coming" b/w "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy" (Decca 45-F 10763) (1956)
George Melly With Mick Mulligan's Jazz Band
"Jenny's Ball" b/w "Muddy Water" (Tempo A 144) (July 1956)
George Melly With Mick Mulligan and his Band
"Waiting For a Train" b/w Railroadin' Man (Decca 45-F 10779)
George Melly With Mick Mulligan and his Band
"Heebie Jeebies" b/w "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" (Decca 45-F 10806)
George Melly
"Black Bottom" b/w "Magnolia" (Decca 45-F-10840) (1957)
"Abdul Abulbul Amir" b/w "Get Away, Old Man, Get Away" (Decca F-11115) (February 1959)
"Ise a Muggin'" b/w "Run Come See Jerusalem" (Pye 7N 15353) (February 1960)
"Monkey and the Baboon" b/w "Funny Feathers" (Columbia 45-DB 4664) (1963?)
George Melly and the Feetwarmers
"Nuts" b/w "Sam Jones Blues" (Warner Brothers K16249) (February 1973)
George Melly with John Chilton's Feetwarmers
"Good Time George" b/w "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" (Warner Brothers K16533) (March 1974)
George Melly with John Chilton's Feetwarmers and His Orchestra
"Billy Fisher" b/w "Punchdrunk Mama" (CBS 2405) (May 1974)
George Melly with John Chilton's Feetwarmers
"Ain't Misbehavin'" b/w "My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes" (Warner Brothers K16533) (March 1975)
George Melly with John Chilton's Feetwarmers and Other Friends
"I Long To Get It On Down" b/w "Inflation Blues" (Warner Brothers K16574) (June 1975)
George Melly
"Pennies from Heaven" b/w "Punch and Judy" (Reprise Records K14453) (November 1976)
"Makin' Whoopee" b/w "Everybody Loves My Baby" (PRT Records 7P 268) (1983)
George Melly with John Chilton's Feetwarmers
"Masculine Women, Feminine Men" b/w "It's The Bluest Kind of Blues" (PRT Records 7P 318) (1984)
"Hometown" b/w "I Won't Grow Old" (PRT Records 7P 368) (1986)
"Anything Goes" b/w "September Song" (PYS 14) (1988)
=== Extended players ===
George Melly with Mick Mulligan's Jazz Band
George Melly (Tempo EXA 41) (July 1956): "Jenny's Ball" / "Organ Grinder" / "Muddy Water" / "You've Got The Right Key But The Wrong Keyhole"
George Melly Sings Doom (Tempo EXA 46) (November 1956): "Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair" / "Cemetery Blues" / "Blue Spirit Blues" / "Death Letter"
Nothing Personal. George Melly Sings The Blues (Decca DFE 6552) (December 1958): "Michigan Water Blues" / "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" / "St. Louis Blues" / "Spider Crawl"
George Melly
George Melly Sings Songs Of Frank Crumit (Decca DFE 6557) (1959): "Abdul Abulbul Amir" / "Get Away Old Man, Get Away" / "Granny's Old Armchair" / "Donald The Dub (The Dirty Little Pill)"
The Psychological Significance Of Animal Symbolism in American Negro Folk Music And All That Jazz (Columbia SEG 8093) (1961): "Monkey And The Baboon" / "Put It Right Here" / "Black Mare Blues" / "Funny Feathers"
=== LPs ===
George Melly
Nothing Personal (Decca) (1958)
Mick Mulligan's Magnolia Jazz Band With George Melly
Meet Mick Mulligan (Pye NJ 21) (1959). Re-released on LP Pye NSPL 18424 (1973) and possibly on CD Hallmark (2011)
George Melly
Nuts (Warner Bros. K46188) (1972)
Son of Nuts (Warner Bros. K46269) (1973)
It's George (Warner Bros. K56087) (1974)
Melly Is at It Again (Reprise K54084) (1976)
Melly Sings Hoagy (Pye NSPL 18557) (1978)
George Melly Sings Fats Waller (Pye NSPL 18602) (1979)
Let's Do It (PRT Records N131) (1980)
Like Sherry Wine (PRT Records N140) (1981)
Makin' Whoopie (PRT Records N147) (1982)
The Many Moods of Melly (PRT Records N6550) (1984)
Running Wild (Precision Records) (1986)
Anything Goes (PRT Records PYL15) (1988)
Puttin' On the Ritz (Legacy Records LLP 135) (1990)
=== LP compilations ===
The World of George Melly (The Fifties) (Decca SPA 288) (1973)
Unforgettable 16 Golden Classics (Castle UNLP 014)
=== Original CDs ===
The Many Moods of Melly (PRT Records N6550) (1984)
Running Wild (Precision Records CDN 6562) (1986)
Anything Goes (PRT Records PYC 15) (1988)
Puttin' On the Ritz (Legacy Records LLCD 135) (1990)
Frankie and Johnny (D Sharp DSH CD 7001) (1992)
Best of Live (D Sharp DSH LCD 7019) (1995)
Anything Goes (Pulse PLS CD 112) (1996). Compilation CD with 11 of the 12 tracks from the original LP and 11 additional tracks from the LP Puttin' On the Ritz
Singing and Swinging the Blues (Robinwood RWP 0019) (2003). George Melly and Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen
The Ultimate Melly (Candid CCD 79843) (2006). George Melly and Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen
Farewell Blues (Lake LACD 250) (2007). George Melly and Digby Fairweather's Half Dozen
=== CD compilations and reissues ===
Golden Hour of George Melly (Knight Records) (1994). Compilation of Pye/PRT Recordings'.
The Best of George Melly (Kaz 22) (1992). Compilation of Pye recordings, with both John Chilton and Mick Mulligan'.
The Best of George Melly (TrueTrax TRT CD 160) (1994). Compilation CD with tracks from Anything Goes and Puttin' On the Ritz
Meet Mick Mulligan and George Melly (Lake LACD66) (1996). Reissue of Meet Mick Mulligan, with four additional tracks by Mick Mulligan
Ravers (Lake LACD150) (2001). Mick Mulligan and His Jazz Band, featuring George Melly. Includes Melly's singles from 1956
Goodtime George (Spectrum 544 465–2) (2001/6?). Retitled reissue of The World of George Melly with additional tracks
The Pye Jazz Anthology (Castle CMDDD 483) (2002)
Live (Lake LACD176) (2002). Mick Mulligan and His Jazz Band with George Melly (on some tracks). Reissue of the band's cuts on the Tempo LPs Third British Festival of Jazz (Tempo TAP LP 11) (1956) and Jazz at The Railway Arms (Tempo TAP LP 14) (1957)
Nuts / Son of Nuts (Warner Brothers 6751781) (2004)
First and Last (for dementia GMFDAND01) (2008) Career spanning anthology (with some previously unreleased tracks) produced posthumously
Nothing Personal (Lake LACD 265) (2008). Reissue of Nothing Personal, with additional material
Sporting Life (Hallmark) (2011). Retitled reissue of The World of George Melly
George Melly Sings Doom (Cherry Red El ACMEM273CD) (2014). Compilation of Decca recordings
== References ==
== External links ==
George Melly website
"Obituary: George Melly", BBC News, 5 July 2007.
Sarah Knapton, "George Melly, jazz legend and zoot suit king, dies", The Guardian, 6 July 2007.
"George Melly" (obituary), The Economist, 12 July 2007. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Dialect_Society%27s_Words_of_the_Year | List of American Dialect Society's Words of the Year | The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year (WotY) are voted at the January American Dialect Society conference. The first year for which the word of the year was voted ("bushlips") by the ADS was 1990.
Sam Corbin, a words and language writer for The New York Times, comparing the ADS WOTY with the likes from prominent dictionaries, wrote that "the American Dialect Society celebrates linguistic variation to an almost absurd degree".
Starting with about 30 society members in early years, as of 2023 the vote drew some 300 participants. Recently the event consists of two parts: the live nominating session, which culls the nominations open to public a month in advance, and the live vote.
== 2024 ==
Word of the Year: rawdog: to undertake without usual protection, preparation, or comfort (extension of earlier meaning ‘to have sex without a condom’)
Most useful: lock in: to enter a state of deep focus and concentration
Most likely to succeed: unserious
Political Word of the Year: Luigi
Digital Word of the Year: brainrot
Informal Word of the Year: rawdog
Most Creative Word of the Year: "the X I Xed": phrasal template with an invented irregular verb, used as a playful intensifier (as in “the gasp I gusped/guspt,” “the scream I scrempt”)
Most Fun While It Lasted Word of the Year: brat
== 2023 ==
Word of the Year: enshittification
Most useful/Most likely to succeed: (derogatory): parenthetical comment humorously appended after a word that might not be expected to be derogatory
Political Word of the Year: 🍉 (watermelon emoji): symbol of Palestinian solidarity used on social media
Digital Word of the Year: enshittification
Informal Word of the Year: "let (someone) cook": allow (someone) to do something that they are good at without interference
Acronym/Initialism of the Year: FAFO (fuck around and find out): warning that foolish actions will result in unwanted consequences
AI-related Word of the Year: stochastic parrot
Most Creative Word of the Year: Kenaissance: renaissance in the wake of the Barbie movie's depiction of Ken
Euphemism of the Year: "structurally restrictive housing": solitary confinement (rebranded by the New York City Department of Correction)
== 2022 ==
Word of the Year: "-ussy": suffix from "pussy", attached to various words, as in "bussy" = "boy pussy"
Most useful/Most likely to succeed: "quiet quitting", minimal performance at a job
Political Word of the Year: "Dark Brandon", a hint to "Let's Go Brandon, a hint to Joe Biden
Digital Word of the Year: "-dle", for Wordle-like games
Informal Word of the Year: " it’s giving (X)",
Most Creative Word of the Year: "-ussy", see above
Euphemism of the Year: "special military operation", same choice and as for the Russian Word of the Year 2022: a euphemism for the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Snowclone/phrasal template of the Year: "not X", to ironically express mock horror, incredulity, etc.
Emoji of the Year: 💀 [skull], to express death (not) from something: laughter, frustration, etc.
== 2021 ==
Word of the Year: Insurrection
Most Likely to Succeed: antiwork
Most Useful: hard pants
Political Word of the Year: Insurrection
Digital Word of the Year: #FreeBritney
Pandemic-related Word of the Year (special category): boosted
Financial/Economic Word of the Year (special category): Supply chain
Informal Word of the Year: yassify
Most Creative Word of the Year: Fauci ouchie
Euphemism of the Year: unalive
== 2020 ==
Word of the Year: Covid
Most Likely to Succeed: antiracism
Most Useful: Before Times
Political Word of the Year: abolish/defund
Digital Word of the Year: doomscrolling
Zoom-related Word of the Year (special category): you're muted
Pandemic-related Word of the Year (special category): social distancing
Slang/Informal Word of the Year: the rona
Most Creative Combining Form: quaran- (as in quarantini, quaranteam, quaranbeard, quarantigue)
Euphemism of the Year: essential (workers, labor, businesses)
Emoji of the Year: (face with medical mask)
== 2018 ==
Word of the Year: tender-age shelter/camp/facility
Political Word of the Year: (the) wall
Digital Word of the Year: techlash
Slang/Informal Word of the Year: yeet
Most Useful: Voldemorting
Most Likely to Succeed: single-use
Most Creative: white-caller crime
Euphemism of the Year: racially charged
WTF Word of the Year: deleted family unit
Hashtag of the Year: #nottheonion
Emoji of the Year: (thinking face emoji)
== 2017 ==
Word of the Year: fake news
Political Word of the Year: antifa
Digital Word of the Year: shitpost
Slang/Informal Word of the Year: wypipo
Most Useful: die by suicide
Most Likely to Succeed: fake news
Most Creative: broflake
Euphemism of the Year: alternative facts
WTF Word of the Year: covfefe
Hashtag of the Year: #metoo
Emoji of the Year: (woman with head scarf or hijab)
== 2016 ==
Word of the Year: dumpster fire
Political Word of the Year: post-truth
Digital Word of the Year: @ (verb) reply on Twitter using the @ symbol
Slang Word of the Year: woke
Most Useful/Most Likely to Succeed: gaslight
Most Creative: laissez-fairydust
Euphemism of the Year: locker-room banter
WTF Word of the Year: bigly
Hashtag of the Year: #NoDAPL
Emoji of the Year: (fire) ``"lit", exciting``
== 2015 ==
Word of the Year: they
Most Useful/Most Likely to Succeed: they
Most Creative: ammosexual
Most Unnecessary: manbun
Most Outrageous: fuckboy, fuckboi
Most Euphemistic: Netflix and chill
Most Likely to Succeed: ghost
Least Likely to Succeed: sitbit
Most Notable Hashtag: #SayHerName
Most Notable Emoji (new category): (eggplant emoji) sexual innuendo
== 2014 ==
Word of the Year: #blacklivesmatter
Most Useful: even from "I can't even"
Most Creative: columbusing
Most Unnecessary: baeless
Most Outrageous: second-amendment v. to kill (someone) with a gun
Most Euphemistic: EIT
Most Likely to Succeed: salty
Least Likely to Succeed: platisher
Most Notable Hashtag (new category): #blacklivesmatter
== 2013 ==
Word of the Year: because introducing a noun, adjective, or other part of speech (e.g., "because reasons," "because awesome")
Most Useful: because
Most Creative: catfish
Most Unnecessary: sharknado
Most Outrageous: underbutt
Most Euphemistic: least untruthful
Most Likely to Succeed: binge-watch
Least Likely to Succeed: Thanksgivukkah
Most Productive: -shaming
== 2012 ==
Word of the Year: #hashtag
Most Useful: -(po)calypse, -(ma)geddon
Most Creative: gate lice
Most Unnecessary: legitimate rape
Most Outrageous: legitimate rape
Most Euphemistic: self-deportation
Most Likely to Succeed: marriage equality
Least Likely to Succeed: tie between phablet and YOLO
Election Words: binders (full of women)
== 2011 ==
Word of the Year: Occupy
Most Useful: humblebrag
Most Creative: Mellencamp a woman who has aged out of being a "cougar (after John Cougar Mellencamp)
Most Unnecessary: bi-winning
Most Outrageous: assholocracy
Most Euphemistic: job creator
Most Likely to Succeed: cloud
Least Likely to Succeed: brony
Occupy Words: the 99%, 99 percenters
== 2010 ==
Word of the Year: app
Most Useful: nom
Most Creative: prehab
Most Unnecessary: refudiate
Most Outrageous: gate rape
Most Euphemistic: kinetic event
Most Likely to Succeed: trend
Least Likely to Succeed: culturomics
Fan Words: gleek
== 2009 ==
Word of the Year: tweet
Word of the Decade: google
Most Useful: fail
Most Creative: Dracula sneeze
Most Unnecessary: sea kittens
Most Outrageous: death panel
Most Euphemistic: hike the Appalachian trail
Most Likely to Succeed: twenty-ten
Least Likely to Succeed: Any name of the decade 2000–2009, such as Naughties, Aughties, Oughties, etc.
== 2008 ==
Word of the Year: bailout
Most Useful: Barack Obama Both names as combining forms
Most Creative: recombobulation area
Most Unnecessary: moofing
Most Outrageous: terrorist fist jab
Most Euphemistic: scooping technician
Most Likely to Succeed: shovel-ready
Least Likely to Succeed: PUMA
Election-related Words: maverick
== 2007 ==
Word of the Year: subprime
Most Useful: green-
Most Creative: Googlegänger
Most Unnecessary: Happy Kwanhanamas!
Most Outrageous: toe-tapper
Most Euphemistic: human terrain team
Most Likely to Succeed: green-
Least Likely to Succeed: strand-in
Real Estate/Mortgage/Loan Words: subprime
== 2006 ==
Word of the Year: to pluto/be plutoed
Most Useful: climate canary
Most Creative: lactard
Most Unnecessary: SuriKat
Most Outrageous: Cambodian accessory
Most Euphemistic: waterboarding
Most Likely to Succeed: YouTube as a verb, to use the YouTube web site or to have a video of one’s self be posted on the site
Least Likely to Succeed: grup
Pluto-Related Words: to be plutoed, to pluto
== 2005 ==
Word of the Year: truthiness
Most Useful: podcast
Most Creative: whale-tail
Most Unnecessary: K Fed
Most Outrageous: crotchfruit, a child or children
Most Euphemistic: internal nutrition, force-feeding a prisoner
Most Likely to Succeed: sudoku
Least Likely to Succeed: pope-squatting, registering a likely domain name of a new pope in advance
Special nonce category, Best Tom Cruise-Related Word: "jump the couch"
== 1990 ==
Word of the Year: bushlips: insincere political rhetoric; the term was inspired by the former president, George H.W. Bush, who once said, "Read my lips, no new taxes, and then broke his promise.
== Notes ==
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3hanna_Sigur%C3%B0ard%C3%B3ttir | Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir | Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈjouːhana ˈsɪːɣʏrðarˌtouhtɪr̥]; born 4 October 1942) is an Icelandic politician, who served as prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013.
Elected as an MP from 1978 to 2013, she was appointed as Iceland's Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security, serving from 1987 to 1994, and from 2007 until 2009. In 1994, when she lost a bid to head the Social Democratic Party, she raised her fist and declared "Minn tími mun koma!" ("My time will come!"), a phrase that became a popular Icelandic expression. Later in 1994, she left the party and formed her own party, National Awakening (Þjóðvaki), with her as leader. The party received 7.1% of the popular vote in the 1995 parliamentary election and four elected MPs. In 1996 all of the MPs joined the Social Democratic Party. In the 1999 election, National Awakening ran with the newly formed Social Democratic Alliance. In 2000 the party officially merged with the Social Democratic Alliance.
Jóhanna became prime minister on 1 February 2009, in a minority cabinet formed after the previous coalition was dissolved following the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis. Her coalition received a majority in the 2009 parliamentary election. She became Iceland's first female prime minister and the world's first openly LGBT head of government in modern times. Forbes listed her among the 100 most powerful women in the world in 2009.
She was a member of the Althing (Iceland's parliament) for Reykjavík constituencies from 1978 to 2013, winning re-election on eight successive occasions. In September 2012, Jóhanna announced she would not seek re-election and retired from politics as then-Iceland's longest serving member of Parliament.
== Education and early career ==
Jóhanna was born in Reykjavík. Her father was Sigurður Egill Ingimundarson. She studied at the Commercial College of Iceland, a vocational high school operated by the Chamber of Commerce. After graduating with her commercial diploma in 1960, she worked as a flight attendant with Icelandic Airlines (a predecessor of Icelandair) from 1962 to 1971, and as an office manager from 1971 to 1978.
She was active in the trade union movement from early in her professional life, presiding over the Board of the Icelandic Cabin Crew Association in 1966 and 1969 and over the Board of Svölurnar, Association of Former Stewardesses in 1975. She was also a member of the Board of the Commercial Workers' Union from 1976 to 1983.
== Political career ==
Jóhanna was elected to the Althing in 1978 on the list of the Social Democratic Party for the Reykjavík constituency. She enjoyed early success in her parliamentary career, serving as deputy speaker of the Althing in 1979 and in 1983–84. She was elected vice-chairperson of the Social Democratic Party in 1984, a post she held until 1993. She was also Minister of Social Affairs in four separate Cabinets from 1987 to 1994, when she left the Social Democratic Party after losing the leadership contest to form a new party, National Awakening; the two parties remerged in 2000 to form the present Social Democratic Alliance. Her 1994 declaration Minn tími mun koma! ("My time will come!"), after she lost the contest for the leadership of the Social Democratic Party, has become an iconic phrase in the Icelandic language.
From 1994 to 2003, she was an active member of the opposition in the Althing, serving on numerous parliamentary committees. After the 2003 elections, which she contested from the Reykjavík South constituency (after the split of the old Reykjavík constituency), she was re-elected deputy speaker of the Althing. The 2007 elections, which she contested from the Reykjavík North constituency, saw the return of the Social Democratic Alliance to government in coalition with the Independence Party, and Jóhanna was named Minister of Social Affairs and Social Security.
=== Prime minister ===
==== Icelandic financial crisis, protests and elections ====
On 26 January 2009, Prime Minister Geir Haarde tendered the coalition government's resignation to the President of Iceland, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson.
After talks with the leaders of the five parties represented in the Althing, the President asked the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement to form a new government and to prepare for elections in the spring.
Jóhanna was proposed as prime minister for the new government; two reasons for this were her popularity among the general public and her good relations with the Left-Green Movement. An opinion poll by Capacent Gallup in December 2008 found 73% approval of her actions as a minister, more than any other member of the cabinet: she was also the only minister to have improved her approval ratings over 2008.
The new government needed the support of the Progressive Party in the Althing. Negotiations continued up to the evening of 31 January, and the new cabinet was appointed on 1 February. Independent polling showed that Jóhanna and Steingrímur J. Sigfússon, leader of the Left-Green Movement, the other party in the coalition government, enjoyed considerable support outside their own parties.
On 25 April 2009, a parliamentary election was held in Iceland, following the protests now known as the Kitchenware Revolution that resulted from the Icelandic financial crisis.
The Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement, which formed the outgoing coalition government under Jóhanna, both made gains and together had an overall majority of seats in the Althing. The Progressive Party also made gains, and the new Citizens' Movement, formed after the January 2009 protests, gained four seats. The Independence Party, which had been in power for eighteen years until January 2009, lost a third of its support and nine seats in the Althing. On 10 May 2009, the new government was announced, with Jóhanna staying on as prime minister.
==== Overcoming the financial crisis ====
There were several referendums to decide about the Icesave Icelandic bank debts, center of the country's financial crisis. The first Icesave referendum (Icelandic: Þjóðaratkvæðagreiðsla um Icesave), was held on 6 March 2010.
After the referendum, new negotiations commenced. On 16 February 2011, the Althing agreed to a repayment deal to pay back the full amount starting in 2016, finalising before 2046, with a fixed interest rate of 3%. The Icelandic president once again refused to sign the new deal on 20 February, calling for a new referendum. Thus, a second referendum would be held on 9 April 2011 also resulting in "no" victory with a lesser percentage. After the referendum failed to pass, the British and Dutch governments said that they would take the case to the European courts.
At a session on 28 September 2010, the Althing voted 33–30 to indict the former prime minister Geir Haarde, but not the other ministers, on charges of negligence in office. He stood trial before the Landsdómur, a special court to hear cases alleging misconduct in government office, used for the first time since it was established in the 1905 Constitution.
==== New Icelandic constitution process ====
Once in power, the left coalition led by Jóhanna—comprising the Social Democratic Alliance, the Left-Green Movement, the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party—inspired largely by the citizen protests, agreed to convene a constitutional assembly to discuss changes to the Constitution, in use since 1905.
Taking its cue from nationwide protests and lobbying efforts by civil organisations, the new governing parties decided that Iceland's citizens should be involved in creating a new constitution and started to debate a bill on 4 November 2009 about that purpose. Parallel to the protests and parliament deliverance, citizens started to unite in grassroots-based think-tanks. A National Forum was organised on 14 November 2009, Þjóðfundur 2009, in the form of an assembly of Icelandic citizens at the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík, by a group of grassroots citizen movements collectively called "the Anthill". 1,500 people were invited to participate in the assembly; of these, 1,200 were chosen at random from the national registry. On 16 June 2010 the Constitutional Act was finally accepted by parliament and a new Forum was summoned. The Constitutional Act prescribed that the participants of the Forum had to be randomly sampled from the National Population Register. The Forum 2010 came into being due to the efforts of both governing parties and the Anthill group. A seven-member Constitutional Committee, appointed by the parliament, was charged with the supervision of the forum and the presentation of its results, while the organization and facilitation of the National Forum 2010 was done by the Anthill group that had organized the first Forum 2009.
The process continued in the election of 25 people of no political affiliation on 26 October 2010. The Supreme Court of Iceland later invalidated the results of the election on 25 January 2011 following complaints about several faults in how the election was conducted, but the Parliament decided that it was the manner of the election, and not the results, that had been questioned, and also that those 25 elected candidates would be a part of a Constitutional Council and thus the Constitutional change went on.
On 29 July 2011 the draft was presented to the Parliament, which finally agreed in a vote on 24 May 2012, with 35 in favor and 15 against, to organize an advisory referendum on the Constitutional Council's proposal for a new constitution no later than 20 October 2012. The only opposing parliament members were the former governing right party, the Independence Party. Also a proposed referendum on the discontinuing of accession talks with the European Union by some parliamentarians of the governing left coalition was rejected, with 34 votes against and 25 in favor.
==== Women's rights and ban on striptease ====
In 2010, her government banned strip clubs, paying for nudity in restaurants, and other means of employers profiting from employees' nudity – the first such ban in a Western democratic country. Jóhanna commented: "The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognizing women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale." Responding to the policy change radical feminist Julie Bindel, writing for The Guardian, stated that Iceland had become the most feminist country in the world. Asked what the most important gender issue today is, she answered "To fight the pay gap between men and women".
== Personal life ==
Jóhanna married Þorvaldur Steinar Jóhannesson in 1970 and the couple had two sons named Sigurður Egill Þorvaldsson and Davíð Steinar Þorvaldsson (born 1972 and 1977).
After their divorce in 1987, she joined in a civil union with Jónína Leósdóttir (born 1954), an author and playwright, in 2002.
In 2010, when same-sex marriage was legalised in Iceland, Jóhanna and Jónína changed their civil union into a marriage, thus becoming one of the first same-sex married couples in Iceland.
In 2017, she released a biography entitled Minn tími ("My Time"). The biography covers one of the most contentious periods in Icelandic history – from the financial crash of autumn 2008, through protests and emergency elections the following year, and the difficult recovery period that followed leading Iceland's left wing government.
== See also ==
List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government
List of the first LGBT holders of political offices
List of openly LGBT heads of government
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Torild, Skard (30 July 2014). Women of Power: Half a Century of Female Presidents and Prime Ministers Worldwide. Bristol: Policy Press. ISBN 978-1-4473-1578-0.
== External links ==
"Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir". Althingi (in Icelandic). Archived from the original on 31 January 2009. (Personal blog)
McDonald, Alyssa (15 January 2010). "Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir – extended interview". New Statesman. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Turner# | Tina Turner | Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was a singer, songwriter, actress, and author. Dubbed the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", Turner's vocal prowess and stage presence helped to break racial and gender barriers in rock music. She is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with estimated sales of over 100 million records worldwide.
Turner rose to prominence in the 1960s as the lead vocalist of the husband-wife duo Ike & Tina Turner, known for their explosive live performances with the Ikettes and Kings of Rhythm. After years of marital abuse, she ended her personal and professional relationship with Ike Turner in the 1970s and embarked on a solo career. She made a comeback with her multi-platinum fifth solo album Private Dancer (1984), whose single "What's Love Got to Do with It" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her only number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Her worldwide chart success continued with the Top 10 singles "Better Be Good to Me", "Private Dancer", "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)", "Typical Male", and "I Don't Wanna Fight".
Turner's Break Every Rule World Tour became the highest-grossing tour by a female artist of the 1980s and set a Guinness World Record for the then-largest paying audience in a concert (180,000). Her success as a live performer continued with the Wildest Dreams Tour, the first tour by a woman to earn $100 million, and the Twenty Four Seven Tour, the highest-grossing tour of 2000. In 2009, she retired from performing after completing the Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. As an actress, Turner appeared in the feature films Tommy (1975), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Last Action Hero (1993). Her life was dramatized in the biographical film What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), based on her autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story (1986). She was also the subject of the jukebox musical Tina (2018) and the documentary film Tina (2021).
Turner received 12 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and three Grammy Hall of Fame inductions. Rolling Stone ranked her among the greatest artists and greatest singers of all time. She was the first black artist and first woman to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone and was the first female black artist to win an MTV Award. Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with Ike Turner in 1991 and was later inducted as a solo artist in 2021. Turner was also a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
== Early life ==
Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in Brownsville, Tennessee. She was the youngest daughter of Floyd Richard Bullock and his wife Zelma Priscilla (née Currie). The family lived in the rural unincorporated community of Nutbush, Tennessee, where Bullock's father worked as an overseer of the sharecroppers at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180; she later recalled picking cotton with her family at an early age. Bullock was African American. She believed she had a significant amount of Native American ancestry until she participated in the PBS series African American Lives 2 with Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Gates shared her genealogical DNA test estimates and traced her family timeline.
Bullock had two older sisters, Evelyn Juanita Currie and Ruby Alline Bullock, a songwriter. She was the first cousin once removed of bluesman Eugene Bridges. As young children, the three sisters were separated when their parents relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, to work at a defense facility during World War II. Bullock went to stay with her strict, religious paternal grandparents, Alex and Roxanna Bullock, who were deacon and deaconess at the Woodlawn Missionary Baptist Church.
After the war, the sisters reunited with their parents and moved with them to Knoxville. Two years later, the family returned to Nutbush to live in the Flagg Grove community, where Bullock attended Flagg Grove Elementary School from first through eighth grade. As a young girl, Bullock enjoyed singing and acting, and she often performed in the streets for change so she could go to the movies. She sang in the church choir at Nutbush's Spring Hill Baptist Church.
In 1950, when Bullock was 11, her mother Zelma left the family without warning, seeking freedom from her abusive relationship with Floyd by relocating to St. Louis. Two years after her mother left the family, her father married another woman and moved to Detroit. Bullock and her sisters were sent to live with their maternal grandmother, Georgeanna Currie, in Brownsville, Tennessee. She stated in her autobiography I, Tina that she felt her parents did not love her and that she was not wanted. Zelma had planned to leave Floyd but stayed once she became pregnant. Bullock recalled: "She was a very young woman who didn't want another kid."
As a teenager, Bullock worked as a domestic worker for the Henderson family in Ripley, Tennessee. She was at the Henderson house when she was notified that her half-sister Evelyn had died in a car crash alongside her cousins Margaret Currie and Vela Evans, however Evans survived the car crash with injuries. A self-professed tomboy, Bullock joined both the cheerleading squad and the female basketball team at Carver High School in Brownsville, and "socialized every chance she got".
When Bullock was 16, her grandmother died, so she went to live with her mother in St. Louis. She graduated from Sumner High School in 1958. After high school, Bullock worked as a nurse's aide at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
== Ike and Tina Turner ==
=== Origins: 1956–1959 ===
Bullock and her sister began to frequently attend nightclubs in St. Louis and East St. Louis. She first saw Ike Turner perform with his band the Kings of Rhythm at the Club Manhattan in East St. Louis. Bullock was impressed by his talent, recalling that she "almost went into a trance" watching him play. She asked Turner to let her sing in his band despite the fact that few women had ever sung with him. Turner said he would call her but never did. One night in 1956, Bullock got hold of the microphone from Kings of Rhythm drummer Eugene Washington during an intermission and she sang the B.B. King blues ballad, "You Know I Love You". Upon hearing Bullock sing, Ike Turner asked her if she knew more songs. She sang the rest of the night and became a featured vocalist with his band. During this period, he taught her the finer points of vocal control and performance. Bullock's first recording was in 1958 under the name Little Ann on the single "Boxtop". She is credited as a vocalist on the record alongside Ike and fellow Kings of Rhythm singer Carlson Oliver.
=== Early success: 1960–1965 ===
In 1960, Ike Turner wrote "A Fool in Love" for singer Art Lassiter. Bullock was to sing background with Lassiter's backing vocalists, the Artettes. Lassiter failed to show up for the recording session at Technisonic Studios. Since Turner had already paid for the studio time, Bullock suggested that she sing the lead. He decided to use Bullock to record a demo with the intention of erasing her vocals and adding Lassiter's at a later date. Local St. Louis disc jockey Dave Dixon convinced Turner to send the tape to Juggy Murray, president of R&B label Sue Records. Upon hearing the song, Murray was impressed with Bullock's vocals, later stating that "Tina sounded like screaming dirt. It was a funky sound". Murray bought the track and paid Turner a $25,000 advance for the recording and publishing rights. Murray also convinced Turner to make Bullock "the star of the show". Turner responded by renaming Bullock "Tina" because it rhymed with Sheena. He was inspired by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Nyoka the Jungle Girl to create her stage persona. Turner added his last name and trademarked the name "Tina Turner" as a form of protection; his idea was that if Bullock left him as his previous singers had, he could replace her with another "Tina Turner". However, family and friends still called her Ann.
Bullock was introduced to the public as Tina Turner with the single "A Fool in Love" in July 1960. It reached No. 2 on the Hot R&B Sides chart and No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. Journalist Kurt Loder described the track as "the blackest record to ever creep into the white pop charts since Ray Charles's gospel-styled 'What'd I Say' that previous summer". Another single from the duo, "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 and No. 2 on the R&B chart in 1961, earning them a Grammy nomination for Best Rock and Roll Performance. Other singles Ike and Tina Turner released between 1960 and 1962 included the R&B hits "I Idolize You", "Poor Fool", and "Tra La La La La".
After the release of "A Fool in Love", Ike Turner created the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which included the Kings of Rhythm and a girl group, the Ikettes, as backing vocalists and dancers. He remained in the background as the bandleader. Ike Turner put the entire revue through a rigorous touring schedule across the United States, performing 90 days straight in venues around the country. During the days of the Chitlin' Circuit, the Ike & Tina Turner Revue built a reputation as "one of the hottest, most durable, and potentially most explosive of all R&B ensembles", rivaling the James Brown Revue in terms of musical spectacle. Due to their profitable performances, they were able to perform in front of desegregated audiences in Southern clubs and hotels.
Between 1963 and 1965, the band toured constantly and produced moderately successful R&B singles. Tina Turner's first credited single as a solo artist, "Too Many Ties That Bind"/"We Need an Understanding", was released from Ike Turner's label Sonja Records in 1964. Another single by the duo, "You Can't Miss Nothing That You Never Had", reached No. 29 on the Billboard R&B chart. After their tenure at Sue Records, the duo signed with more than ten labels during the remainder of the decade, including Kent, Cenco, Tangerine, Pompeii, A&M, and Minit. In 1964, they signed to Warner Bros. Records and Bob Krasnow became their manager. On the Warner Bros. label, they achieved their first charting album with Live! The Ike & Tina Turner Show, peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard Hot R&B LP chart in February 1965. Their singles "Tell Her I'm Not Home", released on Loma Records, and "Good Bye, So Long", released on Modern Records, were top 40 R&B hits in 1965.
Tina Turner's profile was raised after several solo appearances on shows such as American Bandstand and Shindig! while the entire revue appeared on Hollywood a Go-Go. In 1965, music producer Phil Spector attended an Ike & Tina Turner show at a club on the Sunset Strip, and he invited them to appear in the concert film The Big T.N.T. Show.
=== Mainstream success: 1966–1975 ===
Impressed by the duo's performance on The Big T.N.T. Show, Phil Spector was eager to produce Tina Turner. Working out a deal with Ike & Tina Turner's manager Bob Krasnow, who was also head of Loma, Spector offered $20,000 for creative control over the sessions to produce Turner and have Ike & Tina Turner released from their contract with Loma. They signed to Spector's Philles label in April 1966 after Tina Turner had already recorded with him. Their first single on his label, "River Deep – Mountain High", was released in May 1966. Spector considered that record, with Turner's maximum energy over the "Wall of Sound", to be his best work. It was successful overseas, reaching No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 1 on Los 40 Principales in Spain, but it failed to go any higher than No. 88 on the Billboard Hot 100. The impact of the record gave Ike & Tina Turner an opening spot on the Rolling Stones UK tour in the fall of 1966. In November 1967, Turner became the first female artist and the first black artist to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
The duo signed with Blue Thumb Records in 1968, releasing the album Outta Season in 1969. The album produced their charted cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long". Later that year they released The Hunter album. The title track, Albert King's "The Hunter", earned Turner a Grammy nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. The success of the albums led to the revue headlining in Las Vegas, where their shows were attended by a variety of celebrities including Sly Stone, Janis Joplin, Cher, James Brown, Ray Charles, Elton John, and Elvis Presley. Sammy Davis Jr. was particularly fond of Turner, and after she filmed an episode of The Name of the Game with him in Las Vegas he surprised her with a Jaguar XJ6.
As the decade came to an end, Ike & Tina Turner began performing at music festivals. Tina Turner's fashion evolved from formal dresses to minidresses and revealing outfits. She emerged as a sex symbol and was praised for her sensual performances.
In the fall of 1969, Ike & Tina Turner's profile in their home country was raised after opening for the Rolling Stones on their US tour. They gained more exposure from performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, Playboy After Dark, and The Andy Williams Show. The duo released two albums in 1970, Come Together and Workin' Together. Their cover of "I Want to Take You Higher" peaked at No. 34 on the Hot 100, whereas the original by Sly and the Family Stone had peaked at No. 38. The Come Together and Workin' Together albums marked a turning point in their careers in which they switched from their usual R&B repertoire to incorporate more rock tunes such as "Come Together", "Honky Tonk Woman", and "Get Back".
In early 1971, their cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" became their biggest hit. The single reached No. 4 on the Hot 100 and sold more than a million copies, winning them a Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group. In July 1971, their live album, What You Hear Is What You Get, was released. It was recorded at Carnegie Hall and became their first certified Gold album. Later that year they had a top 40 R&B hit with "Ooh Poo Pah Doo". Their next three singles to chart, "I'm Yours (Use Me Anyway You Wanna)", "Up in Heah", and "Early One Morning" (a Little Richard cover) all peaked at No. 47 on the R&B chart.
In 1972, the Turners opened Bolic Sound recording studio near their home in Inglewood. After Liberty was absorbed into United Artists Records, they were assigned to that label. Around this time, Tina Turner began writing more songs. She wrote nine out of the ten tracks on their 1972 album Feel Good. In October 1972, Turner and the Ikettes performed at Star-Spangled Women, a political fundraiser for the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern, at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The duo's 1973 hit single "Nutbush City Limits" (No. 22 Pop, No. 11 R&B), penned by Tina Turner, reached No. 1 in Austria, No. 4 in the UK, and the top 5 in several other countries. It was certified silver by the BPI for selling a quarter of a million in the UK. As a result of their success, they received the Golden European Record Award, the first ever given, for selling more than one million records of "Nutbush City Limits" in Europe. Their follow-up hits included "Sweet Rhode Island Red", and "Sexy Ida" in 1974.
In 1974, the duo released the Grammy-nominated album The Gospel According to Ike & Tina, which was nominated for Best Soul Gospel Performance. Ike also received a solo nomination for his single "Father Alone" from the album. Tina Turner's first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On!, earned her a nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female. That year, Tina Turner filmed the rock opera Tommy in London. She played the Acid Queen, a drug-addicted prostitute; her performance was critically acclaimed. Shortly after filming wrapped, Turner appeared on Ann-Margret's TV special. Following the release of Tommy in 1975, Tina Turner released another solo album: Acid Queen. The album reached No. 39 on the Billboard R&B chart. It produced the charting singles "Baby, Get It On" and a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love".
=== Split: 1976 ===
By the mid-1970s, Ike was heavily addicted to cocaine, which hindered his relationship with Tina. In 1976, they headlined at the Waldorf Astoria New York and signed a television deal with CBS-TV. Ike made plans for them to leave United Artists Records for a five-year deal with Cream Records for $150,000 per year; the deal was to be signed on July 5.
On July 1, the Turners flew from Los Angeles to Dallas, where the revue had a gig at the Statler Hilton in downtown. The couple got into a physical altercation on their way to the hotel with Tina defending herself and fighting Ike back physically. Shortly after arriving, Tina fled with only 36 cents and a Mobil card to the nearby Ramada Inn across the freeway. She filed for divorce on July 27, and it was finalized on March 29, 1978. After they disbanded, United Artists released two more albums credited to the duo: Delilah's Power (1977) and Airwaves (1978).
== Solo career ==
=== Early solo career: 1976–1982 ===
Following her separation from Ike, lawsuits mounted for canceled Ike & Tina Turner gigs. Turner earned income by appearing on TV shows such as The Hollywood Squares, Donny & Marie, The Sonny & Cher Show, and The Brady Bunch Hour. After receiving funding from Mike Stewart, an executive at United Artists Records, Turner returned to performing in order to pay off her debts. In 1977, she formed a new band and re-emerged with new costumes designed by Bob Mackie. She took her act to smaller venues and headlined a series of cabaret shows at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Later that year, she embarked on her first solo concert tour in Australia.
Turner and Tom Jones starred in an HBO TV special that was shot at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, in September 1978. Around that time, her third solo album, Rough, was released on United Artists with distribution in North America and Europe on EMI Records. That album, along with its 1979 follow-up, Love Explosion, which included a brief diversion to disco music, failed to chart, so United Artists and Turner parted ways. Without the premise of a hit record, she continued performing and headlined her second tour.
In 1979, Australian manager Roger Davies agreed to manage Turner after seeing her perform at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. In early 1979, Turner worked in Italy as a regular performer on the Rete 1 TV series Luna Park, hosted by Pippo Baudo and Heather Parisi. Later that year, she embarked on a controversial five-week tour of South Africa during the apartheid regime. She later regretted the decision, stating that she was "naive about the politics in South Africa" at the time.
In October 1981, Rod Stewart attended Turner's show at the Ritz in New York City and invited her to perform "Hot Legs" with him on Saturday Night Live. In November, Turner opened three shows for the Rolling Stones during their 1981 American Tour. Turner performed in March 1982 in the Willem Ruis show (Netherlands), which resulted in the hit "Shame, Shame, Shame" reaching No. 47 in the Netherlands. In 1982 Turner's recording of the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion" for the UK production team B.E.F. became a hit in European dance clubs. In 1982, Turner also appeared on the album Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 1 by B.E.F., a side project of Heaven 17, singing "Ball of Confusion". She filmed a music video for "Ball of Confusion" that aired on the fledgling music video channel MTV, becoming one of the first black American artists to gain airtime on the channel. Also in 1982, Turner appeared as a special guest on Chuck Berry's television special performed at The Roxy in West Hollywood.
=== Career resurgence and superstardom: 1983–2000 ===
Until 1983, Turner was considered a nostalgia act, performing mostly at hotel ballrooms and clubs in the United States. During her second stint at the Ritz, she signed with Capitol Records in 1983. In November 1983, she released her cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together", which was produced by B.E.F. It reached several European charts, including No. 6 in the UK. In the US, the song peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 1 on Hot Dance Club Songs, and No. 3 on Hot Black Singles.
Following the single's surprise success, Capitol Records approved a studio album. Turner had two weeks to record her Private Dancer album, which was released in May 1984. It reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 in the United Kingdom. Private Dancer was certified 5× Platinum in the United States, and sold 10 million copies worldwide, becoming her most successful album. Also in May 1984, Capitol issued the album's second single, "What's Love Got to Do with It"; the song had previously been recorded by the pop group Bucks Fizz. Following the album's release, Turner joined Lionel Richie as the opening act on his tour.
On September 1, 1984, Turner achieved her first and only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "What's Love Got to Do with It". The follow-up singles "Better Be Good to Me" and "Private Dancer" were both US top 10 hits. The same year, she duetted with David Bowie on a cover of Iggy Pop's "Tonight". Released as a single in November, it peaked at No. 53 in both the UK and the US. At his spring 1985 ready-to-wear runway show presented in fall of '84, Paris designer Karl Lagerfeld put his models in Tina Turner wigs and said he was "mad for her."
Turner culminated her comeback when she won three Grammys at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Award for Record of the Year for "What's Love Got to Do with It". In February 1985, she embarked on her second world tour to support the Private Dancer album. Two nights were filmed at Birmingham, England's NEC Arena and later released as a concert on home video. She was often dressed in clothes by designer Azzedine Alaïa for this tour and sometimes dedicated songs to him. During this time, she also contributed vocals to the USA for Africa benefit song "We Are the World".
Turner's success continued when she traveled to Australia to star opposite Mel Gibson in the 1985 post-apocalyptic film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The movie provided her with her first acting role in ten years; she portrayed the glamorous Aunty Entity, the ruler of Bartertown. Upon release, critical response to her performance was generally positive. The film was a global success, grossing more than $36 million in the United States. Turner later received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress for her role in the film. She recorded two songs for the film, "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" and "One of the Living"; both became hits, with the latter winning her a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. In July 1985, Turner performed at Live Aid alongside Mick Jagger. Their performance shocked observers when Jagger ripped her skirt off. Turner released a duet, "It's Only Love", with Bryan Adams. It was nominated for a Grammy Award, and the music video won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Stage Performance.
In 1986, Turner released her sixth solo album, Break Every Rule, which reached No. 1 in four countries and sold over five million copies worldwide within its first year of release. The album sold more than a million copies in the United States and Germany alone. The album featured the singles "Typical Male", "Two People", "What You Get Is What You See", and the Grammy-winning "Back Where You Started". Prior to the album's release, Turner published her autobiography I, Tina, which became a bestseller. That year, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her Break Every Rule World Tour, which began in March 1987 in Munich, Germany, was the third highest-grossing tour by a female artist in North America that year. In January 1988, Turner performed in front of approximately 180,000 at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, setting a Guinness World Record at the time for the largest paying concert attendance for a solo artist. In April 1988, Turner released the Tina Live in Europe album, which won a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. After taking time off following the end of the tour, she emerged with the Foreign Affair album in 1989. It reached No. 1 in eight countries, including in the UK (5× Platinum), her first number-one album there. The album sold over six million copies worldwide and included the international hit single "The Best".
In 1990, Turner embarked on her Foreign Affair European Tour, which drew in nearly four million spectators—breaking the record for a European tour that was previously set by the Rolling Stones. In October 1991 Turner released her first greatest hits compilation Simply the Best, which sold seven million copies worldwide. The album is her biggest seller in the UK, where it is certified 8× Platinum with more than two million copies sold.
In 1991, Ike & Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ike Turner was incarcerated at the time and Tina Turner did not attend. Turner stated through her publicist that she was taking a leave of absence following her tour and she felt "emotionally unequipped to return to the U.S. and respond to the night of celebration in the manner she would want". Phil Spector accepted the award on their behalf.
In 1993, the semi-autobiographical film What's Love Got to Do with It was released. The film starred Angela Bassett as Tina Turner and Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner; they received Best Actress and Best Actor Oscar nominations for their roles. While she was not heavily involved in the film, Turner contributed to the soundtrack for What's Love Got to Do with It, re-recording old songs and several new songs. The single "I Don't Wanna Fight" from the soundtrack was a top 10 hit in the US and UK. In 1993 Turner embarked on her What's Love? Tour, which visited primarily North America with a few shows in Australasia and Europe.
In 1995, Turner returned to the studio, releasing "GoldenEye", which was written by Bono and the Edge of U2 for the James Bond film GoldenEye. In 1996 Turner released the Wildest Dreams album, accompanied by her "Wildest Dreams Tour". In September 1999, before celebrating her 60th birthday, Turner released the dance-infused song "When the Heartache Is Over" as the leading single from her tenth and final solo album, Twenty Four Seven. The success of the single and the following tour helped the album become certified Gold by the RIAA. The Twenty Four Seven Tour was the highest-grossing tour of 2000, grossing over $120 million. Her two concerts at Wembley Stadium were recorded by the director David Mallet and released in the DVD One Last Time Live in Concert. At a July 2000 concert in Zurich, Switzerland, Turner announced that she would retire at the end of the tour.
=== Later career: 2001–2021 ===
In November 2004, Turner released All the Best, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2005, her highest-charting album in the United States. The album went platinum in the US three months after its release and reached platinum status in seven other countries, including the UK.
In December 2005, Turner was recognized by the Kennedy Center Honors at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, and was elected to join an elite group of entertainers.
In February 2006, Turner released "Teach Me Again", a duet single with Italian singer-songwriter Elisa that was recorded for the anthology film All the Invisible Children. The whole revenue from the single's sales was donated to charity projects for children led by the World Food Programme and UNICEF.
Turner made a public comeback in February 2008 at the Grammy Awards, where she performed alongside Beyoncé. In addition, she won a Grammy as a featured artist on River: The Joni Letters.
In October 2008, Turner embarked on her first tour in nearly ten years with the Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. In support of the tour, Turner released a greatest hits compilation. The tour was a huge success and became one of the bestselling tours in history. In 2009, Turner officially retired from performing.
In 2009, Turner co-founded a global music foundation, Beyond Foundation, with Swiss Christian musician Regula Curti and Swiss Tibetan Buddhist Dechen Shak-Dagsay. Turner co-released four albums of spiritual or uplifting music released through projects with Beyond: Buddhist and Christian Prayers (2009), Children (2011), Love Within (2014), and Awakening (2017). As of 2023, the Swiss Beyond Foundation remains active and enables the collaboration of musical artists from different parts of the world.
In April 2010, mainly due to an online campaign by fans of Rangers Football Club, Turner's 1989 hit, "The Best", returned to the UK singles chart, peaking at No. 9. This made Turner the first female recording artist in UK chart history to score top 40 hits in six consecutive decades (1960s–2010s). In 2011, Beyond's second album Children – With Children United in Prayer followed and charted again in Switzerland. Turner promoted the album by performing on TV shows in Germany and Switzerland. In April 2013, Turner appeared on the cover of the German issue of Vogue magazine at the age of 73, becoming the oldest person to be featured on the cover of Vogue. In February 2014, Parlophone Records released a new compilation titled Love Songs.
In December 2016 Turner announced that she had been working on Tina, a musical based on her life story, in collaboration with Phyllida Lloyd and Stage Entertainment. The show opened at the Aldwych Theatre in London in April 2018 with Adrienne Warren in the lead role. Warren reprised her role on Broadway in the fall of 2019.
Turner received the 2018 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and her second memoir, My Love Story, was released in October 2018. In 2020, she came out of retirement to collaborate with Norwegian producer Kygo on a remix of "What's Love Got to Do with It". With this release, she became the first artist to have a top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades in the UK.
In 2020, Turner released her third book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good. She co-wrote the book with American author Taro Gold and Swiss singer Regula Curti. It was chosen by Amazon's editors as a Best Nonfiction book of 2020. In 2021, Turner appeared in the documentary film Tina directed by Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin.
In October 2021, Turner sold her music rights to BMG Rights Management for an estimated $50 million, with Warner Music still handling distribution of her music. Later that month, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, accepting her award via satellite from her home near Zurich, Switzerland.
== Personal life ==
=== Relationships and marriages ===
==== Early relationships ====
While still in Brownsville, Turner fell in love for the first time with Harry Taylor. They met at a high school basketball game. Taylor initially attended a different school, but he relocated to be near her. In 1986, she told Rolling Stone: "Harry was real popular and had tons of girlfriends, but eventually I got him, and we went steady for a year." Their relationship ended after she discovered that Taylor had married another girl who was expecting his child.
After moving to St. Louis, Turner and her sister Alline became acquainted with Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm. Alline dated the band's drummer, Eugene Washington, and Tina dated the band's saxophonist, Raymond Hill. After Tina became pregnant during her senior year of high school, she moved in with Hill, who lived with Ike Turner. She recalled, "I didn't love him as much as I'd loved Harry. But he was good-looking. I thought, 'My baby's going to be beautiful.'" Their relationship ended when Hill left the band after he broke his ankle during a wrestling match with Kings of Rhythm singer Carlson Oliver. Hill returned to his hometown of Clarksdale before their son Craig was born in August 1958, leaving Turner to become a single parent.
==== Ike Turner ====
Turner likened her early relationship with Ike Turner to that of a "brother and sister from another lifetime". They were platonic friends from the time they met in 1956 until 1960. Their affair began while Ike was with his live-in girlfriend Lorraine Taylor. They became intimate when Bullock went to sleep with Turner after another musician threatened to go into her room.
After recording "A Fool in Love" in 1960, a pregnant Turner told Ike that she did not want to continue their relationship; he responded by striking her in the head with a wooden shoe stretcher. Turner recalled that this incident was the first time he "instilled fear" in her, but she decided to stay with him because she "really did care about him".
Following the birth of their son Ronnie in October 1960, Ike and Tina Turner moved to Los Angeles in 1962 and married in Tijuana. In 1963, Ike purchased a house in the View Park area. They brought their son Ronnie, Turner's son Craig, and Ike's two sons with Lorraine (Ike Jr. and Michael) from St. Louis to live with them. She later revealed in I, Tina that Ike was violent and promiscuous throughout their marriage, which led to her suicide attempt in 1968 by overdosing on Valium pills. She said, "It was my relationship with Ike that made me most unhappy. At first, I had really been in love with him. Look what he'd done for me. But he was totally unpredictable." Later on, in his old age, Ike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
By the mid-1970s, Ike was heavily addicted to cocaine, which hindered his relationship with Turner. She abruptly separated from Ike after they got into a fight on their way to the Dallas Statler Hilton on July 1, 1976. With only 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket, Turner fled to a nearby Ramada Inn across the freeway to escape from Ike.
On July 27, Turner filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. Her divorce petition asked for $4,000 a month in alimony, $1,000 a month in child support, and custody of her sons Craig and Ronnie. The divorce was finalized on March 29, 1978. In the final divorce decree, Turner took responsibility for missed concert dates as well as an IRS lien and retained songwriter royalties from songs she had written, but Ike received the publishing royalties for his compositions and hers. She also kept her two Jaguars, furs, jewelry, and her stage name. Turner gave Ike her share of their Bolic Sound recording studio, publishing companies, and real estate, and he kept his four cars. Several promoters lost money and sued to recoup their losses. For almost two years, she received food stamps and played small clubs to pay off debts.
In his autobiography Takin' Back My Name, Ike Turner stated: "Sure, I've slapped Tina. We had fights and there have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I never beat her." In a 1999 interview on The Roseanne Show, Roseanne Barr urged Ike to publicly apologize to Turner. In 2007, Ike told Jet that he still loved her and he had written a letter apologizing for "putting her and the kids through that kind of stuff", but he never sent it.
After his death on December 12, 2007, Turner issued a brief statement through her spokesperson: "Tina hasn't had any contact with Ike in more than 30 years. No further comment will be made." Tina's sister Alline still considered Ike her brother-in-law and attended his funeral. In his eulogy, Phil Spector criticized Turner for vilifying Ike. In 2018, Turner told The Sunday Times that "as an old person, I have forgiven him, but I would not work with him. He asked for one more tour with me, and I said, 'No, absolutely not.' Ike wasn't someone you could forgive and allow him back in."
==== Erwin Bach ====
In 1986, Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach, who was sent by her European record label (EMI) to greet Turner at Düsseldorf Airport. Bach was over sixteen years her junior. Initially friends, they began dating later that year. In July 2013, after 27 years together, they married in a civil ceremony on the banks of Lake Zurich in Küsnacht, Switzerland.
=== Children ===
Turner had two biological sons. She gave birth to Raymond Craig Hill on August 20, 1958; Hill was fathered by Kings of Rhythm saxophonist Raymond Hill. Turner gave birth to Ronald "Ronnie" Renelle Turner on October 27, 1960; Turner was fathered by Ike Turner. She also adopted two of Ike Turner's children, raising them as her own. Turner was 18 years of age when she gave birth to her eldest son. Ike Turner adopted Raymond Craig Hill and changed his name to Craig Raymond Turner. Craig Turner was found dead in an apparent suicide in July 2018.
Turner's younger son, Ronnie, played bass guitar in a band called Manufactured Funk with songwriter and musician Patrick Moten. Ronnie also played for both of his parents' bands. Through him, Turner had two grandchildren. He was married to French singer Afida Turner. Ronnie Turner died from complications of colon cancer in December 2022.
During Turner's divorce trial, Ike sent their four sons to live with Tina and gave her money for one month's rent. Ike Turner Jr. worked as a sound engineer at Bolic Sound and briefly for Turner after her divorce, later winning a Grammy Award for producing his father's album Risin' with the Blues. He toured with former Ikette Randi Love as Sweet Randi Love and the Love Thang Band. Ike Turner Jr. stated that he and his brothers had a distant relationship with their mother (Tina). Turner wrote in her autobiography I, Tina that after her divorce she became "a little bit estranged" from all her sons except Craig. In 1989, Turner told TV Week that she's "still there for the boys", but there were reports of Turner's estrangement from her sons in the years before her death.
Ike Turner Jr., who was Tina's adopted son, died from kidney failure in October 2025. Upon Ike Jr.'s death, Turner's adopted son Michael Turner became her last surviving child. Ike Jr. stated in 2017 that Michael, who struggled with addiction as an adult, was by then using a wheelchair and had a history of "strokes and seizures." In 2018, Ike Jr. revealed that Michael was "in a convalescent home in Southern California and needs medical support." Despite still not visiting Michael, Tina provided him with financial support.
=== Legal issues ===
In November 1976, Turner was stopped for a traffic violation and an officer found a .38-caliber revolver in her purse. She was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. Her attorney said she was carrying the gun for her safety due to threats on her life.
In 1978, Diners Club Corp. sued Turner and her company, Tina's Operation Oops, claiming she owed over $26,000 for purchases made using her credit card.
=== Religious beliefs ===
Turner sometimes referred to herself as a "Buddhist–Baptist", alluding to her upbringing in the Baptist church where her father was a deacon and her later conversion to Buddhism as an adult. In a 2016 interview with Lion's Roar magazine, she declared, "I consider myself a Buddhist." The February 15, 1979, issue of Jet magazine featured Turner with her Buddhist altar on the cover. Turner credited the Liturgy of Nichiren Daishonin and Soka Gakkai International for her introduction to spiritual knowledge.
Turner stated in her 1986 autobiography I, Tina that she was introduced to Nichiren Buddhism by Valerie Bishop, who Ike hired to work at their studio, Bolic Sound, in 1973. Turner later stated in her 2020 spiritual memoir Happiness Becomes You that her son, Ronnie Turner, first suggested she might benefit from chanting. Turner practiced Buddhism with her neighborhood Soka Gakkai International chanting group. After chanting nam-myōhō-renge-kyō, Turner noticed positive changes in her life, which she attributed to her newfound spiritual practice. She said: "I realized that I had within me everyone I needed to change my life for the better." During the hardest times of her life, Turner chanted four hours per day, and although in later life she no longer chanted as much, she still maintained a daily practice. Turner likened Buddhist chanting to singing. She told Lion's Roar: "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a song. In the Soka Gakkai tradition we are taught how to sing it. It is a sound and a rhythm and it touches a place inside you. That place we try to reach is the subconscious mind. I believe that it is the highest place and, if you communicate with it, that is when you receive information on what to do." Dramatizations of Turner chanting were included both in the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do with It and in the 2021 documentary film Tina.
Turner met with the 14th Dalai Lama, in Einsiedeln, Switzerland, on August 2, 2005. She also met with Swiss-Tibetan Buddhist singer Dechen Shak-Dagsay and in 2009 co-created a spiritual music project with Shak-Dagsay and Swiss singer Regula Curti called Beyond.
=== Residences, citizenship, and wealth ===
Turner began living at Château Algonquin in Küsnacht on the shore of Lake Zurich in 1994. She had previously owned property in Cologne, London, and Los Angeles, and a villa on the French Riviera named Anna Fleur.
In 2013, Turner applied for Swiss citizenship, stating she would renounce her citizenship in the United States. The stated reasons for the relinquishment were that she no longer had any strong connections to the United States and "has no plans to reside" there in the future. In April, she undertook a mandatory citizenship test which included advanced knowledge of German (the official language of the canton of Zurich) and of Swiss history. On April 22, 2013, she became a citizen of Switzerland and was issued a Swiss passport. Turner signed the paperwork to relinquish her American citizenship at the US embassy in Bern on October 24, 2013.
Turner's wealth was estimated at 225 million Swiss francs (about US$250 million) in 2022 by the Swiss business magazine Bilanz.
== Illness and death ==
Turner revealed in her 2018 memoir My Love Story that she had multiple life-threatening illnesses. She had high blood pressure since 1978, which remained mostly untreated, and resulted in damage to her kidneys and eventual kidney failure. In 2013, three weeks after her wedding to Erwin Bach, she had a stroke and needed to learn to walk again. In 2016, she was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. She attempted to treat her health problems with homeopathy, which worsened her condition.
Her chances of receiving a kidney transplant were considered low and she was urged to start dialysis. She signed up with an organization that facilitates assisted suicide, a procedure which is legal in Switzerland, becoming a member of Exit International. However, her husband offered to donate a kidney for transplant. She accepted his donation and had kidney transplantation surgery on April 7, 2017.
=== Death and tributes ===
On May 24, 2023, Turner died at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, aged 83, following years of illness. Turner's body was cremated after a private funeral.
Following news of her death, her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was covered with flowers from fans. Fans around the world paid respect with flowers and candles lit outside her home in Switzerland and outside London's Aldwych Theatre – the home of the musical Tina. On May 25, 2023, theatres across the West End of London, dimmed their lights for two minutes to mark Turner's death.
Many fellow artists mourned her loss, including Beyoncé, Dolly Parton, Debbie Harry, Jimmy Barnes, Bette Midler, Peter Andre, Bryan Adams, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Madonna, Rod Stewart, Lizzo, Brittany Howard, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Cher.
Turner also received tributes by British model Naomi Campbell, as well as film and television figures such as Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett, Jenifer Lewis, Forest Whitaker, and theater producer Joop van den Ende. US president Joe Biden, as well as former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and Swiss president Alain Berset also paid tribute to Turner through public statements. King Charles III paid tribute by allowing "The Best" to be performed during the changing of the guard.
Patti LaBelle paid tribute to Turner with a rendition of "The Best" at the 2023 BET Awards in June 2023. In February 2024, Fantasia paid tribute to Turner with a performance of "Proud Mary" at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.
== Musical legacy and accolades ==
Often referred to as "The Queen of Rock and Roll", Turner is considered one of the greatest singers of all time. An article in The Guardian in 2018 noted her "swagger, sensuality, gravelly vocals and unstoppable energy", while The New York Times in 1996 noted that she was known for the appearance of her legs. Journalist Kurt Loder asserted that Turner's voice combined "the emotional force of the great blues singers with a sheer, wallpaper-peeling power that seemed made to order for the age of amplification". Daphne A. Brooks, a scholar of African-American studies, wrote for The Guardian:
Turner merged sound and movement at a critical turning point in rock history, navigating and reflecting back the technological innovations of a new pop-music era in the 60s and 70s. She catapulted herself to the forefront of a musical revolution that had long marginalized and overlooked the pioneering contributions of African American women and then remade herself again at an age when most pop musicians were hitting the oldies circuit. Turner's musical character has always been a charged combination of mystery as well as light, melancholy mixed with a ferocious vitality that often flirted with danger.
=== Awards, honors and achievements ===
At one time, Turner held a Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer (180,000 in 1988). In the UK, Turner was the first artist to have a top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades; she has a total of 35 UK top 40 hits. Turner was ranked as one of the most successful female singles artist in German chart history. She sold over 100 million records worldwide, including certified RIAA album sales of 10 million.
Turner won a total of 12 Grammy Awards. These awards include eight competitive Grammy Awards; she shares the record (with Pat Benatar, and with Sheryl Crow) for most awards (four) given for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Three of her recordings--"River Deep – Mountain High" (1999), "Proud Mary" (2003), and "What's Love Got to Do with It" (2012)--appear in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Turner is the only female artist to have won a Grammy in the pop, rock, and R&B fields. Turner received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. Turner also won Grammys as a member of USA for Africa and as a performer at the 1986 Prince's trust concert.
Turner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1986 and a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1991. She and Ike Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a duo in 1991. In 2005, Turner received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. President George W. Bush commented on her "natural skill, the energy and sensuality", and referred to her legs as "the most famous in show business". Several artists paid tribute to her that night including Melissa Etheridge (performing "River Deep – Mountain High"), Queen Latifah (performing "What's Love Got to Do with It"), Beyoncé (performing "Proud Mary"), and Al Green (performing "Let's Stay Together"). Oprah Winfrey stated, "We don't need another hero. We need more heroines like you, Tina. You make me proud to spell my name w-o-m-a-n."
In 2021, Turner was inducted by Angela Bassett into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. Keith Urban and H.E.R. performed "It's Only Love", Mickey Guyton performed "What's Love Got to Do with It", and Christina Aguilera performed "River Deep – Mountain High".
In September 2025, Turner was selected for induction into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
Turner has also received the following honors:
1967: Turner was the first black artist and first female on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine (Issue No. 2).
1977: She was named the most exciting woman of the year by International Bachelor's Society.
1984: Turner ranked No. 18 on 25 Most Intriguing People by People magazine.
1987: Berolina Award honored Turner with the biggest influence in music in Germany.
1990: Turner was voted for Best International female Singer of the year in Europe by Goldene Europa.
1990: Turner ranked No. 15 in Celebrity Sleuth 25 Sexiest Women of 1990 by Celebrity Skin (magazine).
1993: World Music Awards presented Turner with the Legend Award.
1993: Essence Awards honored Turner with the Living Legend Award.
1996: Turner's handprints at the Walk of Fame Europe Rotterdam.
1996: Turner was inducted into the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame by Vanity Fair.
1996: Turner received the accolade of Légion d'Honneur from the French education minister.
1997: Hanes campaign honored Turner for having the sexiest legs in the entertainment business.
1999: MOBO Awards honored Turner with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
1999: Productores de Música de España (Promusicae) honored Turner with the Legend Award.
1999: Turner was named one of The Sexiest Stars Over 50 by the American Association of Retired Persons.
1999: Turner ranked No. 11 on The 25 Coolest Women by The Advocate.
1999: Turner ranked No. 2 on VH1's list of 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.
2000: Turner ranked No. 33 on 50 Most Beautiful People in the World by People.
2000: Turner ranked No. 78 on USA Today Pop Candy's 100 People of the Year.
2002: Turner ranked No. 6 on VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists of All Time.
2002: Tennessee State Route 19 between Brownsville and Nutbush was named "Tina Turner Highway".
2002, She was voted at No. 56 in Q magazine's list of the Top 100 Women Who Rock The World.
2003: "What's Love Got to Do with It" was included in VH1's list of the 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 years.
2003: Turner ranked No. 22 on VH1's 50 Greatest Women Of The Video Era.
2003: Turner ranked No. 11 on Pollstar's Top 40 Grossing Tours of all-time in North America [Through 2003].
2003: Turner was included on VH1's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time".
2003: Rolling Stone ranked Proud Mary: The Best of Ike & Tina Turner No. 212 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (No. 214 on 2012 revised list).
2004: Turner was ranked No. 35 on Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Portraits.
2004: People ranked her 1985 performance of "What's Love Got to Do With It" as one of the top 10 Grammy moments.
2005: Turner was one of 25 African-American women saluted at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball, a three-day celebration honoring their contributions to art, entertainment, and civil rights.
2006: Turner ranked No. 9 on Sly Magazine's 10 Sexiest Women Over 40 [January 2006].
2006: Turner was voted one of The Sexiest Celebrity Grandparents of the Year by The Grand Magazine.
2007: Turner was ranked at number 19 on BET's "Top 25 Dancers of All Time".
2008: Rolling Stone ranked Turner No. 17 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.
2008: Turner was selected as the woman most admired by The Washington Post.
2009: Time ranked her 1985 performance of "What's Love Got to Do With It" as one of the top 10 Grammy moments.
2010: Rolling Stone ranked Turner No. 63 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
2011: Turner ranked No. 20 on The greatest singers ever by NME.
2012: Turner ranked No. 34 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time.
2012: Turner ranked No. 22 on The 100 hottest female singers of all time by complex.com.
2013: Turner covered Vogue Germany, becoming the oldest person (aged 73) to cover Vogue magazine, surpassing Meryl Streep (aged 62) who covered American Vogue in 2012.
2013: ABC named Turner one of the greatest women in music.
2013, Turner ranked No. 6 on most loved singers in Switzerland. by The Swiss TV channel SRF 1.
2013: Turner ranked No. 2 on 10 biggest musical comebacks of all time by Toronto Sun
2014: Turner ranked No. 2 on The 15 Greatest Legs In The Music Biz by VH1.
2014: Turner was inducted into the Soul Music Hall of Fame.
2015: Turner was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame.
2015: Turner ranked No. 4 on 11 Hair Icons of all time by Hype Hair.
2015: The Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School proved once again that it truly is Simply The Best addition to Tennessee Tourism, winning nine awards at The Tennessee Association of Museums Conference in a ceremony at Discovery Park of America.
2015: Turner ranked No. 33 on MetroNOW's Top 50 Gay Icons by MetroSource.
2015: Rolling Stone ranked Ike & Tina Turner No. 2 on their list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.
2015: Ike & Tina Turner were inducted into the St. Louis Classic Rock Hall of Fame.
2015, Turner was ranked number 29 in Billboard magazine's list of the "35 Greatest R&B Artists of All Time".
2016: Turner ranked No. 2 on Top 5 Greatest Voices in the History of Rock Music by ppcorn.com.
2016: An image of Turner taken by Jack Robinson in 1969 was used as the cover for The Last Shadow Puppets album Everything You've Come to Expect.
2016: Turner ranked No. 55 on The 75 Greatest Women of All Time by Esquire.
2018: Billboard listed Turner's performance in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) film as the 68th best performance of a musician in a box-office film.
2018: album Private Dancer appeared on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s and is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
2018: Billboard ranked Turner at number 37 on their Top 60 Female Artists of All-Time list.
2019: Turner was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
2020: She was one of the greatest Voices of the 80s by MTV.
2020: the publication included her on its list of the 100 Greatest Music Video Artists of All Time.
2020: Private Dancer was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.
2021: Turner became a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.
2021: Turner received an honorary doctorate for her "unique musical and artistic life's work" from the Philosophical and Historical Faculty of the University of Bern.
2022: Mattel released a Barbie doll in Turner's likeness to commemorate her single "What's Love Got to Do with It".
2023: Rolling Stone ranked Turner No. 55 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
2023: The song "What's Love Got to Do With It" appeared on Billboard's list of the 500 best pop songs of all time.
2023–2024: Smooth Radio ranked Turner No. 8 on their list of the top music icon of all time.
2025: Forbes ranked her No. 9 on The 50 Black Female Singers With Incredible Vocals List. and the number five female singer of the 80s .
2025: Turner was selected for induction into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame.
2025: A statue of Turner was unveiled in Brownsville, Tennessee.
== Discography ==
=== Studio albums ===
Good Hearted Woman (1974)
Tina Turns the Country On! (1974)
Acid Queen (1975)
Rough (1978)
Love Explosion (1979)
Private Dancer (1984)
Break Every Rule (1986)
Foreign Affair (1989)
Wildest Dreams (1996)
Twenty Four Seven (1999)
== Tours ==
1977: Australian Tour
1978: Tina Turner Revue
1979: Tina Turner Show
1981–1983: Tina Turner: Live in Concert
1984: 1984 World Tour
1985: Private Dancer Tour
1987–1988: Break Every Rule World Tour
1990: Foreign Affair: The Farewell Tour
1993: What's Love? Tour
1996–1997: Wildest Dreams Tour
2000: Twenty Four Seven Tour
2008–2009: Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour
=== As opening act ===
1981: American Tour 1981 (for the Rolling Stones)
1981: Worth Leavin' Home For Tour (for Rod Stewart)
1984: Can't Slow Down Tour (for Lionel Richie)
== Filmography ==
== Books ==
Tina! (1985).
I, Tina: My Life Story (1986)
My Love Story: A Memoir, Atria Books (2018)
Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Atria Books (2020)
Tina Turner: That's My Life (2020)
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
== External links ==
Official website
Tina Turner on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Tina Turner at AllMusic
Tina Turner discography at Discogs
Tina Turner at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Cyprus | Geography of Cyprus | Cyprus is an island in the Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, after the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia, and the 80th-largest island in the world by area. It is located south of the Anatolian Peninsula, yet it belongs to the Cyprus Arc. Geographically, Cyprus is located in West Asia, but the country is considered a European country in political geography. Cyprus also had lengthy periods of mainly Greek and intermittent Anatolian, Levantine, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Western European influence.
The island is dominated by two mountain ranges, the Troodos Mountains and the Kyrenia Mountains or Pentadaktylos, and the central plain, the Mesaoria, between them. The Troodos Mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The narrow Kyrenia Range extends along the northern coastline. It is not as high as the Troodos Mountains, and it occupies substantially less area. The two mountain ranges run generally parallel to the Taurus Mountains on the Turkish mainland, the outlines of which are visible from northern Cyprus. Coastal lowlands, varying in width, surround the island.
Geopolitically, the island is divided into four segments. The Republic of Cyprus, the only internationally recognized government, occupies the southern 60% of the island, and has been a member state of the European Union since 1 May 2004. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, diplomatically recognized only by Turkey, governs the northern third of the island, which is around 36% of the territory. The United Nations-controlled Green Line is a buffer zone that separates the two and it is about 4%. Lastly, two areas—Akrotiri and Dhekelia—remain under British sovereignty for military purposes, collectively forming the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (SBA). The SBAs are located on the southern coast of the island and together encompass 254 km2, or 2.8% of the island.
== Terrain ==
The rugged Troodos Mountains, whose principal range stretches from Pomos Point in the northwest almost to Larnaca Bay on the east, are the single most conspicuous feature of the landscape. Intensive uplifting and folding in the formative period left the area highly fragmented, so that subordinate ranges and spurs veer off at many angles, their slopes incised by steep-sided valleys. In the southwest, the mountains descend in a series of stepped foothills to the coastal plain.
While the Troodos Mountains are a massif formed of molten igneous rock, the Kyrenia Range is a narrow limestone ridge that rises suddenly from the plains. Its easternmost extension becomes a series of foothills on the Karpas Peninsula. That peninsula points toward Asia Minor, to which Cyprus belongs geologically. The Kyrenia Range is also known as the Pentadactylon Mountains, due to a summit resembling five fingers.
Even the highest peaks of the Kyrenia Range are hardly more than half the height of the great dome of the Troodos massif, Mount Olympus (1,952 m or 6,404 ft), but their seemingly inaccessible, jagged slopes make them considerably more spectacular. British writer Lawrence Durrell, in Bitter Lemons, wrote of the Troodos as "an unlovely jumble of crags and heavyweight rocks" and of the Kyrenia Range as belonging to "the world of Gothic Europe, its lofty crags studded with crusader castles."
Rich copper deposits were discovered in antiquity on the slopes of the Troodos. The massive sulphide deposits formed as a part of an ophiolite complex at a spreading centre under the Mediterranean Sea which was tectonically uplifted during the Pleistocene and emplaced in its current location.
== Drainage ==
In much of the island, access to a year-round supply of water is difficult. This is traditionally attributed to deforestation which damaged the island's drainage system through erosion, but Grove and Rackham question this view. A network of winter rivers rises in the Troodos Mountains and flows out from them in all directions. The Yialias River and the Pedhieos River flow eastward across the Mesaoria into Famagusta Bay; the Serraghis River flows northwest through the Morphou plain. All of the island's rivers, however, are dry in the summer. An extensive system of dams and waterways has been constructed to bring water to farming areas.
The central Mesaoria plain is the agricultural heartland of the island, but its productiveness for wheat and barley depends very much on winter rainfall; other crops are grown under irrigation.This broad, central plain, open to the sea at either end, was once covered with rich forests. However, the timber was needed by ancient conquerors for their sailing vessels, so little evidence of the woodland remains . The now-divided capital of the island, Nicosia, lies in the middle of this central plain.
== Natural vegetation ==
Despite its small size, Cyprus has a variety of natural vegetation. This includes forests of conifers and broadleaved trees such as pine (Pinus brutia), cedar, cypresses, and oaks. Ancient authors write that most of Cyprus, even Messaoria, was heavily forested, and there are still considerable forests on the Troodos and Kyrenia ranges, and locally at lower altitudes. About 12% of the whole island is classified as woodland. Where there is no forest, tall shrub communities of golden oak (Quercus alnifolia), strawberry tree (Arbutus andrachne), terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus), olive (Olea europaea), kermes oak (Quercus coccifera), and styrax (Styrax officinalis) are found, but such maquis is uncommon. Over most of the island untilled ground bears a grazed covering of garrigue, largely composed of low bushes of Cistus, Genista sphacelata, Calicotome villosa, Lithospermum hispidulum, Phagnalon rupestre, and, locally, Pistacia lentiscus. Where grazing is excessive this covering is soon reduced, and an impoverished batha remains, consisting principally of Thymus capitatus, Sarcopoterium spinosum, and a few stunted herbs.
== Climate ==
The intense Mediterranean climate, warm and rather dry, with rainfall mainly between November and March, favours agriculture. In general, the island experiences extremely mild wet winters and dry hot summers. Variations in temperature and rainfall are governed by altitude and, to a lesser extent, distance from the coast. Hot, dry summers from mid-May to mid-September and rainy, rather changeable winters from November to mid-March are separated by short autumn and spring seasons.
== Area and boundaries ==
Area:
Total:
9,251 km2 (of which 5,896 km2 (2,276 sq mi) are under the control of the Republic of Cyprus and of which 3,355 km2 (1,295 sq mi) are under the administration of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus)
Land:
9,241 km2
Water:
10 km2
Land boundaries:
0 km
Coastline:
648 km
Maritime claims:
Territorial sea:
12 nmi (22.2 km; 13.8 mi)
Continental shelf:
200 m depth or to the depth of exploitation
Exclusive Economic Zone:
98,707 km2 (38,111 sq mi)
Elevation extremes:
Lowest point:
Mediterranean Sea 0 m
Highest point:
Olympus 1,952 m
== Resource and land use ==
Natural resources:
copper, pyrite, asbestos, gypsum, timber, salt, marble, clay earth pigment
Land use:
arable land:
9.90%
permanent crops:
3.24%
other:
86.86% (2012)
Irrigated land:
457.9 km2 (2007)
Total renewable water resources:
0.78 km3 (2011)
Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):
total:
0.18 km3/yr (10%/3%/86%)
per capital:
164.7 m3/yr (2009)
== Environmental concerns ==
Natural hazards:
moderate earthquake activity; droughts
Environment – current issues:
water resource problems (no natural reservoir catchments, seasonal disparity in rainfall, sea water intrusion to island's largest aquifer, increased salination in the north); water pollution from sewage and industrial wastes; coastal degradation; loss of wildlife habitats from urbanization.
Environment – international agreements:
party to:
Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: none
== See also ==
Geology of Cyprus
List of Cyprus islets
List of dams and reservoirs in Cyprus
List of rivers of Cyprus
== References ==
Official Cyprus Government Web Site Archived 2006-05-08 at the Wayback Machine
Embassy of Greece, USA – Cyprus: Geographical and Historical Background
Attribution:
This article incorporates public domain material from "Cyprus". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). CIA. Retrieved 25 September 2022. (Archived 2022 edition.) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fort,_Muzaffarabad | Red Fort, Muzaffarabad | Red Fort (Urdu: لال قلعہ), also known as Muzaffarabad Fort, is a 16th-century fortification located in Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. Its construction was started by the Chak dynasty of Kashmir in 1559 but it was only completed in 1646 by Sultan Muzaffar Khan, a local ruler and the founder of Muzaffarabad. The fort is locally referred to as the 'Rutta Qila' or just 'qila'.
== Construction and architecture ==
In the 16th century, Chak rulers of Kashmir anticipated a threat to the city from the Mughals. For defence, they started construction of the fort in 1559 at a strategic location on the west of Muzaffarabad. The Mughal Empire annexed Kashmir in 1587, and the fort lost its importance. Finally, the construction of the fort was completed in 1646 in the reign of Sultan Muzaffar Khan of the Bomba Dynasty, the founder of Muzaffarabad.
The architecture of the fort shows that great experts in design and structure participated in its construction. It is surrounded on three sides by the Neelum River (formerly known as the Kishan Ganga River). The northern part of the fort had terraces with steps leading to the bank of the river. The main gate on eastern side was very well protected from the hazards of flood waters, but some parts on the north side have suffered damage. There used to be an inn at the entrance to the fort, but only traces of that structure remain now.
== Abandonment ==
In 1846, Maharaja Gulab Singh of the Dogra dynasty began reconstruction and extension of the fort for political and military operations and his successor Maharaja Ranbir Singh completed the work. The Dogra military then used the fort till 1926, after which a new cantonment was built, leaving the red fort abandoned once again. Towards the middle of 1947, the Dogra forces left, leaving the fort abandoned.
== Damage ==
Most of the fort's relics in museum associated with it were stolen by raiders and dealers and a large portion was destroyed during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.
== Renovation ==
Later in October 2019, Government of Azad Kashmir and Lahore Walled City Authority (LWCA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for restoration and conservation of Red Fort and other major heritage places in Azad Kashmir.
On his trip to Azad Kashmir in 2022, American ambassador in Pakistan Donald Blome visited the fort.
== See also ==
List of cultural heritage sites in Azad Kashmir
List of forts in Pakistan
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Hashmi, Anees ur Rashid; Aziz, K.Zahid; Swati, N.Iqbal (3 November 2023). "RETROSPECTIVE NARRATION OF MAJOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES IN MUZAFFARABAD CITY" (PDF). Ancient Punjab. 10 (University of the Punjab): 96–98. Retrieved 22 October 2024.
== External links ==
Red Fort at Walled City of Lahore Authority site |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kacey_Musgraves#:~:text=Musgraves%20appeared%20on%20the%20June,death%20in%20a%20house%20fire. | Kacey Musgraves | Kacey Lee Musgraves (born August 21, 1988) is an American country singer-songwriter. She began her career in the early 2000s, when she self-released three solo albums and recorded another album as a member of the duo Texas Two Bits. In 2007, Musgraves appeared on the fifth season of the USA Network singing competition Nashville Star, where she finished in seventh place. In 2012, she signed with Mercury Nashville and released the hit single "Merry Go 'Round". Her major-label debut studio album, Same Trailer Different Park (2013), won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.
Musgraves' second studio album, Pageant Material (2015), debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and yielded the critically and commercially successful singles "Biscuits" and "Dime Store Cowgirl". She released a Christmas-themed album, A Very Kacey Christmas (2016). Her fourth studio album Golden Hour (2018) was released to widespread critical acclaim and won all four of its nominated Grammy Award categories, including Album of the Year and Best Country Album. The album's first two singles, "Space Cowboy" and "Butterflies", won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance, respectively. Musgraves' fifth studio album, Star-Crossed (2021), became her fourth top-ten album on the Billboard 200. In 2023, she was featured on the single "I Remember Everything" by Zach Bryan, which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and won a Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Her sixth studio album, Deeper Well (2024), peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and the album's single "The Architect" won the Grammy Award for Best Country Song.
Musgraves has won eight Grammy Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards, and four Academy of Country Music Awards.
== Early life ==
Kacey Lee Musgraves was born August 21, 1988, in Sulphur Springs, Texas, and grew up in Golden, Texas. Her parents are Karen (née Abrams), an artist, and Craig Musgraves, owner of a small printing business, M-Prints Printing, Inc., in Mineola, Texas. Kacey said that she was born six weeks prematurely and weighed only five pounds. She has a younger sister, Kelly Christine Sutton (née Musgraves), who is a photographer and at times has photographed some of Kacey's work including in the Cotswolds in South West England.
Kacey Musgraves started writing songs at age eight. Her first song, "Notice Me", was for her elementary-school graduation. She first learned to play music on the mandolin, then at age 12 started taking guitar lessons from a local musician named John DeFoore, which she later described as "one of the most important things that ever happened to me." DeFoore also taught guitar to Miranda Lambert and Riley Thompson. Musgraves learned harmonica too.
Musgraves' mother took her to local music festivals to sing western swing music. She and co-student Alina Tatum formed country-music duo Texas Two Bits, toured through Texas, and released an independent album in 2000, and earned an invitation to perform at President George W. Bush's "Black Tie and Boots Inaugural Ball". Musgraves also won yodeling national championships and was selected to sing the national anthem at the 2002 Winter Olympics. At age 14, her family funded her first solo, self-released album. She graduated from Mineola High School in Mineola, Texas northwest of Tyler in 2006 and moved to Austin at 18. In 2007, Musgraves competed on Season 5 of the singing competition reality TV series Nashville Star, where she placed seventh. To sustain herself she took various jobs, including performing as Hannah Montana for children's birthday parties.
== Career ==
=== 2008–2014: Debut ===
Musgraves recorded three self-produced albums in 2002, 2003, and 2007. While living in Austin in 2008, she recorded two songs for independent record label Triple Pop. She collaborated with the Josh Abbott Band in 2010 on the song "Oh, Tonight". Musgraves' two acoustic recordings for Triple Pop (covers of OneRepublic's "Apologize" and Miley Cyrus' "See You Again") are available on a digital EP released in 2012. "Apologize" (Acoustic Version) charted in the Billboard Hot Singles Chart at No. 23 on February 15, 2014, and racked up over 31,000,000 streams on Spotify. To commemorate the 10-year anniversary on March 30, 2018, Triple Pop released the "Acoustic Remixed" digital EP, which featured newly remixed and remastered versions of the same recordings.
Musgraves joined Lady A on the European leg of their Own the Night Tour in 2012. In 2012, she signed with Mercury Nashville and released her solo debut single "Merry Go 'Round". The song is included on her major-label debut album Same Trailer Different Park, produced and co-written by Musgraves, Shane McAnally and Luke Laird and released on March 19, 2013. The album debuted at number 2, selling 42,000 copies. It produced additional hit singles in "Blowin' Smoke" and "Follow Your Arrow". Rolling Stone magazine listed "Follow Your Arrow" at number 39 of its list of 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time, and said that Musgraves was "one of the loudest symbols of young country musicians embracing progressive values." "Undermine", a song co-written by Musgraves and Trent Dabbs, was featured in one of the first episodes in the first season of the television series Nashville on October 17, 2012. Musgraves co-wrote Miranda Lambert's 2013 single "Mama's Broken Heart" and sang harmony on the song.
Musgraves was nominated for four awards at the 47th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in 2012, including Female Vocalist of the Year. Musgraves was also nominated for four Grammy Awards at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, tying Taylor Swift and Lorde for the most nominations received by a woman that year. Those nominations included Best New Artist, Best Country Album (Same Trailer Different Park), and Best Country Song for both "Mama's Broken Heart" and "Merry Go 'Round". "Merry Go 'Round" won the Best Country Song Grammy award, and Same Trailer Different Park won in Best Country Album.
Musgraves joined Katy Perry on the North American leg of her Prismatic World Tour as well as Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss on select dates during their tour. Musgraves provided backing vocals for "Bourbon in Kentucky", the lead single on Dierks Bentley's 2013 album Riser. In April 2014, Musgraves won the Academy of Country Music award for album of the year for Same Trailer Different Park. In June 2014, she released a new song called The Trailer Song, which she debuted on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Same Trailer Different Park was certified gold in August 2014 for selling over 500,000 copies. Musgraves' single "Follow Your Arrow" was also certified gold, and "Merry Go Round" was certified platinum.
=== 2015–2017: Early album releases ===
Musgraves announced in late August 2014 that she would perform a 10-show headlining tour, titled Same Tour Different Trailer, which started on September 25 and ended on October 19. In September 2014, she said that she had begun writing songs for her second major label album, and planned to write with Luke Laird and Shane MacAnally later in the year after her touring schedule wrapped. "Biscuits", the lead single from the album, was released on March 16, 2015.
Pageant Material, Musgraves' second studio album, was released on June 23, 2015. To support the album, Musgraves performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (June 9, 2015), Late Night with Seth Meyers (June 10, 2015), Good Morning America (June 23, 2015), The View (June 24, 2015), Jimmy Kimmel Live! (September 14, 2015), The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (January 8, 2016), and The Late Late Show with James Corden (April 6, 2016).
Musgraves was featured on a remix of Miguel's single "Waves", released on February 26, 2016. On September 7, 2016, Musgraves announced the release of her first Christmas album, A Very Kacey Christmas. The album, which features eight traditional and four original songs, was released on October 28, 2016, through Mercury Nashville. In support of the album, Musgraves embarked on a Christmas-themed tour, complete with a strings section, an accordion, a bass, a saxophone, a clarinet, and backup singers. In September 2016, Musgraves was selected as one of 30 country music artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again", and "I Will Always Love You". The song celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards and secured Musgraves her first number-one country single.
In 2017, Musgraves provided backing vocals on "All the Best", a John Prine cover, for Zac Brown Band's album Welcome Home. Also in 2017, Musgraves was featured on Outlaw: Celebrating the Music of Waylon Jennings. Originally recorded for TV, it later was released on CD and DVD. During the broadcast, Musgraves performed Jennings' song "The Wurlitzer Prize". Musgraves appeared on the June 21, 2017, episode of Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry to receive a psychic reading and connect with her grandmother, Barbara Taylor, to learn more details about her death in a house fire. Musgraves has said that her song "This Town", from the album Pageant Material, is about her grandmother, and that her grandmother sings during the opening of the song.
=== 2018–2020: Breakthrough ===
In October 2017, Musgraves posted a picture of herself on Twitter indicating she was in the studio writing new songs for her upcoming third studio album. On December 12, 2017, Musgraves announced the title of her third studio album Golden Hour through Entertainment Weekly. The songs "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy" were released as the first singles from the album on February 23, 2018. In March, Musgraves headlined the 2018 C2C: Country to Country festival in London after playing the festival in 2016.
Musgraves premiered "High Horse", the third song from the album, on March 22, 2018, on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 Apple Radio show. On March 29, 2018, she performed "Slow Burn" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Golden Hour was released on March 30, 2018, on MCA Nashville. On May 12, 2018, Musgraves was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, performing "High Horse" and "Slow Burn". Through June and July, Musgraves was the opening act on the second North American leg of Harry Styles: Live on Tour. In September, Musgraves appeared on a rerecorded version of "There's No Gettin' Over Me" with Ronnie Milsap for his 2019 duet album. On October 2, 2018, she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as the musical guest. In October 2018, Musgraves embarked on the Oh, What a World Tour in support of Golden Hour. The tour began in Oslo, Norway on October 13. In February 2019, Golden Hour won Album of the Year at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. In the same month, Musgraves released "Rainbow" as the fifth single from the album. In April, Musgraves featured on a newly recorded version of "Neon Moon" with Brooks and Dunn for their duet album Reboot. She also made a cameo appearance as herself in the country-music drama film Wild Rose, released in April. In May, Musgraves made her Met Gala debut as a Barbie doll and afterwards announced she had signed with modeling agency IMG. In August, Musgraves appeared at San Francisco's Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, among her largest festival appearances to date. In October 2019, Musgraves revealed that she would cover the song "All Is Found" for Frozen II. The song plays over the end credits and is also included on the soundtrack album.
On November 4, 2019, Musgraves announced The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show, a holiday special premiering through Amazon Amazon Prime Video on November 29. On November 20, 2019, she debuted the song "Glittery" featuring Troye Sivan on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The soundtrack to the show includes collaborations with other artists, including a cover of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" together with singer Lana Del Rey. The show also stars Kacey's grandmother Barbara (Nana) Musgraves. In April 2020, she appeared in the Together at Home virtual concert series and performed "Rainbow". That same month, she released an Earth Day inspired remix of "Oh, What a World".
=== 2020–present: Star-Crossed, Deeper Well and other projects ===
On May 29, 2020, Musgraves was featured on The Flaming Lips single "Flowers of Neptune 6" and also provided vocals on two additional tracks ("Watch the Lightbugs Glow" and "God and the Policeman") on their album American Head, which was released on September 11, 2020. Musgraves also provides backing vocals on several tracks on Ruston Kelly's second album Shape & Destroy, which was recorded before she and Kelly divorced. On December 10, 2020, Troye Sivan released a reworked version of his song "Easy" which features Musgraves and was produced by Mark Ronson. Musgraves' song "Oh, What A World" was used in the Paramount Network original Christmas movie Dashing in December. She voiced Earwig's mother in the English dub of the Studio Ghibli film, Earwig and the Witch.
In April 2021, Musgraves announced that her new album would be released later that year, in partnership with UMG Nashville and Interscope Records, her first release on the latter label. Golden Hour co-producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk will return to work on the project. Musgraves began teasing her next album by releasing snippets of new music on her 33rd birthday. On August 23, Musgraves revealed that her fifth album, now titled Star-Crossed, would be released on September 10, along with an accompanying 50-minute film which will be available for streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Musgraves also released the album's title track.
In August 2021, Musgraves announced a 15-city Star-Crossed: Unveiled Tour for the album Star-Crossed. On October 2, she became the first ever musical guest to perform nude on Saturday Night Live.
Musgraves collaborated with American country star Zach Bryan on the single "I Remember Everything" from his self-titled fourth studio album. The track debuted at the top position on the Billboard Hot 100, marking her first number 1 single on the chart. The single was nominated for two Grammy awards at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Duo/Group Performance winning the latter. On October 6, 2023, Musgraves collaborated with breakout artist Noah Kahan on a re-released version of the single "She Calls Me Back" from Kahan's album Stick Season. In 2023, Musgraves also executive produced the country music competition show My Kind of Country with Reese Witherspoon.
In February 2024, Musgraves announced her sixth studio album, Deeper Well, which was released on March 15, 2024. She performed two songs from the album on the March 2 episode of Saturday Night Live. She was a guest and interviewed for two hours on March 18, 2024, on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show; she performed three songs live with her band at Sirius' Nashville studio. In April 2024, Musgraves collaborated with American alternative rock band Rainbow Kitten Surprise on the single "Overtime," from the band's new album Love Hate Music Box. On August 10, 2024, Musgraves and Sabrina Carpenter were in a duet singing a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" during Carpenter's headline set at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco.
== Artistry ==
=== Influences ===
Musgraves lists Alison Krauss as one of her career role models, stating, "I mean, how many Grammys does she have? She's just remained solid and true and great, and I respect that".
Musgraves' favorite artist is John Prine and, in a tribute performance to him after his death in April 2020, she said that "my favorite quality of John's would be his sense of humor and it really influenced my songwriting a lot" and proclaimed "that man singlehandedly influenced me and my songwriting more than anyone else on this planet". She lists Lee Ann Womack as one of her childhood influences: "Lee Ann Womack is from near where I grew up in East Texas, so I've always looked up to her." Musgraves spoke of both Prine and Womack, "if I could sing it like Lee Ann would and say it like John would, then I feel like I've gotten somewhere".
Musgraves listed albums by Glen Campbell, Bobbie Gentry, Marty Robbins, Charley Pride, Roger Miller, and Jim Croce as influences on her sophomore album and an interview of hers with Rolling Stone Country cited Ray Price, Julie Miller, and Loretta Lynn as being other influences. In a Billboard interview, Musgraves said that she is a Dolly Parton fan, saying "Beauty, sex appeal, brains, wit, humor, beautiful songwriting, meaningful songwriting, no apologies for who she is, LGBTQ advocate long before it was even a thing or trendy or whatever... She's fearless and I admire her spirit a lot and she's very kind. She's very present when you're talking to her and I just really love her so much."
Noncountry artists whom Musgraves has mentioned as influences include Cher, Selena, Ryan Adams, Cake, Neil Young, Weezer, Imogen Heap, Bee Gees, Sade, and Electric Light Orchestra.
=== Lyrical themes and style ===
Critics have said Musgraves is a soprano. Her socially progressive lyrics draw attention in the generally conservative country music genre.
Her music has tackled topics such as LGBT acceptance, safe sexual intercourse, recreational marijuana use, and questioning religious sentiment. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Musgraves talked about criticism she faced for her rebellious lyrics. "I think throwing the rebel card out there is really cheap," she said. "The things I'm singing about are not controversial to me, I don't push buttons to push buttons. I talk about things that have made an impression on me that a lot of people everywhere are going through."
== Personal life ==
In 2014, in an interview with ABC Radio, Musgraves said her bandmate Misa Arriaga had been her boyfriend for several years after they first became friends and worked together.
Musgraves met Ruston Kelly in March 2016 at the Bluebird Café in Nashville. In May 2016, they had a songwriting date, and they began dating shortly after. Musgraves said that the song "Butterflies" from her album Golden Hour is about her courtship with Kelly; many other songs from the album were inspired by Kelly. On December 24, 2016, Musgraves and Kelly were engaged. They married on October 14, 2017, in Tennessee. The couple filed for divorce in July 2020 and it was finalized in September 2020.
From 2021 to 2023, Musgraves was in a relationship with Cole Schafer, a poet.
== Discography ==
Same Trailer Different Park (2013)
Pageant Material (2015)
A Very Kacey Christmas (2016)
Golden Hour (2018)
Star-Crossed (2021)
Deeper Well (2024)
== Tours ==
Headlining
Same Trailer Different Tour (2013–2015)
The Kacey Musgraves Country & Western Rhinestone Revue (2015–2016)
A Very Kacey Christmas Tour (2016)
Oh, What a World: Tour (2018–2019)
Oh, What a World: Tour II (2019)
Star-Crossed: Unveiled (2022)
Deeper Well World Tour (2024)
Opening act
50th Anniversary Tour for Loretta Lynn (2012)
2012 Spring Tour for John Mayer; canceled (2012)
Own the Night Tour for Lady Antebellum (2012)
Tornado Tour for Little Big Town (2013)
No Shoes Nation Tour for Kenny Chesney (2013)
Take Me Downtown Tour for Lady Antebellum (2013–2014)
Together in Concert for Willie Nelson and Family and Alison Krauss and Union Station (2014)
Prismatic World Tour for Katy Perry (2014)
Strait to Vegas for George Strait (2016)
The Breakers Tour for Little Big Town (2018)
Harry Styles: Live on Tour for Harry Styles (2018)
== Awards and honors ==
At the Grammy Awards Musgraves has received eight awards from seventeen nominations.
Album of the Year - Golden Hour (2019)
Best Country Song - "Merry Go 'Round" (2014), "Space Cowboy" (2019), "The Architect" (2025)
Best Country Album - Same Trailer Different Park (2014), Golden Hour (2019)
Best Country Solo Performance - "Butterflies" (2019)
Best Country Duo/Group Performance - "I Remember Everything" with Zach Bryan (2024)
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Kacey Musgraves at AllMusic
Kacey Musgraves discography at Discogs
Interview with Kacey Musgraves on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Barker_Medal | Geoffrey Barker Medal | The Geoffrey Barker Medal, first awarded in 1988, is given by the Royal Society of Chemistry to scientists working in the UK or Ireland in recognition of their contributions to electrochemistry. The winner is invited to give a plenary lecture at that year's Electrochem meeting.
== Laureates ==
Source: RSC
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Robins | Russell Robins | Russell John Robins (21 February 1932 – 27 September 2019) was a Welsh rugby union, and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s and 1950s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for British Lions and Wales, and at club level for Pontypridd RFC, as a Lock, Flanker, or Number eight, and club level rugby league (RL) for Leeds.
== Background ==
Robins was born in Pontypridd, Wales in 1932.
He was educated at Pontypridd Grammar School. Robins worked for the National Coal Board, but after completing his national service he became a lecturer for the Army. On switching codes from rugby union he became a professional rugby league footballer. In the 1960/70s he was a maths teacher at the Army Apprentice College at Chepstow where he coached the rugby team and also played for the staff team.
== International honours ==
Russell Robins won caps for Wales (RU) while at Pontypridd RFC in 1953 against Scotland, in 1954 against France, and Scotland, in 1955 against England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, in 1956 against England, and France, and in 1957 against England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, and won caps for British Lions (RU) while at Pontypridd RFC on the 1955 British Lions tour to South Africa against South Africa (4 matches).
== References ==
== External links ==
Search for "Robins" at rugbyleagueproject.org
Russell Robins at ESPNscrum (archived)
Statistics at wru.co.uk
Club Focus, Pontypridd
Russell Robbins Player Profile
Image of Russell Robins with former referee, Cenydd Thomas
Russell Robins was an ever-present during the Lions' four-match Test series in South Africa 53 years ago
Club Focus - Pontypridd - Ex-Players |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Wallis_Myers | A. Wallis Myers | Arthur Wallis Myers (24 July 1878 – 17 June 1939) was an English tennis correspondent, editor, author and player. He was one of the leading tennis journalists of the first half of the 20th century.
== Family life ==
Myers was son of the Rev. John Brown Myers, secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, and Agnes Traphena (née Nutter). He attended the Watford Endowed School and The Leys School in Cambridge.
In 1900 Myers married Lilian Gentry, daughter of Captain George Gentry, of Maldon, Essex. The couple had seven children, the youngest of whom, Prue, wrote a tribute to her father entitled A. Wallis Myers: A testament to tennis.
== Playing career ==
He was a keen tennis player himself and was active mainly in amateur doubles competition. In April 1906 he won the doubles title with New Zealander Anthony Wilding at the Championships of Barcelona. He also won the Monte Carlo doubles championship in 1910 and 1921.
In mixed doubles competition, Myers competed at Monte Carlo in 1909 and later at the 1914 World Hard Court Championships with Phyllis Satterthwaite, reaching the semi-finals. He also teamed up with Molla Bjurstedt Mallory for the 1923 Monte Carlo tournament.
Also in 1923 he won the doubles title at the South of France Championships. He was the captain of British tennis teams on tour in Europe, South Africa and India.
== Journalism ==
Myers was the editor of the Ayers Lawn Tennis Almanack beginning in 1908. The following year he began work as the lawn tennis correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, a position he held until his death in 1939. He also served as lawn tennis editor of The Field and he wrote several books on tennis including a biography of four-time Wimbledon champion Anthony Wilding who was killed in the First World War. During that war Myers served in the Ministry of Information.
In 1924 he founded the International Lawn Tennis Club of Great Britain with Lord Balfour, former Prime Minister and later a Member of the Cabinet, as its first President.
== Honours ==
Myers was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1920 New Year Honours, dated 30 March 1920, for his work at the Ministry of Information.
He was appointed Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion of Honour by French President Paul Doumer on 29 April 1932 for his service to the game of tennis.
== Bibliography ==
Lawn tennis at home and abroad (1903) (online)
The complete lawn tennis player (1908) (online)
Leaders of lawn tennis (1912) (online)
C.B. Fry : the man and his methods (1912)
The story of the Davis Cup (1913)
Captain Anthony Wilding (1916) (online)
Twenty years of lawn tennis : some personal memories (1921) (online)
Fifty years of Wimbledon : the story of the lawn tennis championships (1926)
Lawn tennis, its principles & practice: a player's guide to modern methods (1930)
Memory's parade (1932)
== References ==
== External links ==
A. Wallis Myers at the Association of Tennis Professionals |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horacio_Coppola | Horacio Coppola | Horacio Coppola (31 July 1906 – 18 June 2012) was an Argentine photographer and filmmaker, and the husband of the German photographer Grete Stern.
== Biography ==
Coppola was born in Buenos Aires, the youngest of 10 children. His parents, Italian immigrants, were well off, and he studied art, music, law and languages. He was about 20 when he began taking photographs.
He traveled to Europe in the 1920s and ’30s. Photography was coming into its own as an art form, with pictures being shot from odd angles and cropped for effect.
He met his future wife in Germany. Later, in London, he took portraits of famous artists, and worked on a book about Mesopotamian artifacts in the Louvre and the British Museum. He and his wife went back to Argentina in 1936. That year, he was commissioned to photograph Buenos Aires for its 400th anniversary, and produced streetscapes that captured the romance, vitality and squalor of a great city.
He and Ms. Stern had a daughter, Silvia, and a son, Andres. They later divorced. In 1959, Coppola married Raquel Palomeque, a pianist.
Coppola was the author of the photographs that appeared in the first edition of "Evaristo Carriego" (biography) (1930) by Jorge Luis Borges. He was one of the pioneers photographers from Argentina and a key figure in Modernism. He studied in the Bauhaus during the thirties.
He was named "Illustrious Citizen of Buenos Aires" and at 100 had a retrospective exhibit at the Malba Museum in Buenos Aires.
== Gallery ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Horacio Coppola at IMDb
Fotografo: Horacio Coppola (Spanish)
"Horacio Coppola, Evocative Argentine Photographer, Dies at 105," Obituary, New York Times, July 2, 2012
Obituary Buenos Aires Herald
Horacio Coppola
Indexarte
El País |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Waves | Planet Waves | Planet Waves is the fourteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 17, 1974, by Asylum Records in the United States and Island Records in the United Kingdom.
Dylan is supported on the album by longtime collaborators the Band, with whom he embarked on a major reunion tour (documented on the live album Before the Flood) following its release. With a successful tour and a host of publicity, Planet Waves was a hit, enjoying a brief stay at No. 1 on the US Billboard charts—a first for the artist—and No. 7 in the UK. Reviews were generally positive; critics were not as negative as they had been with some then-recent Bob Dylan albums (namely Self Portrait and Dylan) but still not enthusiastic for the album's brand of laid-back roots rock, but it was nevertheless considered an improvement over those albums.
The album was originally set to be titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a reference to the song "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", from the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home; the release was delayed two weeks when Dylan decided to change the title at the last minute. Another, earlier, working title was Wedding Song.
== Artwork ==
The cover art is drawn by Dylan himself. Written on the right side of the cover image is the phrase "Cast-iron songs & torch ballads", apparently signaling Dylan's own conception of the album. On the left side is written "Moonglow", which is sometimes interpreted as a subtitle. The original back artwork for the album is handwritten, with a long, rambling essay on the left-hand side. In the center, the performers' names are listed, though Richard Manuel's surname is misspelled "Manual". The initial release also included an insert, which reportedly set out excerpts from Dylan's personal journals.
== Recording ==
In the summer of 1973, Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist of the Band, relocated to Malibu, California, not far from Dylan's residence. According to Robertson, the idea of collaborating with Dylan evolved from a conversation that took place sometime after July 28, when the Band played to hundreds of thousands of people at Summer Jam at Watkins Glen in upstate New York. After much discussion about that experience, the idea of touring again "seemed to really make sense," says Robertson. "It was a good idea, a kind of step into the past...The other guys in the Band came out [to Malibu] and we went right to work."
Dylan had not toured since 1966, when the Band accompanied him as The Hawks. In the interim, he had played with the Band on a number of occasions, most recently a New Year's concert in 1971/1972 that was received warmly by the audience. When Dylan joined the Band for a test run at Robertson's home in September 1973, he was satisfied with the results, enough to proceed with touring plans.
"We sat down and played for four hours and ran over an incredible number of tunes", recalls Robertson. "Bob would ask us to play certain tunes of ours, and then we would do the same, then we'd think of some that we would particularly like to do."
Dylan left for New York in October to compose new material for album sessions scheduled in November. He already had three songs ("Forever Young", "Nobody 'Cept You" and "Never Say Goodbye") which he had demoed in June, and when he returned to Malibu after twenty days in New York, he had six more.
On Friday, November 2, Dylan and the Band held a session at Village Recorder Studio B in Los Angeles, California. Engineer Rob Fraboni recalls the proceedings as fairly relaxed and informal, an opportunity "to get set up and to get a feel for the studio." Drummer Levon Helm was not even present, as he was still in transit, on his way to Los Angeles from the East Coast. Nevertheless, the session was devoted to all three songs demoed in June, and Dylan and the Band succeeded in recording complete takes of "Forever Young" and "Nobody 'Cept You" as well as the master take for "Never Say Goodbye".
When Dylan and the Band reconvened at Village Recorder the following Monday, November 5, with Levon Helm now present, they made another attempt at "Nobody 'Cept You". Robertson abandoned the wah-wah pedal used during the November 2 session, and a satisfactory take was completed and marked for possible inclusion. Master takes for "You Angel You" and "Going, Going, Gone" were also completed.
"Forever Young" occupied a portion of the Monday session, but the results were not to Dylan's satisfaction. He returned to it for three more sessions, as it proved to be the most difficult song to record.
On the next day, November 6, Dylan and the Band recorded master takes for three more songs: "Hazel", "Something There Is About You" and "Tough Mama".
They reconvened two days later, on November 8, performing three takes of "Going, Going, Gone" before recording "On A Night Like This". Attempts at the former would not replace the master take from the 5th, but a master take of the latter was successfully recorded. The session would then end with "Forever Young".
After several false starts, Dylan and the Band executed what would ultimately be one of two master takes for "Forever Young". However, Dylan nearly rejected the performance after hearing some disparaging criticism from one particular visitor.
"We only did one [complete] take of the slow version of 'Forever Young,'" recalls Fraboni. "This take was so riveting, it was so powerful, so immediate, I couldn't get over it. When everyone came in nobody really said anything. I rewound the tape and played it back and everybody listened to it from beginning to end and then when it was over everybody sort of just wandered out of the room. There was no outward discussion. Everybody just left. There was just [a friend] and I sitting there. I was so overwhelmed I said, 'Let's go for a walk.' We went for a walk and came back and I said, 'Let's go listen to that again.' We were like one minute or two into it, I was so mesmerized by it again I didn't even notice that Bob had come into the room...So when we were assembling the master reel I was getting ready to put that [take] on the master reel. I didn't even ask. And Bob said, 'What're you doing with that? We're not gonna use that.' And I jumped up and said, 'What do you mean you're not gonna use that? You're crazy! Why?' Well,...during the recording...[Dylan's childhood friend] Lou Kemp and this girl came by and she had made a crack to him: 'C'mon, Bob. What! Are you getting mushy in your old age?' It was based on her comment that he wanted to leave [that version] off the record."
Fraboni would defend the recording, and when he refused to relent, Dylan reconsidered and allowed him to include it on the album. Fraboni also convinced Dylan to do his first vocal overdubs for the album. (Although the Band had three regular vocalists—Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Helm—none of them sing on the album.)
On November 9, Dylan held what he intended to be the final session for the album. From Fraboni's perspective, Dylan already had a perfect take of "Forever Young" from the previous day, but Dylan still attempted a different, acoustic arrangement, which was ultimately rejected. Dylan would tell Fraboni that afternoon, "I been carrying this song around in my head for five years and I never wrote it down and now I come to record it I just can't decide how to do it."
The last song recorded on the 9th was a new composition titled "Wedding Song", which Dylan had completed over the course of the sessions. "Nobody 'Cept You" was originally planned as the album's closing number, but without a satisfactory performance, it would be omitted and replaced by "Wedding Song" (The November 2 recording of "Nobody 'Cept You" was eventually released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991).
Though there was enough material to fill an album, Dylan decided to hold one more session. On the 14th, the Band was called back to record two songs. The first was another arrangement of "Forever Young", this time with Helm on mandolin and Danko on fiddle. This new version of "Forever Young" would create the second of two master takes for the song, and both of them would be included on the album.
The second song recorded on the 14th was "Dirge" (or "Dirge For Martha" as it was marked on the recording sheet). "Bob went out and played the piano while we were mixing [the album]. All of a sudden, he came in and said, 'I'd like to try 'Dirge' on the piano.'...We put up a tape and he said to Robbie, 'Maybe you could play guitar on this.' They did it once, Bob playing piano and singing, and Robbie playing acoustic guitar. The second time was the take."
== Songs ==
Critic Bill Wyman described Planet Waves via Salon.com as "a spare but twisted collection of songs". As a whole, they deal with domestic themes with a few tracks seeming like straightforward love songs, particularly the opener "On A Night Like This" and "You Angel You" (which Dylan dismissed in 1985 as having "dummy lyrics"). However, as music critic Tim Riley notes, many of the songs take on darker overtones, with lyrics suggesting "death ('Dirge'), suicide ('Going, Going, Gone,' a song that doesn't toy around with the idea), and the brick wall that love collides with when possessiveness curdles into obsession (the overstated contradictions of 'Wedding Song')." Unlike the "settled-in homilies" of Nashville Skyline and New Morning, Planet Waves is "rounded out with more than one shade of romance: subterfuge, suspicion, self-hate ('Dirge,' 'Tough Mama'), and memory ('Something There Is About You') counter lighthearted celebration ('On A Night Like This')."
Many critics gave the performances on Planet Waves plenty of attention, perhaps more than the songs themselves. Dylan and the Band had performed on numerous occasions, most notably on tour in 1966 and during the "Basement Tapes" sessions of 1967, but at the time of Planet Waves's release, very few of these performances were officially released.
"The Band's windup pitch to 'Going, Going, Gone' is a wonder of pinpoint ensemble playing", writes Riley. "Robertson makes his guitar entrance choke as if a noose had suddenly tightened around its neck, and you get the feeling these guys could shadow Dylan in their sleep." Riley also writes that "'Tough Mama' is the track that exemplifies the best playing on Planet Waves, and a pitch of writing that shows Dylan can still challenge himself." Clinton Heylin also singled out Dylan's performances, noting that "Tough Mama" featured "one of his raunchiest vocals".
Cash Box said of "Something There Is About You" that it is "strong on the lyric with fine backing from the Band and Bob's usual unique vocal performance." Record World called it "a somewhat cute (for Dylan) observation on such diverse topics as Duluth, Ruth and truth."
Arguably the most celebrated song on Planet Waves, "Forever Young", was originally written for his children, and a demo recording from June 1973 (released on Biograph in 1985) explicitly shows this. As described by Heylin, the song is "an attempt to write something hymnal and heartfelt that spoke of the father in him." Though two different versions were released on the album, most critics and listeners defer to the "beautiful slow waltz of a performance" recorded on November 8 as the primary recording. It is not a waltz, it is in 4/4 time. Formally this song is a passacaglia, just as "Something There Is About You".
"Dirge", "his most twisted song since the accident", writes Heylin, "represents a quite astonishing catharsis on Dylan's part. As the narrator expresses an underlying hatred for 'the need that was expressed' by her presence, he encapsulates all the ambivalence this popular artist felt for both muse and audience." Critics also singled out Dylan's piano playing in praising the recording.
The closing number on Planet Waves is "Wedding Song", and over the years, a number of critics have called it autobiographical. "It begins with the narrator attempting to convince his lady love that he loves her 'more than life itself,'" writes Heylin. "However, the focus begins to turn when he informs her, "we can't regain what went down in the flood." Dylan would, five months later in June 1974, release his first live album and call it Before the Flood, evidently referring to the concert reprises from his 60's material. By the sixth verse we have come to the crux of the song—the singer's protestation that it's never been his duty "to remake the world at large", nor is it his intention "to sound a battle charge" because he loves her 'more than all of that.'" Many critics have dismissed such claims of autobiographical content, making "Wedding Song" one of the more debated numbers on Planet Waves.
== Reception ==
Planet Waves was Dylan's first album of new music in three and a half years. With a planned tour to follow, his first since 1966 and backed by the same band that supported him on that tour, the media coverage was significant. Asylum Records had planned to release Planet Waves on the same day the tour began, but an album title change (from Ceremonies of the Horsemen) and a last-minute substitution in liner notes (also written by Dylan) pushed the release date back two weeks.
Planet Waves would ship gold, topping Billboard's album charts on the basis of advance orders, but by the end of 1974, it had sold a modest 600,000 copies, selling only 100,000 units after those initial orders were made. The figures were a surprise, considering the enormous success of the tour; it is estimated that $92 million worth of checks and money orders were sent in from roughly ten million ticket applicants.
The critical reception was generally positive, if a bit muted. The consensus was ultimately strong enough to secure Planet Waves at #18 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1974. "In a time when all the most prestigious music, even what passes for funk, is coated with silicone grease, Dylan is telling us to take that grease and jam it", wrote critic Robert Christgau. "Sure he's domestic, but his version of conjugal love is anything but smug, and this comes through in both the lyrics and the sound of the record itself. Blissful, sometimes, but sometimes it sounds like stray cat music—scrawny, cocky, and yowling up the stairs."
Ellen Willis of The New Yorker wrote, "Planet Waves is unlike all other Dylan albums: it is openly personal...I think the subject of Planet Waves is what it appears to be—Dylan's aesthetic and practical dilemma, and his immense emotional debt to Sara."
Only "Tough Mama", "Something There is About You", "Forever Young" and "Wedding Song" were played on the tour (as well as a solo, acoustic rendition of the outtake, "Nobody 'Cept You"), and as the tour progressed, songs from the album were removed from the setlist. By the end of the tour, only "Forever Young" was left. In the meantime, Dylan and the Band professionally recorded many of the shows as they planned their next release. None of the Planet Waves songs were included on the subsequent Before the Flood live album, but many of the recordings can be heard on 2024's The 1974 Live Recordings.
== Track listing ==
All tracks are written by Bob Dylan.
== Personnel ==
Bob Dylan – guitar, piano, harmonica, vocals, cover artwork
Rick Danko – bass guitar
Levon Helm – drums, mandolin
Garth Hudson – Lowrey organ, accordion
Richard Manuel – piano, drums
Robbie Robertson – guitar
Ken Lauber – conga (6)
Technical
Rob Fraboni – production, engineering
David Gahr, Joel Bernstein – photography
Nat Jeffery – assistant engineer
Robbie Robertson – special assistance
== Charts ==
== Certifications ==
== In popular culture ==
This album is referenced in Part 6 of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Stone Ocean, with a character possessing a power called "Planet Waves".
== References ==
== External links ==
Bob Dylan's Shortest Interview – Planet Waves |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#:~:text=As%20of%20April%202024%2C%20StatCounter,is%20also%20dominant%20on%20smartphones. | Google Chrome | Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was launched in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, on which it serves as the platform for web applications.
Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project known as Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware. WebKit was the original rendering engine, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine; all Chrome variants except iOS used Blink as of 2017.
As of September 2025, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 71.77% worldwide browser market share (after peaking at 72.38% in November 2018) on personal computers. It is the most in use browser on tablets (having surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones. With a market share of 71.77% across all platforms combined, Chrome is the most used web browser in the world today.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was previously involved in the "browser wars" (a part of U.S. corporate history) and was against the expansion of the company into such a new area. However, Google co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, spearheaded a software demonstration that pushed Schmidt into making Chrome a core business priority, which resulted in it becoming a commercial success. Because of the proliferation of Chrome, Google has expanded the "Chrome" brand name to other products. This includes ChromeOS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase.
== History ==
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser for six years. He stated that "at the time, Google was a small company", and he did not want to go through "bruising browser wars". Company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome. Afterwards, Schmidt said, "It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind."
In September 2004, rumors of Google building a web browser first appeared. Online journals and U.S. newspapers stated at the time that Google was hiring former Microsoft web developers, among others. It also came shortly after the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0, which was surging in popularity and taking market share from Internet Explorer, which had noted security problems.
Chrome is based on the open-source code of the Chromium project. Development of the browser began in 2006, spearheaded by Sundar Pichai.
Google has since become the world's most popular search engine. 90% of searches on search engines come from Google users
=== Announcement ===
The release announcement was originally scheduled for September 3, 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features within the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early, and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on September 1, 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books, and mentioned it on their official blog along with an explanation for the early release. The product was named "Chrome" as an initial development project code name, because it is associated with fast cars and speed. Google kept the development project name as the final release name, as a "cheeky" or ironic moniker, as one of the main aims was to minimize the user interface chrome.
=== Public release ===
The browser was first publicly released, officially as a beta version, on September 2, 2008, for Windows XP and newer, and with support for 43 languages, and later as a "stable" public release on December 11, 2008. On that same day, a CNET news item drew attention to a passage in the Terms of Service statement for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser. This passage was inherited from the general Google terms of service. Google responded to this criticism immediately by stating that the language used was borrowed from other products, and removed this passage from the Terms of Service.
Chrome quickly gained about 1% usage share. After the initial surge, usage share dropped until it hit a low of 0.69% in October 2008. It then started rising again and by December 2008, Chrome again passed the 1% threshold. In early January 2009, CNET reported that Google planned to release versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux in the first half of the year. The first official macOS and Linux developer previews of Chrome were announced on June 4, 2009, with a blog post saying they were missing many features and were intended for early feedback rather than general use. In December 2009, Google released beta versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux. Google Chrome 5.0, announced on May 25, 2010, was the first stable release to support all three platforms.
Chrome was one of the twelve browsers offered on BrowserChoice.eu to European Economic Area users of Microsoft Windows in 2010.
=== Development ===
Chrome was assembled from 25 different code libraries from Google and third parties such as Mozilla's Netscape Portable Runtime, Network Security Services, NPAPI (dropped as of version 45), Skia Graphics Engine, SQLite, and several other open-source projects. The V8 JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark coordinated by Lars Bak. According to Google, existing implementations were designed "for small programs, where the performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important", but web applications such as Gmail "are using the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and JavaScript", and therefore would significantly benefit from a JavaScript engine that could work faster.
Chrome initially used the WebKit rendering engine to display web pages. In 2013, they forked the WebCore component to create their own layout engine, Blink. Based on WebKit, Blink only uses WebKit's "WebCore" components, while substituting other components, such as its own multi-process architecture, in place of WebKit's native implementation. Chrome is internally tested with unit testing, automated testing of scripted user actions, fuzz testing, as well as WebKit's layout tests (99% of which Chrome is claimed to have passed), and against commonly accessed websites inside the Google index within 20–30 minutes. Google created Gears for Chrome, which added features for web developers typically relating to the building of web applications, including offline support. Google phased out Gears as the same functionality became available in the HTML5 standards.
In March 2011, Google introduced a new simplified logo to replace the previous 3D logo that had been used since the project's inception. Google designer Steve Rura explained the company's reasoning for the change: "Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit – to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all."
On January 11, 2011, the Chrome product manager, Mike Jazayeri, announced that Chrome would remove H.264 video codec support for its HTML5 player, citing the desire to bring Google Chrome more in line with the currently available open codecs available in the Chromium project, which Chrome is based on. Despite this, on November 6, 2012, Google released a version of Chrome on Windows which added hardware-accelerated H.264 video decoding. In October 2013, Cisco announced that it was open-sourcing its H.264 codecs, and it would cover all fees required.
On February 7, 2012, Google launched Google Chrome Beta for Android 4.0 devices. On many new devices with Android 4.1 or later preinstalled, Chrome is the default browser. In May 2017, Google announced a version of Chrome for augmented reality and virtual reality devices.
== Features ==
Google Chrome features a minimalistic user interface, with its user-interface principles later being implemented in other browsers. For example, the merging of the address bar and search bar into the omnibox or omnibar.
=== Web standards support ===
The first release of Google Chrome passed both the Acid1 and Acid2 tests. Beginning with version 4.0, Chrome passed all aspects of the Acid3 test, However, as of April 2017 Chrome no longer passes Acid3 due to changing consensus on Web standards.
As of May 2011, Chrome has very good support for JavaScript/ECMAScript according to Ecma International's ECMAScript standards conformance Test 262 (version ES5.1 May 18, 2012). This test reports as the final score the number of tests a browser failed; hence, lower scores are better. In this test, Chrome version 37 scored 10 failed/11,578 passed. For comparison, Firefox 19 scored 193 failed/11,752 passed, and Internet Explorer 9 had a score of 600+ failed, while Internet Explorer 10 had a score of 7 failed.
In 2011, on the official CSS 2.1 test suite by the standardization organization W3C, WebKit, the Chrome rendering engine, passed 89.75% (89.38% out of 99.59% covered) CSS 2.1 tests.
On the HTML5 web standards test, Chrome 41 scored 518 out of 555 points, placing it ahead of the five most popular desktop browsers. Chrome 41 on Android scored 510 out of 555 points. Chrome 44 scored 526, only 29 points less than the maximum score.
=== User interface ===
By default, the main user interface includes back, forward, refresh/cancel, and menu buttons. A home button is not shown by default, but can be added through the Settings page to take the user to the new tab page or a custom home page.
Tabs are the main component of Chrome's user interface and have been moved to the top of the window rather than below the controls. This subtle change contrasts with many existing tabbed browsers, which are based on windows and contain tabs. Tabs, with their state, can be transferred between window containers by dragging. Each tab has its own set of controls, including the Omnibox.
The Omnibox is a URL box that combines the functions of both the address bar and search box. If a user enters the URL of a site previously searched from, Chrome allows pressing Tab to search the site again directly from the Omnibox. When a user starts typing in the Omnibox, Chrome provides suggestions for previously visited sites (based on the URL or in-page text), popular websites (not necessarily visited before – powered by Google Instant), and popular searches. Although Instant can be turned off, suggestions based on previously visited sites cannot be turned off. Chrome will also autocomplete the URLs of sites visited often. If a user types keywords into the Omnibox that do not match any previously visited websites and presses enter, Chrome will conduct the search using the default search engine.
One of Chrome's differentiating features is the New Tab Page, which can replace the browser home page and is displayed when a new tab is created. Originally, this showed thumbnails of the nine most visited websites, along with frequent searches, recent bookmarks, and recently closed tabs; similar to Internet Explorer and Firefox with Google Toolbar, or Opera's Speed Dial. In Google Chrome 2.0, the New Tab Page was updated to allow users to hide thumbnails they did not want to appear.
Starting in version 3.0, the New Tab Page was revamped to display thumbnails of the eight most visited websites. The thumbnails could be rearranged, pinned, and removed. Alternatively, a list of text links could be displayed instead of thumbnails. It also features a "Recently closed" bar that shows recently closed tabs and a "tips" section that displays hints and tricks for using the browser. Starting with Google Chrome 3.0, users can install themes to alter the appearance of the browser. Many free third-party themes are provided in an online gallery, accessible through a "Get themes" button in Chrome's options.
Chrome includes a bookmarks submenu that lists the user's bookmarks, provides easy access to Chrome's Bookmark Manager, and allows the user to toggle a bookmarks bar on or off.
On January 2, 2019, Google introduced Native Dark Theme for Chrome on Windows 10.
In 2023, it was announced that Chrome would be completely revamped, using Google's Material You design language, the revamp would include more rounded corners, Chrome colors being swapped out for a similar dynamic color system introduced in Android 12, a revamped address bar, new icons and tabs, and a more simplified 3 dot menu.
=== Built-in tools ===
Starting with Google Chrome 4.1, the application added a built-in translation bar using Google Translate. Language translation is currently available for 52 languages. When Chrome detects a foreign language other than the user's preferred language set during the installation time, it asks the user whether or not to translate.
Chrome allows users to synchronize their bookmarks, history, and settings across all devices with the browser installed by sending and receiving data through a chosen Google Account, which in turn updates all signed-in instances of Chrome. This can be authenticated either through Google credentials or a sync passphrase.
For web developers, Chrome has an element inspector that allows users to look inside any web page's Document Object Model (DOM) structure and examine the code elements that make up the webpage.
Chrome has special URLs that load application-specific pages instead of websites or files on disk. Chrome also has a built-in ability to enable experimental features. Originally called about:labs, the address was changed to about:flags to make it less obvious to casual users.
The desktop edition of Chrome can save pages as HTML with assets in a "_files" subfolder, or as an unprocessed HTML-only document. It also offers an option to save in the MHTML format.
=== Desktop shortcuts and apps ===
Chrome allows users to make local desktop shortcuts that open web applications in the browser. The browser, when opened in this way, contains none of the regular interface except for the title bar, so as not to "interrupt anything the user is trying to do". This allows web applications to run alongside local software (similar to Mozilla Prism and Fluid).
This feature, according to Google, would be enhanced with the Chrome Web Store, a one-stop web-based web applications directory which opened in December 2010.
In September 2013, Google started making Chrome apps "For your desktop". This meant offline access, desktop shortcuts, and less dependence on Chrome—apps launch in a window separate from Chrome, and look more like native applications.
==== Chrome Web Store ====
Announced on December 7, 2010, the Chrome Web Store allows users to install web applications as extensions to the browser, although most of these extensions function simply as links to popular web pages or games, some of the apps, like Springpad, do provide extra features like offline access. The themes and extensions have also been tightly integrated into the new store, allowing users to search the entire catalog of Chrome extras.
The Chrome Web Store was opened on February 11, 2011, with the release of Google Chrome 9.0.
=== Extensions ===
Browser extensions can modify Google Chrome. They are supported by the browser's desktop edition, but not on mobile. These extensions are written using web technologies like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. They are distributed through Chrome Web Store, initially known as the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery. Some extensions focus on providing accessibility features. Google Tone is an extension developed by Google that when enabled, can use a computer's speakers to exchange URLs with nearby computers with an Internet connection that have the extension enabled as well.
On September 9, 2009, Google enabled extensions by default on Chrome's developer channel and provided several sample extensions for testing. In December, the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery beta began with approximately 300 extensions. It was launched on January 25, 2010, along with Google Chrome 4.0, containing approximately 1500 extensions.
In 2014, Google started preventing some Windows users from installing extensions not hosted on the Chrome Web Store. The following year Google reported a "75% drop in customer support help requests for uninstalling unwanted extensions" which led them to expand this restriction to all Windows and Mac users.
==== Manifest V3 ====
In October 2018, Google announced a major future update to Chrome's extension API, known as "Manifest V3" (in reference to the manifest file contained within extensions). Manifest V3 is intended to modernize the extension architecture and improve the security and performance of the browser; it adopts declarative APIs to "decrease the need for overly-broad access and enable more performant implementation by the browser", replaces background pages with feature-limited "Service Workers" to reduce resource usage, and prohibits remotely-hosted code.
Google faced criticism for this change since it limits the number of rules and types of expressions that may be checked by ad blockers. Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for ad-blocking filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself.
==== Notable examples ====
=== Speed ===
The JavaScript virtual machine used by Chrome, the V8 JavaScript engine, has features such as dynamic code generation, hidden class transitions, and precise garbage collection.
In 2008, several websites performed benchmark tests using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark tool as well as Google's own set of computationally intense benchmarks, which include ray tracing and constraint solving. They unanimously reported that Chrome performed much faster than all competitors against which it had been tested, including Safari (for Windows), Firefox 3.0, Internet Explorer 7, Opera, and Internet Explorer 8. However, on October 11, 2010, independent tests of JavaScript performance, Chrome has been scoring just behind Opera's Presto engine since it was updated in version 10.5.
On September 3, 2008, Mozilla responded by stating that their own TraceMonkey JavaScript engine (then in beta), was faster than Chrome's V8 engine in some tests. John Resig, Mozilla's JavaScript evangelist, further commented on the performance of different browsers on Google's own suite, commenting on Chrome's "decimating" of the other browsers, but he questioned whether Google's suite was representative of real programs. He stated that Firefox 3.0 performed poorly on recursion-intensive benchmarks, such as those of Google, because the Mozilla team had not implemented recursion-tracing yet.
Two weeks after Chrome's launch in 2008, the WebKit team announced a new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish Extreme, citing a 36% speed improvement over Chrome's V8 engine.
Like most major web browsers, Chrome uses DNS prefetching to speed up website lookups, as do other browsers like Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer (called DNS Pre-resolution), and in Opera as a UserScript (not built-in).
Chrome formerly used their now-deprecated SPDY protocol instead of only HTTP when communicating with servers that support it, such as Google services, Facebook, Twitter. SPDY support was removed in Chrome version 51. This was due to SPDY being replaced by HTTP/2, a standard that was based upon it.
In November 2019, Google said it was working on several "speed badging" systems that let visitors know why a page is taking time to show up. The variations include simple text warnings and more subtle signs that indicate a site is slow. No date has been given for when the badging system will be included with the Chrome browser.
Chrome formerly supported a Data Saver feature for making pages load faster called Lite Mode. Previously, Chrome engineers Addy Osmani and Scott Little announced Lite Mode would automatically lazy-load images and iframes for faster page loads. Lite Mode was switched off in Chrome 100, citing a decrease in mobile data costs for many countries.
=== Security ===
Chrome periodically retrieves updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a site flagged as potentially harmful. This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API".
Chrome uses a process-allocation model to sandbox tabs. Using the principle of least privilege, each tab process cannot interact with critical memory functions (e.g. OS memory, user files) or other tab processes – similar to Microsoft's "Protected Mode" used by Internet Explorer 9 or greater. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail". This enforces a computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user and sandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user. On Linux sandboxing uses the seccomp mode.
In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported that using Chrome when connected to the internet using a VPN can be a serious security issue due to the browser's support for WebRTC.
On September 9, 2016, it was reported that starting with Chrome 56, users will be warned when they visit insecure HTTP websites to encourage more sites to make the transition to HTTPS.
On December 4, 2018, Google announced its Chrome 71 release with new security features, including a built-in ad-blocking system. In addition, Google also announced its plan to crack down on websites that make people involuntarily subscribe to mobile subscription plans.
On September 2, 2020, with the release of Chrome 85, Google extended support for Secure DNS in Chrome for Android. DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) was designed to improve safety and privacy while browsing the web. Under the update, Chrome automatically switches to DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) if the current DNS provider supports the feature.
==== Password management ====
===== Windows =====
Since 2008, Chrome has been faulted for not including a master password to prevent casual access to a user's passwords. Chrome developers have indicated that a master password does not provide real security against determined hackers and have refused to implement one. Bugs filed on this issue have been marked "WontFix". As of February 2014, Google Chrome asks the user to enter their Windows account password before showing saved passwords.
===== Linux =====
On Linux, Google Chrome/Chromium can store passwords in three ways: GNOME Keyring, KWallet, or plain text. Google Chrome/Chromium chooses which store to use automatically, based on the desktop environment in use. Passwords stored in GNOME Keyring or KWallet are encrypted on disk, and access to them is controlled by dedicated daemon software. Passwords stored in plain text are not encrypted. Because of this, when either GNOME Keyring or KWallet is in use, any unencrypted passwords that have been stored previously are automatically moved into the encrypted store. Support for using GNOME Keyring and KWallet was added in version 6, but using these (when available) was not made the default mode until version 12.
===== macOS =====
As of version 45, the Google Chrome password manager is no longer integrated with Keychain, since the interoperability goal is no longer possible.
==== Security vulnerabilities ====
No security vulnerabilities in Chrome were exploited in the three years of Pwn2Own from 2009 to 2011. At Pwn2Own 2012, Chrome was defeated by a French team who used zero day exploits in the version of Flash shipped with Chrome to take complete control of a fully patched 64-bit Windows 7 PC using a booby-trapped website that overcame Chrome's sandboxing.
Chrome was compromised twice at the 2012 CanSecWest Pwnium. Google's official response to the exploits was delivered by Jason Kersey, who congratulated the researchers, noting "We also believe that both submissions are works of art and deserve wider sharing and recognition." Fixes for these vulnerabilities were deployed within 10 hours of the submission.
A significant number of security vulnerabilities in Chrome occurred in the Adobe Flash Player. For example, the 2016 Pwn2Own successful attack on Chrome relied on four security vulnerabilities. Two of the vulnerabilities were in Flash, one was in Chrome, and one was in the Windows kernel. In 2016, Google announced that it was planning to phase out Flash Player in Chrome, starting in version 53. The first phase of the plan was to disable Flash for ads and "background analytics", with the ultimate goal of disabling it completely by the end of the year, except on specific sites that Google has deemed to be broken without it. Flash would then be re-enabled with the exclusion of ads and background analytics on a site-by-site basis.
Leaked documents from 2013 to 2016 codenamed Vault 7 detail the capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, such as the ability to compromise web browsers (including Google Chrome).
==== Malware blocking and ad blocking ====
Google introduced download scanning protection in Chrome 17. In February 2018, Google introduced an ad blocking feature based on recommendations from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Sites that employ invasive ads are given a 30-day warning, after which their ads will be blocked. Consumer Reports recommended users install dedicated ad-blocking tools instead, which offer increased security against malware and tracking.
==== Plugins ====
Chrome supported, up to version 45, plug-ins with the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI), so that plug-ins (for example Adobe Flash Player) run as unrestricted separate processes outside the browser and cannot be sandboxed as tabs are. ActiveX is not supported. Since 2010, Adobe Flash has been integral to Chrome and does not need be installed separately. Flash is kept up to date as part of Chrome's own updates. Java applet support was available in Chrome with Java 6 update 12 and above. Support for Java under macOS was provided by a Java Update released on May 18, 2010.
On August 12, 2009, Google introduced a replacement for NPAPI that is more portable and more secure called Pepper Plugin API (PPAPI). The default bundled PPAPI Flash Player (or Pepper-based Flash Player) was available on ChromeOS first, then replaced the NPAPI Flash Player on Linux from Chrome version 20, on Windows from version 21 (which also reduced Flash crashes by 20%), and eventually came to macOS at version 23.
On September 23, 2013, Google announced that it would be deprecating and then removing NPAPI support. NPAPI support was removed from Linux in Chrome release 35. NPAPI plugins like Java can no longer work in Chrome (but there are workarounds for Flash by using PPAPI Flash Player on Linux including for Chromium).
On April 14, 2015, Google released Chrome v42, disabling the NPAPI by default. This makes plugins that do not have a PPAPI plugin counterpart incompatible with Chrome, such as Java, Silverlight, and Unity. However, NPAPI support could be enabled through the chrome://flags menu until the release of version 45 on September 1, 2015, which removed NPAPI support entirely.
=== Privacy ===
==== Incognito mode ====
The private browsing feature called Incognito mode prevents the browser from locally storing any history information, cookies, site data, or form inputs. Downloaded files and bookmarks will be stored. In addition, user activity is not hidden from visited websites or the Internet service provider.
Incognito mode is similar to the private browsing feature in other web browsers. It does not prevent saving in all windows: "You can switch between an incognito window and any regular windows you have open. You'll only be in incognito mode when you're using the incognito window".
The iOS version of Chrome also supports the optional ability to lock incognito tabs with Face ID, Touch ID, or the device's passcode. In 2022, Google began to implement this feature into Android versions of Chrome. This feature is now available for Android 12 devices and above, assuming the hardware allows it.
In 2024, Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in incognito mode.
==== Do Not Track ====
In February 2012, Google announced that Chrome would implement the Do Not Track (DNT) standard to inform websites of the user's desire not to be tracked. The protocol was implemented in version 23. In line with the W3's draft standard for DNT, it is turned off by default in Chrome.
=== Stability ===
A multi-process architecture is implemented in Chrome where, by default, a separate process is allocated to each site instance and plugin. This procedure is termed process isolation, and raises security and stability by preventing tasks from interfering with each other. An attacker successfully gaining access to one application gains access to no others, and failure in one instance results in a Sad Tab screen of death, similar to the well-known Sad Mac, but only one tab crashes instead of the whole application. This strategy exacts a fixed per-process cost up front, but results in less memory bloat over time as fragmentation is confined to each instance and no longer needs further memory allocations. This architecture was later adopted in Safari and Firefox.
Chrome includes a process management utility called Task Manager which lets users see what sites and plugins are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and overusing the CPU and provides the ability to terminate them. Chrome Version 23 ensures its users an improved battery life for the systems supporting Chrome's GPU accelerated video decoding.
=== Release channels, cycles and updates ===
The first production release on December 11, 2008, marked the end of the initial Beta test period and the beginning of production. Shortly thereafter, on January 8, 2009, Google announced an updated release system with three channels: Stable (corresponding to the traditional production), Beta, and Developer preview (also called the "Dev" channel). Where there were before only two channels: Beta and Developer, now there are three. Concurrently, all Developer channel users were moved to the Beta channel along with the promoted Developer release. Google explained that now the Developer channel builds would be less stable and polished than those from the initial Google Chrome Beta period. Beta users could opt back to the Developer channel as desired.
Each channel has its own release cycle and stability level. The Stable channel is updated roughly quarterly, with features and fixes that passed "thorough" testing in the Beta channel. Beta is updated roughly monthly, with "stable and complete" features migrated from the Developer channel. The Developer channel is updated once or twice per week and was where ideas and features were first publicly exposed, "(and sometimes fail) and can be very unstable at times". [Quoted remarks from Google's policy announcements.]
On July 22, 2010, Google announced it would ramp up the speed at which it releases new stable versions; the release cycles were shortened from quarterly to six weeks for major Stable updates. Beta channel releases now come roughly at the same rate as Stable releases, though approximately one month in advance, while Dev channel releases appear roughly once or twice weekly, allowing time for basic release-critical testing. This faster release cycle also brought a fourth channel: the "Canary" channel, updated daily from a build produced at 09:00 UTC from the most stable of the last 40 revisions. The name refers to the practice of using canaries in coal mines, so if a change "kills" Chrome Canary, it will be blocked from migrating down to the Developer channel, at least until fixed in a subsequent Canary build. Canary is "the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome and somewhat of a mix between Chrome dev and the Chromium snapshot builds". Canary releases run side by side with any other channel; it is not linked to the other Google Chrome installation and can therefore run different synchronization profiles, themes, and browser preferences. This ensures that fallback functionality remains even when some Canary updates may contain release-breaking bugs. It does not natively include the option to be the default browser, although on Windows and macOS it can be set through System Preferences. Canary was Windows-only at first; a macOS version was released on May 3, 2011.
The Chrome beta channel for Android was launched on January 10, 2013; like Canary, it runs side by side with the stable channel for Android. Chrome Dev for Android was launched on April 29, 2015.
All Chrome channels are automatically distributed according to their respective release cycles. The mechanism differs by platform. On Windows, it uses Google Update, and auto-update can be controlled via Group Policy. Alternatively, users may download a standalone installer of a version of Chrome that does not auto-update. On macOS, it uses Google Update Service, and auto-update can be controlled via the macOS "defaults" system. On Linux, it lets the system's normal package management system supply the updates. This auto-updating behavior is a key difference from Chromium, the non-branded open-source browser which forms the core of Google Chrome. Because Chromium also serves as the pre-release development trunk for Chrome, its revisions are provided as source code, and buildable snapshots are produced continuously with each new commit, requiring users to manage their own browser updates.
In March 2021, Google announced that starting with Chrome 94 in the third quarter of 2021, Google Chrome Stable releases will be made every four weeks, instead of six weeks as they have been since 2010. Also, Google announced a new release channel for system administrators and browser embedders with releases every eight weeks.
==== Release version numbers ====
Releases are identified by a four-part version number, e.g., 42.0.2311.90 (Windows Stable release April 14, 2015). The components are major.minor.build.patch.
Major.minor reflects scheduling policy
Build.patch identifies content progression
Major represents a product release. These are scheduled 7–8 per year, unlike other software systems where the major version number updates only with substantial new content.
Minor is usually 0. References to version 'x' or 'x.0', e.g., 42.0, refer to this major.minor designation.
Build is ever-increasing. For a release cycle, e.g., 42.0, there are several builds in the Canary and Developer periods. The last build number from Developer is kept throughout Beta and Stable and is locked with the major.minor for that release.
Patch resets with each build, incrementing with each patch. The first patch is 0, but usually the first publicly released patch is somewhat higher. In Beta and Stable, only patch increments.
Chromium and Chrome release schedules are linked through Chromium (Major) version Branch Point dates, published annually. The Branch Points precede the final Chrome Developer build (initial) release by 4 days (nearly always) and the Chrome Stable initial release by roughly 53 days.
Example: The version 42 Branch Point was February 20, 2015. Developer builds stopped advancing at build 2311 with release 42.0.2311.4 on February 24, 4 days later. The first Stable release, 42.0.2311.90, was April 14, 2015, 53 days after the Branch Point.
=== Color management ===
Chrome supports color management by using the system-provided ICC v2 and v4 support on macOS, and from version 22 supports ICC v2 profiles by default on other platforms.
=== Dinosaur Game ===
In Chrome, when not connected to the Internet and an error message displaying "No internet" is shown, on the top, an "8-bit" Tyrannosaurus rex is shown, but when pressing the space bar on a keyboard, mouse-clicking on it or tapping it on touch devices, the T-Rex instantly jumps once and starts dashing across a cactus-ridden desert, revealing it to be an Easter egg in the form of a platform game. The game itself is an infinite runner, and there is no time limit in the game as it progresses faster and periodically tints to a black background. A school or enterprise manager can disable the game.
== Platforms ==
The current version of Chrome runs on:
Windows 10 or later
Windows Server 2016 or later
macOS Monterey or later
64-bit versions of Ubuntu 18.04+, Debian 10+, openSUSE 15.5+ and Fedora 39+
Android 10 or later
iOS 17 or later
iPadOS 17 or later
As of April 2016, stable 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available for Windows, with only 64-bit stable builds available for Linux and macOS. 64-bit Windows builds became available in the developer channel and as canary builds on June 3, 2014, in the beta channel on July 30, 2014, and in the stable channel on August 26, 2014. 64-bit macOS builds became available as canary builds on November 7, 2013, in the beta channel on October 9, 2014, and in the stable channel on November 18, 2014.
Starting with the release of version 89, Chrome will only be supported on Intel/Intel x86 and AMD processors with the SSE3 instruction set.
=== Android ===
A beta version for Android 4.0 devices was launched on February 7, 2012, available for a limited number of countries from Google Play.
Notable features: synchronization with desktop Chrome to provide the same bookmarks and view the same browser tabs, page pre-rendering, hardware acceleration.
Many of the latest HTML5 features: almost all of the Web Platform's features: GPU-accelerated canvas, including CSS 3D Transforms, CSS animations, SVG, WebSocket (including binary messages), Dedicated Workers; it has overflow scroll support, strong HTML5 video support, and new capabilities such as IndexedDB, WebWorkers, Application Cache and the File APIs, date- and time-pickers, parts of the Media Capture API. Also supports mobile oriented features such as Device Orientation and Geolocation.
Mobile customizations: swipe gesture tab switching, link preview allows zooming in on (multiple) links to ensure the desired one is clicked, font size boosting to ensure readability regardless of the zoom level.
Features missing in the mobile version include sandboxed tabs, Safe Browsing, apps or extensions, Adobe Flash (now and in the future), Native Client, and the ability to export user data such a list of their opened tabs or their browsing history into portable local files.
Development changes: remote debugging, part of the browser layer has been implemented in Java, communicating with the rest of the Chromium and WebKit code through Java Native Bindings. The code of Chrome for Android is a fork of the Chromium project. It is a priority to upstream most new and modified code to Chromium and WebKit to resolve the fork.
The April 17, 2012, update included availability in 31 additional languages and in all countries where Google Play is available. A desktop version of a website can also be requested, as opposed to a mobile version. In addition, Android users can now add bookmarks to their Android home screens if they choose and decide which apps should handle links opened in Chrome.
On June 27, 2012, Google Chrome for Android exited beta and became stable.
Chrome 18.0.1026311, released on September 26, 2012, was the first version of Chrome for Android to support mobile devices based on Intel x86.
Starting from version 25, the Chrome version for Android is aligned with the desktop version, and usually new stable releases are available at the same time for both the Android and the desktop versions. Google released a separate Chrome for Android beta channel on January 10, 2013, with version 25. As of 2013 a separate beta version of Chrome is available in the Google Play Store – it can run side by side with the stable release.
=== iOS and iPadOS ===
Chrome is available on Apple's mobile iOS and iPadOS operating systems. Released in the Apple App Store on June 26, 2012, it supports the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and the current version requires that the device has iOS 16.0 or greater installed. In accordance with Apple's requirements for browsers released through their App Store, this version of Chrome uses the iOS WebKit – which is Apple's own mobile rendering engine and components, developed for their Safari browser – therefore it is restricted from using Google's own V8 JavaScript engine. Chrome is the default web browser for the iOS and iPadOS Gmail application.
In a review by Chitika, Chrome was noted as having 1.5% of the iOS web browser market as of July 18, 2012. In October 2013, Chrome had 3% of the iOS browser market.
=== Linux ===
On Linux distributions, support for 32-bit Intel processors ended in March 2016, although Chromium is still supported. As of Chrome version 26, Linux installations of the browser may be updated only on systems that support GCC v4.6 and GTK v2.24 or later. Thus deprecated systems include (for example) Debian 6's 2.20, and RHEL 6's 2.18.
=== Windows ===
Support for Google Chrome on Windows XP and Windows Vista ended in April 2016. The last release of Google Chrome that can be run on Windows XP and Vista was version 49.0.2623.112, released on April 7, 2016, then re-released on April 11, 2016.
Support for Google Chrome on Windows 7 was originally supposed to end on July 15, 2021. However, the date was moved back to January 15, 2022, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since enterprises took more time to migrate to Windows 10 or 11, the end of support date was pushed back again until January 15, 2023. Support for not only Windows 7, but also Windows 8 and 8.1 ended on this date. The last version to support these versions of Windows is Chrome 109.
"Windows 8 mode" was introduced in 2012 and has since been discontinued. It was provided to the developer channel, which enabled Windows 8 and 8.1 users to run Chrome with a full-screen, tablet-optimized interface, with access to snapping, sharing, and search functionalities. In October 2013, Windows 8 mode on the developer channel changed to use a desktop environment mimicking the interface of ChromeOS with a dedicated windowing system and taskbar for web apps. This was removed on version 49 and users that have upgraded to Windows 10 will lose this feature.
=== macOS ===
Google dropped support for Mac OS X 10.5 with the release of Chrome 22. Support for 32-bit versions of Chrome ended in November 2014 with the release of Chrome 39. Support for Mac OS X 10.6, OS X 10.7, and OS X 10.8 ended in April 2016 with the release of Chrome 50. Support for OS X 10.9 ended in April 2018 with the release of Chrome 66. Support for OS X 10.10 ended in January 2021 with the release of Chrome 88. Support for OS X 10.11 and macOS 10.12 ended in August 2022 with the release of Chrome 104. Support for macOS 10.13 and macOS 10.14 ended in September 2023 with the release of Chrome 117. Support for macOS 10.15 ended in September 2024 with the release of Chrome 129. Support for macOS 11 ended in August 2025 with the release of Chrome 139.
=== ChromeOS ===
Google Chrome is the basis of Google's ChromeOS operating system that ships on specific hardware from Google's manufacturing partners. The user interface has a minimalist design resembling the Google Chrome browser. ChromeOS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Web; the only applications on the devices are a browser incorporating a media player and a file manager.
Google announced ChromeOS on July 7, 2009.
== Reception ==
Google Chrome was met with acclaim upon release. In 2008, Matthew Moore of The Daily Telegraph summarized the verdict of early reviewers: "Google Chrome is attractive, fast and has some impressive new features..."
Initially, Microsoft reportedly played down the threat from Chrome and predicted that most people would embrace Internet Explorer 8. Opera Software said that "Chrome will strengthen the Web as the biggest application platform in the world". But by February 25, 2010, BusinessWeek had reported that "For the first time in years, energy and resources are being poured into browsers, the ubiquitous programs for accessing content on the Web. Credit for this trend – a boon to consumers – goes to two parties. The first is Google, whose big plans for the Chrome browser have shaken Microsoft out of its competitive torpor and forced the software giant to pay fresh attention to its own browser, Internet Explorer. Microsoft all but ceased efforts to enhance IE after it triumphed in the last browser war, sending Netscape to its doom. Now it's back in gear." Mozilla said that Chrome's introduction into the web browser market comes as "no real surprise", that "Chrome is not aimed at competing with Firefox", and furthermore that it would not affect Google's revenue relationship with Mozilla.
Chrome's design bridges the gap between desktop and so-called "cloud computing." At the touch of a button, Chrome lets you make a desktop, Start menu, or QuickLaunch shortcut to any Web page or Web application, blurring the line between what's online and what's inside your PC. For example, I created a desktop shortcut for Google Maps. When you create a shortcut for a Web application, Chrome strips away all of the toolbars and tabs from the window, leaving you with something that feels much more like a desktop application than like a Web application or page.
With its dominance in the web browser market, Google has been accused of using Chrome and Blink development to push new web standards that are proposed in-house by Google and subsequently implemented by its services first and foremost. These have led to performance disadvantages and compatibility issues with competing browsers, and in some cases, developers intentionally refusing to test their websites on any other browser than Chrome. Tom Warren of The Verge went as far as comparing Chrome to Internet Explorer 6, the default browser of Windows XP that was often targeted by competitors due to its similar ubiquity in the early 2000s. In 2021, computer scientist and lawyer Jonathan Mayer stated that Chrome has increasingly become an agent for Google LLC than a user agent, as it is "the only major web browser that lacks meaningful privacy protections by default, shoves users toward linking activity with a Google Account, and implements invasive new advertising capabilities."
== Criticism ==
=== Privacy ===
==== Incognito mode ====
A class-action lawsuit seeking $5 billion in damages was filed against Google in 2020 because it misled consumers into thinking it would not track them when using incognito mode, despite using various means to do so. In December 2023, a settlement was reportedly agreed to, with public disclosure expected in February 2024.
==== Listening capabilities ====
In June 2015, the Debian developer community discovered that Chromium 43 and Chrome 43 were programmed to download the Hotword Shared Module, which could enable the OK Google voice recognition extension, although by default it was "off". This raised privacy concerns in the media. The module was removed in Chrome 45, which was released on September 1, 2015, and was only present in Chrome 43 and 44.
==== User tracking concerns ====
Chrome sends details about its users and their activities to Google through both optional and non-optional user tracking mechanisms.
Some of the tracking mechanisms can be optionally enabled and disabled through the installation interface and through the browser's options dialog. Unofficial builds, such as SRWare Iron, seek to remove these features from the browser altogether. The RLZ library, which is used to measure the success of marketing promotions, is not included in the Chromium browser either.
In March 2010, Google devised a new method to collect installation statistics: the unique ID token included with Chrome is now used for only the first connection that Google Update makes to its server.
The optional suggestion service included in Google Chrome has been criticized because it provides the information typed into the Omnibox to the search provider before the user even hits return. This allows the search engine to provide URL suggestions, but also provides them with web use information tied to an IP address.
Chrome previously was able to suggest similar pages when a page could not be found. For this, in some cases, Google servers were contacted. The feature has since been removed.
A 2019 review by Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler found that in a typical week of browsing, Chrome allowed thousands more cookies to be stored than Mozilla Firefox. Fowler pointed out that because of its advertising businesses, despite the privacy controls it offers users, Google is a major producer of third-party cookies and has a financial interest in collecting user data; he recommended switching to Firefox, Apple Safari, or Chromium-based Brave.
==== IP Protection ====
In 2023, Google proposed a technology that claims to "hide the IP and traffic of its users" by routing Chrome traffic to Google servers. This has drawn criticism as all traffic is readily available for Google to use.
=== Advertising ===
Also tied with Google is its advertising business, which, given the vast market share of Chrome, sought to introduce features that protect this revenue stream, mainly the introduction of a cookie-tracking alternative named Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which evolved into Topics, and Manifest V3 API changes for extensions.
==== FLoC ====
In January 2021, Google stated it was making progress on developing privacy-friendly alternatives that would replace third-party cookies currently being used by advertisers and companies to track browsing habits. Google then promised to phase out the use of cookies in its web browser in 2022, implementing its FLoC technology instead. The announcement triggered antitrust concerns from multiple countries for abusing the Chrome browser's market monopoly, with the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission both opening formal probes. The FLoC proposal also drew criticism from DuckDuckGo, Brave, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for underestimating the ability of the API to track users online.
On January 25, 2022, Google announced it had killed off development of its FLoC technologies and proposed the new Topics API to replace it. Topics is similarly intended to replace cookies, using one's weekly web activity to determine a set of five interests. Topics are supposed to refresh every three weeks, changing the type of ads served to the user and not retaining the gathered data.
==== Manifest V3 ====
Manifest V3 has faced criticism for changes to the WebRequest API used by ad blocking and privacy extensions to block and modify network connections. The declarative version of WebRequest uses rules processed by the browser, rather than sending all network traffic through the extension, which Google stated would improve performance. However, DeclarativeWebRequest is limited in the number of rules that may be set, and the types of expressions that may be used. Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself. As the Chrome Web Store review process has an invariable length, filter lists may not be updated in a timely fashion.
Google has been accused of using Manifest V3 to inhibit ad-blocking software due to its vested interest in the online advertising market. Google cited performance issues associated with WebRequest, as well as its use in malicious extensions. In June 2019, it announced that it would increase the aforementioned cap from 30,000 to 150,000 entries to help quell concerns about limitations to filtering rules. In 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a statement that Manifest V3 was "outright harmful to privacy efforts", as it would greatly limit the functionality of ad blocking extensions.
In December 2022, Google announced the transition would be paused "to address developer feedback and deliver better solutions to migration issues". In November 2023, Google announced it would resume the transition to Manifest V3; support for Manifest V2 extensions would be removed entirely from non-stable builds of Chrome beginning June 2024. Other Chromium-based web browsers will adopt Manifest V3, including Microsoft Edge. Manifest V3 support is being added to Mozilla Firefox's implementation of Chrome's extension API (WebExtensions) for compatibility reasons, but Mozilla has stated that its implementation would not contain limitations that affect privacy and content-blocking extensions, and that its implementation of V2 would not be deprecated.
=== Anti-competition ===
In August 2024, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly over search services. In November 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) demanded that Google sell Chrome to stop Google from maintaining its monopoly in online search.
On August 12, 2025, artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI made a bid to buy the browser from Google for $34.5 billion. Perplexity stated that the sale could remedy anti-trust litigation against Google, in which a judge was considering compelling the sale of Chrome.
== Usage ==
=== Market share ===
Chrome overtook Firefox in November 2011 in worldwide usage. As of December 2025, according to StatCounter, Google Chrome had 75% worldwide desktop usage share, making it the most widely used web browser.
It was reported by StatCounter, a web analytics company, that for the single day of Sunday, March 18, 2012, Chrome was the most used web browser in the world for the first time. Chrome secured 32.7% of the global web browsing on that day, while Internet Explorer followed closely behind with 32.5%.
From May 14–21, 2012, Google Chrome was for the first time responsible for more Internet traffic than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which had long held its spot as the most used web browser in the world. According to StatCounter, 31.88% of web traffic was generated by Chrome for a sustained period of one week and 31.47% by Internet Explorer. Though Chrome had topped Internet Explorer for a single day's usage in the past, this was the first time it had led for one full week.
At the 2012 Google I/O developers' conference, Google claimed that there were 310 million active users of Chrome, almost double the number in 2011, which was stated as 160 million active users.
In June 2013, according to StatCounter, Chrome overtook Internet Explorer for the first time in the US.
In August 2013, Chrome was used by 43% of internet users worldwide. This study was done by Statista, which also noted that in North America, 36% of people use Chrome, the lowest in the world.
=== Enterprise deployment ===
In December 2010, Google announced that to make it easier for businesses to use Chrome, they would provide an official Chrome MSI package. For business use, it is helpful to have full-fledged MSI packages that can be customized via transform files (.mst) – , but the MSI provided with Chrome is only a very limited MSI wrapper fitted around the normal installer, and many businesses find that this arrangement does not meet their needs. The normal downloaded Chrome installer puts the browser in the user's local app data directory and provides invisible background updates, but the MSI package will allow installation at the system level, providing system administrators control over the update process – it was formerly possible only when Chrome was installed using Google Pack. Google also created group policy objects to fine-tune the behavior of Chrome in the business environment, for example, by setting automatic update intervals, disabling auto-updates, and configuring a home page. Until version 24 the software is known not to be ready for enterprise deployments with roaming profiles or Terminal Server/Citrix environments.
In 2010, Google first started supporting Chrome in enterprise environments by providing an MSI wrapper around the Chrome installer. Google starting providing group policy objects, with more added each release, and today there are more than 500 policies available to control Chrome's behavior in enterprise environments.
In 2016, Google launched Chrome Browser Enterprise Support, a paid service enabling IT admins to access Google experts to support their browser deployment. In 2019, Google launched Chrome Browser Cloud Management, a dashboard that gives business IT managers the ability to control content accessibility, app usage and browser extensions installed on its deployed computers.
=== Chromium ===
In September 2008, Google released a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open-source project called Chromium. This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and to help port the browser to the macOS and Linux operating systems. The Google-authored portion of Chromium is released under the permissive BSD license. Other portions of the source code are subject to a variety of open-source licenses. Chromium is similar to Chrome, but lacks built-in automatic updates and a built-in Flash player, as well as Google branding and has a blue-colored logo instead of the multicolored Google logo. Chromium does not implement user RLZ tracking. Initially, the Google Chrome PDF viewer, PDFium, was excluded from Chromium, but was later made open-source in May 2014. PDFium can be used to fill PDF forms.
== Developing for Chrome ==
It is possible to develop applications, extensions, and themes for Chrome. They are zipped in a .crx file and contain a manifest.json file that specifies basic information (such as version, name, description, privileges, etc.), and other files for the user interface (icons, popups, etc.). Google has an official developer's guide on how to create, develop, and publish projects. Chrome has its own web store where users and developers can upload and download these applications and extensions.
== Impersonation by malware ==
As with Microsoft Internet Explorer, the popularity of Google Chrome has led to the appearance of malware abusing its name. In late 2015, an adware replica of Chrome named "eFast" appeared, which would usurp the Google Chrome installation and hijack file type associations to make shortcuts for common file types and communication protocols link to itself, and inject advertisements into web pages. Its similar-looking icon was intended to deceive users.
== See also ==
Browser wars – Competition between web browsing applications for share of worldwide usage
Google Chrome Experiments – Online showroom of web browser based experiments
Google Chrome Frame – Plug-in designed for Internet Explorer based on the open-source Chromium project
Google Workspace – Productivity and collaboration software
History of web browsers
List of Google products
List of Google Easter eggs
List of web browsers
Widevine – Digital rights management technology
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Google I/O 2009 - Exploring Chrome Internals on YouTube, presented by Darin Fisher, a member of the Chrome team
Google I/O 2010 - Chrome at Google I/O 2010 (recap / Chrome team sessions & demos from that year).
Google I/O 2011 -Chrome-focused day / keynote segments and Chrome sessions are in the 2011 video uploads
Google I/O 2012 - Official I/O sessions listings (includes web/Chrome sessions).
Google I/O 2013 - Sessions page and Chrome team deep dives
Google I/O 2014 - I/O 2014 host page + specific Chrome/web talks
Google I/O 2015 - I/O 2015 site and videos include Polymer / modern web API sessions
Google I/O 2016 - Web and Chrome at Google I/O 2016 — dedicated playlist and many Chrome/web sessions
Google I/O 2017 - I/O 2017 all-sessions playlist + many Chrome/web technical talks.
Google I/O 2018 - Chrome & Web at Google I/O 2018 playlist (DevTools, performance, web platform features).
Google I/O 2022 — All Google I/O 2022 Sessions and playlists include Web/Chrome updates - see the I/O 2022 sessions playlist and the “Web” track.
Google I/O 2023 — ChromeOS and Web playlists (dedicated ChromeOS playlist and Web sessions for I/O 2023).
Google I/O 2024 — All sessions (I/O 2024) and a “Web at I/O 2024” playlist highlighting Chrome and web platform updates.
Google I/O 2025 — I/O 2025 explore page and the All Sessions (2025) playlist — includes the Web track and Chrome/ChromeOS sessions (privacy, performance, DevTools, AI features in the browser). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_lynx | Iberian lynx | The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is one of the four extant species within Lynx, a genus of medium-sized wild cats. The Iberian lynx is endemic to the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe. It is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. In the 20th century, the Iberian lynx population had declined because of overhunting, poaching, fragmentation of suitable habitats, and the population decline of its main prey species, the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), caused by myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease. Fossils suggest the species has been present in Iberia since the end of the Early Pleistocene, around one million years ago.
By the turn of the 21st century, the Iberian lynx was on the verge of extinction, as only 94 individuals survived in two isolated subpopulations in Andalusia in 2002. Conservation measures have been implemented since then, which included improving habitat, restocking of rabbits, translocating, reintroducing and monitoring Iberian lynxes. Between 2012 and 2024, the population had increased from a low of 326 individuals to some 2,021, leading to its reclassification as vulnerable. It is a monotypic species, and is thought to have evolved from Lynx issiodorensis.
== Taxonomy ==
Felis pardina was the scientific name proposed by Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1827 who described skins of Iberian lynxes that were killed in the area of the Tagus river in Portugal and were traded in Paris and London. It is a monotypic species.
=== Phylogeny ===
The Iberian lynx is suggested to have evolved from Lynx issiodorensis. Its earliest known fossil remains date to the end of the Early Pleistocene, around one million years ago.
The Iberian lynx genetically diverged as a unique species 1.98 to 0.7 million years ago. Its closest living relative is the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) with which it coexisted to a certain degree until the 20th century.
== Characteristics ==
The Iberian lynx has a short bright yellowish to tawny coloured spotted fur. The spots vary in shape and size from small round to elongate. They are arranged in lines and decrease in size from the back toward the sides. There are two basic coat-pattern variations: one with many, very small brown to blackish spots in Sierra Morena, and the other with less, but larger spots that form dotted lines in Doñana. Its head is small with tufted ears and a ruff. Its body is short with long legs and a short tail. Head and body length of males is 74.7–82 cm (29.4–32.3 in) with a 12.5–16 cm (4.9–6.3 in) long tail and a weight of 7–15.9 kg (15–35 lb). Females are smaller with a head-to-body-length of approximately 68.2–77.5 cm (26.9–30.5 in) and a weight of 9.2–10 kg (20–22 lb).
The Iberian lynx with white fur has been recorded twice in total. On 22 October 2025, a white Iberian lynx was photographed for the first time in Jaén, Spain.
== Distribution and habitat ==
The Iberian lynx was once present throughout the Iberian Peninsula. In the 1950s, the northern population extended from the Mediterranean to Galicia and parts of northern Portugal, and the southern population from central to southern Spain. Populations declined from 15 subpopulations in the 1940s to only two subpopulations in the early 1990s, most noticeably in Montes de Toledo and Sierra Morena. Before 1973, it was present in Sierra de Gata, Montes de Toledo, eastern Sierra Morena, Sierra de Relumbrar and coastal plains in the Doñana area. Between the early 1960s and 2000, it has lost about 80% of its former range. In 2012, it was restricted to very limited areas in southern Spain, with breeding only confirmed in Sierra Morena and Doñana coastal plains. As of 2014, its range included the Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo of Castilla-La Mancha and the Matachel Valley of Extremadura in Spain, and the Guadiana Valley in Portugal. Over time, stable and viable populations have established themselves here, and by the end of 2019, the number of Iberian lynx in the wild had increased to 856. The latest census in 2024 counted 2,401 individuals, of which 2,047 were in Spain and 354 in Portugal. The distribution area has also expanded in recent years, with breeding individuals in the northern and central parts of Extremadura (Valdecañas and Cornalvo Nature Park) and the Albacete region (Castilla-La Mancha), the Sierras Subbéticas (Andalusia), and a new introduction project has been launched in the autonomous region of Murcia..
Fossil remains indicate that the Iberian lynx had a wider range during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Five lynx remains found in Arene Candide in Northern Italy date to about 24,820–18,620 years before present. One specimen found in Cabias cave in southern France was radiocarbon dated to 3780±90 years before present. In 2021, a large concentration of Iberian lynxes dating to 40,000 years ago were found for the first time in southern Italy at the archaeological site of Ingarano in Apulia.
== Behaviour and ecology ==
The Iberian lynx marks its territory with its urine, scratch marks on the barks of trees, and scat. The home ranges of adults are stable over many years. Camera trapping surveys in the eastern Sierra Morena Mountains between 1999 and 2008 revealed that six females had home ranges of 5.2–6.6 km2 (2.0–2.5 sq mi). Four males in the area had home ranges of 11.8–12.2 km2 (4.6–4.7 sq mi).
=== Diet and hunting ===
The Iberian lynx preys foremost on the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) for the bulk of its diet, supplemented by red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa), rodents and to a smaller degree also on wild ungulates. It sometimes preys on young fallow deer (Dama dama), European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), European mouflon (Ovis aries musimon), and ducks. A male requires one rabbit per day, while a female raising kittens eats three per day.
The Iberian lynx has low adaptability and continued to rely heavily on rabbits, which account for 75% of its food intake, despite the latter's repeated population crashes due to myxomatosis and rabbit haemorrhagic disease. Fecal samples of Iberian lynx contained anaerobic bacteria of the genus Anaeroplasma that suggest gut microbiome helps it digest its rabbit prey and may also aid in the degradation of plant material from the rabbits' guts. Antibiotic resistant bacteria were also found within the digestive tract of wild Iberian lynx.
The Iberian lynx competes for prey with the Iberian wolf (Canis lupus signatus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), the Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon), and the European wildcat (Felis silvestris). Also, it often kills other smaller carnivores such as the aforementioned red fox, Egyptian mongoose and common genet (Genetta genetta). Fossil leporid accumulations from the Late Pleistocene show that Iberian lynxes in Spain retreated to caves to rest and consume their meals.
=== Reproduction ===
The kittens become independent at 7 to 10 months old, but remain with the mother until around 20 months old. Survival of the young depends heavily on the availability of prey species. In the wild, both males and females reach sexual maturity at the age of one year, though in practice they rarely breed until a territory becomes vacant; one female was known not to breed until five years old when her mother died. The maximum longevity in the wild is 13 years.
Difficulty in finding mates has led to more inbreeding, which results in fewer kittens and a greater rate of non-traumatic death. Inbreeding leads to lower semen quality and greater rates of infertility in males, hindering efforts to increase the species' fitness.
== Threats ==
The Iberian lynx is threatened by habitat loss, road accidents, and illegal hunting. Habitat loss is due mainly to infrastructure improvement, urban and resort development and tree mono cultivation, which fragments the lynx's distribution. In the 20th century, rabbit diseases such as myxomatosis and hemorrhagic disease resulted in a dramatic decline of its main prey. Further, the lynx was hunted as "vermin" under a law passed under Francisco Franco, from the 1950s to the late 1970s, when the hunting of lynx was prohibited. Secret hunting of lynxes still occurs today and is becoming a serious problem. Illegal traps set for rabbits and foxes were the leading causes for lynx mortality in the 1990s.
In addition, every year, several Iberian lynxes die when trying to cross highways with heavy traffic, representing the majority of lynx deaths. In 2013, 14 Iberian lynxes died on roads, and 21 in 2014. In 2023, 144 lynxes were killed on roads.
In 2007, several individuals died of feline leukemia.
Increasing interactions with humans and spread of antibiotic resistant genes between lynx populations could pose a significant threat not only to lynx but also to humans.
== Conservation ==
The Iberian lynx is fully protected and listed on CITES Appendix I, on Appendix II of the Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats and on Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive of the European Union. It was listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List from 2014 through 2024. In 2024, it was reclassified to Vulnerable after young and mature Iberian lynx numbers increased to more than 2,000.
Conservation measures include restoring its native habitat, maintaining the wild rabbit population, reducing unnatural causes of death, and releasing captive bred individuals.
The Spanish National Commission for the Protection of Nature endorsed the Iberian Lynx Ex Situ Conservation Breeding Program to serve as a "safety net" by managing the captive population and also to "help establish new Iberian lynx free-ranging populations through reintroduction programmes." Before release of captive-bred cats, their natural habit may be simulated to prepare them for life in the wild. A 2006 study used a non-intrusive monitoring system involving cameras to monitor the demographics of both lynxes and rabbits residing in Sierra Morena. Supplemental food sources could be provided if wild rabbits suffered a decline.
Management efforts have been developed to conserve and restore the animal's native range. Officials intending to release captive-bred lynx look for areas of appropriate habitat, rabbit abundance, and acceptance by the local human population. About 90 million euros was spent on various conservation measures between 1994 and 2013. The European Union contributes up to 61% of funding.
=== Reintroduction programme ===
Beginning in 2009, the Iberian lynx was reintroduced into Guadalmellato, resulting in a population of 23 in 2013. Since 2010, the species has also been released in Guarrizas. Discussions were held with the Ministry of Environment on plans for releases in the Campanarios de Azaba area near Salamanca. In April 2013, it was reported that Andalusia's total wild population—only 94 in 2002—had tripled to 309 individuals. In July 2013, environmental groups confirmed the presence of a wild-born litter in the Province of Cáceres (Extremadura). A study published in July 2013 in Nature Climate Change advised that reintroduction programs take place in northern Iberia, suggesting that climate change would threaten rabbits in the south.
In November 2014, three Iberian lynxes were released in the Montes de Toledo; one of them later traveled near Aranjuez, in the Madrid region, the first time in 40 years.
The presence of Iberian lynxes in Portugal, particularly in the south, has been verified. In 2014, the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests signed contracts securing 2,000 hectares of land for Portugal's reintroduction project.
In 2015, 10 captive-bred Iberian lynxes were released into Guadiana Valley Natural Park and surrounding areas in southeastern Portugal's Guadiana Valley. By the end of 2015, there were 400 lynx on the Iberian peninsula, the vast majority in Andalusia, in southern Spain, but with smaller new populations in the hills near Toledo, in Extremadura (south-western Spain) and in southern Portugal.
The reintroduction of Iberian lynx in Portugal has been a success; from 17 animals that were reintroduced, 12 have already established territories.
Since a 2007 outbreak of feline leukemia virus (FeLV), wild lynxes are tested periodically for possible disease. September–December 2013 samples were negative for FeLV but one male became the first of his species to test positive for feline immunodeficiency virus and was placed into quarantine.
=== Captive breeding ===
In 2002, the Jerez Zoo confirmed it had three females and was developing a plan for a captive breeding program. One of those females was Saliega, captured as a kitten in April 2002. She became the first Iberian lynx to breed in captivity, giving birth to three healthy kittens on 29 March 2005 at the El Acebuche Breeding Center, in the Doñana National Park in Huelva, Spain. Over the following years, the number of births grew and additional breeding centers were opened. In March 2009, it was reported that 27 kittens had been born since the beginning of the program. In 2009, the Spanish government planned to build a €5.5 million breeding center in Zarza de Granadilla.
In Portugal, the Centro Nacional de Reprodução do Lince-Ibérico established a breeding center near Silves, Portugal, and has since nurtured 122 individuals all born in the breeding center, of which 89 survived. 73 of them were reintroduced in the wild. Reintroduction takes place in Mértola and Serpa in the Guadiana Valley. As of 2020, there are around 140 individuals in the wild in Portugal spread through an area of approximately 50,000 hectares, 50 of them are cubs.
There were 14 surviving kittens in 2008 and 15 in 2009. In 2010, intense rain and health issues resulted in lower reproductive success, i.e. 14 born, eight surviving. But the next year, breeding centers recorded 45 births with 26 surviving kittens. In 2012, breeding centers in Portugal and Spain reported a total of 44 survivors from 59 births, while 2013 saw a total of 44 survivors out of 53 born. In 2017, the total population of Iberian lynx reached 475 specimens. In February 2019, the total population was estimated to grow to around 650 individuals.
In March 2013, it was reported that Iberian lynx embryos and oocytes had been collected and preserved for the first time. They were collected from Saliega and another female—both sterilized and retired from the breeding program—by Berlin's Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and stored in liquid nitrogen at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid for possible future breeding. In July 2014, the MNCN-CSIC announced they had produced sperm cells from the testicular tissue of sexually immature lynx.
Iberian lynxes are kept at Jerez Zoo, at Lisbon Zoo since December 2014, and since July 2016 at the Madrid Zoo.
== Genetic research ==
The genetic diversity of the Iberian lynx is lower than in any other genetically impoverished felid, which is a consequence of fragmentation, a population bottleneck, and isolation of population units. Iberian lynxes in Doñana and Andujar differ genetically at microsatellite markers. Samples collected in Doñana exhibited a high degree of inbreeding as this unit was isolated for a long time.
== In popular culture ==
Portuguese street artist Bordalo II, known for his installations made of garbage, created a public sculpture of a Iberian lynx in Parque das Nações, Lisbon, made for the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in 2019 and Youth Forum Lisboa+21.
== See also ==
Bobcat
Canada lynx
Felicola isidoroi
== References ==
== External links ==
Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe – Iberian lynx
Programa de Conservación Ex-Situ Official Spanish government page (in Spanish)
Species portrait Iberian lynx; IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group Archived 27 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine
Images and movies of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus)—ARKive
The natural history of the Iberian lynx
Lynx in vertebradosibericos.org (in Spanish)
WWF species profile: Iberian lynx
Lynx pardinus in Naturdata (in Portuguese) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_2044 | Kosmos 2044 | Kosmos 2044, or Bion 9 (in Russian: Бион 9, Космос 2044) was a biomedical research mission involving in nine countries plus ESA: United Kingdom, Hungarian People's Republic, East Germany, Polish People's Republic, Czechoslovakia, United States, Canada, Australia, Soviet Union and European Space Agency (ESA). It was part of the Bion program.
== Mission ==
Eighty experiments were conducted in such categories as motion sickness, reproduction and regeneration, immunology, and readaptation to a normal gravity environment. A number of different biological specimens were used, including rodents.
The joint United States/Soviet Union experiments were conducted on 2 rhesus monkeys and 10 male Wistar rats. The biological payload also included cell cultures (Escherichia coli). The prime occupants were two macaque monkeys. The 2.3 m diameter descent sphere was successfully recovered after 14 days, but a failure in the thermal control system resulted in the deaths of some of the specimens.
== Scientific experiments ==
The Bion 9 mission was composed of 80 scientific experiments, but only 30 experiments returned:
Bone Biochemistry and Mineral Distribution in the Femurs of Rats: Determine the biochemical nature of the mineralization defects in the femurs of young rats after spaceflight. The institutions participating in this experiment were NASA Ames Research Center, University of North Carolina, University of Connecticut, University of California, Santa Cruz, University College in London and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) in Moscow).
Biomechanical and Morphological Alteration of Intramuscular Connective Tissues: The objective of this experiment was to characterize the structural and material properties of cortical and trabecular bone samples, tendons and intervertebral disks; and to correlate the biomechanical properties of these tissues to the type and quality of structural proteins. The institutions participating in this experiment were University of Iowa, West Virginia University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Gravity and Skeletal Growth: The objective of this experiment was to study bone cells, bone matrix and mineral characteristics, bone cell kinetics, and bone blood supply. The institutions participating in this experiment were NASA Ames Research Center, Indiana University, Columbia University, Saint Louis University and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Mineral Distribution and Balance in Rats during Space Flight: The objective of this experiment was to determine the abundance and distribution of mineral components and protein (osteocalcin) within a vertebra; and to determine absorption and excretion of manganese, magnesium and zinc and their relationship to calcium balance and bone osteocalcin. The institutions participating in this experiment were University of California, San Francisco and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Morphometric and EM Analyses of Tibial Epiphyseal Plates: The objective of this experiment was to measure the growth plate of the tibia as an index of its longitudinal growth, and to study the ultrastructure and chemical composition of the growth plate. The institutions participating in this experiment were University of Texas Medical Branch and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Metabolic and Morphologic Properties of Muscle Fibers and Motor Neurons: The objective of this experiment was to study microgravity related muscular atrophy effects in various types of muscle and in spinal motor neurons, with emphasis on the metabolic changes. The institutions participating in this experiment were University of California, Los Angeles, University of Alberta in the Canada, University of Kansas, University of Wisconsin–Madison and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Skeletal Muscle Atrophy: The objective of this experiment was to determine the morphological and biochemical responses of various types of muscles to microgravity. The institutions participating in this experiment were the University of Louisville in the Kentucky and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Investigation of Microgrovity Induced Nerve and Muscle Breakdown: This experiment was a morphological, histochemical, immunocytochemical, and biochemical investigation of microgravity induced nerve and muscle breakdown. Its main objective was to study, by light and electron microscopy, the long term effects of microgravity and early readaptation to gravity on the structure of nerve and skeletal muscles; and to study the biochemistry of muscle protein breakdown. The institutions participating in this experiment were San Jose State University, Medical College of Wisconsin, Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) and University of Sydney, Australia.
Myosin Isoform Expression in Rodent Skeletal Muscle: The objective of this experiment was to study the effect of microgravity and contractile protein expression in antigravity and non-antigravity rodent skeletal muscle. The institutions participating in this experiment were University of California, Irvine and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Messenger RNA Levels in Skeletal and Smooth Muscles: The objective of this experiment was to measure certain messenger RNA levels in various skeletal muscles and intestinal smooth muscle as an index of protein synthesis. Participated in the experiment the University of Texas Medical Branch and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Measurement of Heart Atrial Natriuretic Peptide Concentrations: The objective of this experiment was to measure the cardiac hormone, which plays a role in water and salt balance, in cardiac tissue of rats exposed to spaceflight. Participated in the experiment the Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) and NASA Ames Research Center.
Morphological and Biochemical Examination of Heart Tissue: The objective of this experiment was to determine microgravity effects on rodent heart tissue (ventricle). Participated in the experiment the University of Chicago, University of California, Irvine, University of Texas Medical Branch, the NASA Ames Research Center, Baylor University, Texas, and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Hepatic Function in Rats After Space Flight: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of microgravity on liver and plasma constituents, on the ability of the liver to metabolize food stuffs and foreign substances, and on liver histology. The institutions participating in this experiment were Emory University, University of Louisville and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Erythroid Colony Formation In Vitro and Erythropoietin Determinations: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of microgravity on the red blood cell production of rodents. Participated in the experiment the University of Tennessee, the Institute of Developmental Biology (U.S.S.R.), the Institute of Biophysics (Czechoslovakia) and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Rat Testis Morphology and Physiology: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of microgravity on rodent testis physiology. The institutions participating in this experiment were Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), Colorado State University, Columbia University, Pennsylvania State University and Johns Hopkins University.
Structural Changes and Cell Turnover in the Rats Small Intestine: The objective of this experiment was to determine the structural changes and cell turnover in the small intestines of rats as a result of spaceflight. Participated in the experiment the Colorado State University and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Effects of Muscle Atrophy on Motor End Plates: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of spaceflight on neurotransmitter receptors of the brain and spinal cord, and on the morphology and histochemistry of nerve-muscle junctions. Specifically, it studied the muscarinic and gaba (benzodiazepine) receptors in the sensory-motor cortex and spinal cord. The institutions participating in this experiment were the NASA Ames Research Center and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Pineal Physiology in Microgravity and Its Relation to Gonadal Function: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of microgravity on selected pineal gland neurotransmitters associated with rodent circadian rhythm control and correlate this with testis function. Participated in the experiment the Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), the San Jose State University and the Florida A&M University.
Pituitary Oxytocin and Vasopressin Content: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of microgravity on two pituitary hormones (oxytocin and vasopressin) involved in water balance. Participated in the experiment the NASA Ames Research Center and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Study of the Effect of Microgravity on Enzymes: The objective of this experiment was to study the effect of microgravity on 1) metabolic enzymes of type I, IIA, and IIB muscle fibers; and on 2) metabolic enzymes, neurotransmitter amino acids, and neurotransmitter associated enzymes in selected regions of the central nervous system. Participated in the experiment the Washington University School of Medicine and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Growth Hormone Regulation, Synthesis and Secretion in Microgravity: The objective of this experiment was to study growth hormone physiology in rodents during spaceflight. The institutions participating in this experiment were Pennsylvania State University, Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), NASA Ames Research Center and Salk Institute of Biological Studies.
Effect of Space Flight on Level and Function of Immune Cells: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of spaceflight on various immunological parameters using rat spleen, bone marrow cells and lymphocytes. Participated the NASA Johnson Space Center, Pennsylvania State University, University of Louisville and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Histologic Examination of Lung Tissue: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effect of microgravity on rat lung tissue. Participated the University of California, San Diego and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Rodent Tissue Repair: The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of microgravity on the repair of skin connective tissue and skeletal muscle. The institutions participating in this experiment were the University of Kansas, Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP), West Virginia University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Adaptation of Optokinetic Nystagmus to Microgravity: The objective of this experiment was to study primate eye movement responses in an upright position and at various angles of tilt, before and after spaceflight. The institutions participating in this experiment were Brooklyn College in New York City, Mount Sinai Medical Center and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Studies of Vestibular Primary Afferents In Normal, Hyper- and Hypogravity: The objective of this experiment was to study the effect of microgravity on a primates vestibular system by measuring brain and eye movement responses to rotational stimuli preflight and postflight. Participated in the experiment University of Texas Medical Branch and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Functional Neuromuscular Adaption to Spaceflight: The objective of this experiment was to study primate electromyographic activity (EMG) and to determine its importance to the maintenance of normal muscle properties. The biochemical and morphological effects of microgravity on muscles was also studied. Participated in the experiment University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP) and Moscow Medical Institute.
Biological Rhythm and Temperature Regulation: The objective of this experiment was to determine the functioning of a primate's circadian rhythm and thermoregulatory systems. Participated in the experiment the University of California, Davis and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Rhesus Monkey Metabolism during Spaceflight: The objective of this experiment was to determine the metabolic rates of primates during spaceflight. Participated in the experiment the University of California, Davis and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
Radiation Dosimetry and Spectrometry - Passive Systems The objective of this experiment was to conduct a set of radiation measurements with passive detectors in order to study high and low energy neutrons, various flux and energy spectra, and the attenuation of space radiation as a function of shielding. The institutions participating in this experiment were the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, University of San Francisco and Institute for Medical and Biological Problems (IMBP).
== See also ==
1989 in spaceflight
Animals in space
== References ==
== External links ==
NASA
U.S. Experiments Flown on the Soviet Biosatellite Cosmos 2044, NASA
U.S. Experiments Flown on the Soviet Biosatellite Cosmos 2044, NASA
"COSMOS 2044 MISSION", entire issue of which was dedicated to reports of joint U.S./U.S.S.R. research in space biomedicine on this specific 14-day spaceflight, Journal of Applied Physiology 73, 1992 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polanyi_Medal | Polanyi Medal | The Polanyi Medal is a biennial award of the Royal Society of Chemistry for outstanding contributions to the field of gas kinetics. The medal is presented at the International Symposium on Gas Kinetics after a plenary lecture given by the prize winner.
The award is named after the Hungarian-British polymath Michael Polanyi, 1891-1976, whose research helped to establish the topic of gas kinetics and reaction dynamics. His son, John Polanyi, received the Polanyi Medal in 1988.
== Winners ==
Source:
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cooke_(engraver)#:~:text=Cooke%20was%20born%20in%20London,and%20became%20a%20wholesale%20confectioner. | George Cooke (engraver) | George Cooke (22 January 1781 – 27 February 1834), was an English line engraver.
== Life and work ==
Cooke was born in London in 1781. His father was a native of Frankfurt, Germany, who in early life settled in England and became a wholesale confectioner. At the age of 14, George Cooke was apprenticed to James Basire (1730-1802). Around the end of his apprenticeship he engraved many plates for Brewer's The Beauties of England and Wales, some in conjunction with his elder brother, William Bernard Cooke.
Afterwards, he produced engravings for Pinkerton's 16-volume Collection of Voyages and Travels, during which his brother William made plans for the first edition of The Thames, to which George Cooke contributed two plates. This work was followed by Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, from drawings made principally by Turner. It was commenced in 1814 and completed in 1826, and George Cooke engraved 15 plates, nearly one-third of the total, and some vignettes. Next appeared an improved edition of The Thames, for which he engraved the 'Launch of the Nelson' and the 'Fair on the Thames,' after Luke Clennell, and the 'Opening of Waterloo Bridge,' after Philip Reinagle.
Between 1817 and 1833 he produced, in connection with Loddiges of Hackney, London a number of plates for the Botanical Cabinet,' and about the same time he engraved some of the plates, after Turner, for Hakewill's Picturesque Tour of Italy, 1820, and Sir Walter Scott's Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque Scenery of Scotland, 1826, in which latter work should be especially noted "Edinburgh from the Calton Hill". To these were added plates for Thomas Allason's Antiquities of Pola, 1819, John Spencer-Stanhope's Olympia, (published by Rodwell and Martin, 1824), and D'Oyly and Mant's Bible, as well as some of those for John Hughes' Views in the South of France, chiefly on the Rhone, after Peter De Wint.
Besides these Cooke engraved a few plates for the publications of the Dilettanti Society, and for the Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, and the Ancient Terracottas in the same collection, and single plates after Turner of a "View of Gledhow" for Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, and "Wentworth House" for Thomas Dunham Whitaker's History of Richmondshire. In 1815, he produced some lithographs for Henry Holland's Travels in the Ionian Isles, .... He also engraved the "Iron Bridge at Sunderland", from an outline by Edward Blore; for Surtees's History of Durham; and the "Monument of Sir Francis Bacon" in St Michael's Church, St Albans, for Robert Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire.
In 1825, Cooke finished his fine engraving of "Rotterdam", from Augustus Wall Callcott's picture belonging to the Earl of Essex, and shortly afterwards issued a prospectus announcing a series of plates from Callcott's works, of which two, "Antwerp" and "Dover", were begun and considerably advanced when vexation at the loss of the proceeds of his 'Rotterdam,'caused by the failure of his agent, led to their abandonment.
He then began, in 1826, the Views in London and its Vicinity, engraved from drawings by Callcott, Stanfield, Roberts, Prout, Stark, Harding, Cotman, and Havell, ending with the 12th issue just before his death.
In 1833, Cooke produced Views of the Old and New London Bridges, executed conjointly with his son, Edward William Cooke, who also made the drawings. He also produced plates for Frederick Nash's Views in Paris, Colonel Batty's Views of European Cities, Baron Taylor's Spain published by Robert Jennings, Rhodes's Peak Scenery and Yorkshire Scenery, several for Stark's Scenery of the Rivers of Norfolk, and one of "Southampton", after Copley Fielding, for the Gallery of the Society of Painters in Water Colours.
Cooke was one of the original members of the "Society of Associated Engravers", who joined together for the purpose of engraving the pictures in the National Gallery, and two of his plates were in preparation at the time of his death. He likewise attempted engraving in mezzotint, and in that style executed a plate of 'Arundel Castle,' after Turner; but it was not a success, and was never published.
Cooke died of 'brain fever' on 27 February 1834 at Barnes, where he was buried.
== References ==
== External links ==
Media related to "The Botanical Cabinet" - Conrad Loddiges & Son, London (1817-1833) at Wikimedia Commons
George Cooke online (ArtCyclopedia)
Engravings by George Cooke (Grosvenor Prints)
Engravings by George Cooke (rareoldprints.com) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period | Warring States period | The Warring States period in Chinese history (c. 475 – 221 BC) comprises the final centuries of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 – 256 BC), which were characterized by warfare, bureaucratic and military reform, and political consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the wars of conquest that saw the state of Qin annex each of the other contender states by 221 BC and found the Qin dynasty, the first imperial dynastic state in East Asian history.
While scholars have identified several different dates as marking the beginning of the Warring States period, Sima Qian's choice of 475 BC is the most often cited. The era largely corresponds to the second half of the Eastern Zhou period, when the king of Zhou formally ruled as Chinese sovereign, but had lost political power and functioned in practice as a figurehead. This dynamic served as the backdrop for the machinations of the eponymous Warring States. The label "Warring States period" derives from the Record of the Warring States, a work of history compiled during the early Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD).
== Geography ==
The political geography of the era was dominated by the Seven Warring States, namely:
Qin located in the far west, with its core in the Wei River Valley and Guanzhong. This geographical position offered protection from the other states but limited its initial influence.
The Three Jins located in the center on the Shanxi plateau were the three successor states of Jin. These were:
Han south, along the Yellow River, controlling the approaches to Qin.
Wei located in the middle, roughly today's eastern Henan Province.
Zhao the northernmost of the three, roughly today's southern Hebei Province as well as northern Shanxi Province.
Qi east, centered on the Shandong Peninsula
Chu south, with its core territory around the valleys of the Han River and, later, the Yangtze River.
Yan northeast, centered on modern-day Beijing. Late in the period it pushed northeast and began to occupy the Liaodong Peninsula
Besides these seven major states other smaller states survived into the period. They include:
Royal territory of the Zhou king was near Luoyi in the Han area on the Yellow River.
Yue On the southeast coast near Shanghai was the State of Yue, which was highly active in the late Spring and Autumn era but was later annexed by Chu.
Zhongshan between the states of Zhao and Yan was the state of Zhongshan, which was eventually annexed by Zhao in 296 BC.
Sichuan states: In the far southwest were the non-Zhou states of Ba (east) and Shu (west). These ancient kingdoms were conquered by Qin later in the period.
Other minor states: There were many minor states which were satellites of the larger ones until they were absorbed. Many were in the Central Plains between the three Jins (west) and Qi (east) and Chu to the south. Some of the more important ones were Song, Lu, Zheng, Wey, Teng, Yue and Zou.
== Periodisation ==
The eastward flight of the Zhou court in 771 BC marks the start of the Spring and Autumn period. No one single incident or starting point inaugurated the Warring States era. The political situation of the period represented a culmination of historical trends of conquest and annexation which also characterised the Spring and Autumn period. As a result, there is some controversy as to the beginning of the era. Proposed starting points include:
481 BC – Proposed by Song-era historian Lü Zuqian, since this year marks the end of the Spring and Autumn Annals.
476–475 BC – Sima Qian, author of the Records of the Grand Historian (c. 91 – c. BC), chose this date as the inaugural year of King Yuan of Zhou.
453 BC – The Partition of Jin saw the formation of Han, Zhao, and Wei, three of the seven warring states.
441 BC – The inaugural year of Zhou Kings starting with King Ai of Zhou.
403 BC – The year when the Zhou court officially recognised Han, Zhao and Wei as states. Sima Guang, author of the Zizhi Tongjian (1084) advocates this date as symbolic of eroded Zhou authority.
== History ==
=== Background and formation ===
The Eastern Zhou dynasty began its fall around the 5th century BC. As their influence waned, they had to rely on armies in allied states rather than their own military force. Hundreds of smaller polities coalesced into seven major states which included: Chu, Han, Qin, Wei, Yan, Qi and Zhao. However, there eventually was a shift in alliances because each state's ruler wanted independence. This caused hundreds of wars between 535 and 286 BC. The victorious state would have overall rule and control in China.
The system of feudal states created by the Western Zhou dynasty underwent enormous changes after 771 BC with the flight of the Zhou court to modern-day Luoyang and the diminution of its relevance and power. The Spring and Autumn period led to a few states gaining power at the expense of many others, the latter no longer able to depend on central authority for legitimacy or protection. During the Warring States period, many rulers claimed the Mandate of Heaven to justify their conquest of other states and spread their influence.
The struggle for hegemony eventually created a state system dominated by several large states, such as Jin, Chu, Qin, Yan, and Qi, while the smaller states of the Central Plain tended to be their satellites and tributaries. Other major states also existed, such as Wu and Yue in the southeast. The last decades of the Spring and Autumn era were marked by increased stability, as the result of peace negotiations between Jin and Chu which established their respective spheres of influence. This situation ended with the partition of Jin, whereby the state was divided between the houses of Han, Zhao and Wei, leading to the seven major warring states.
==== Partition of Jin (453–403 BC) ====
The rulers of Jin had steadily lost political powers since the middle of the 6th century BC to their nominally subordinate nobles and military commanders, a situation arising from the traditions of the Jin which forbade the enfeoffment of relatives of the ducal house. This allowed other clans to gain fiefs and military authority, and decades of internecine struggle led to the establishment of four major families, the Han, Zhao, Wei and Zhi.
The Battle of Jinyang saw the allied Han, Zhao and Wei destroy the Zhi family (453 BC) and their lands were distributed among them. With this, they became the de facto rulers of most of Jin's territory, though this situation would not be officially recognised until half a century later. The Jin division created a political vacuum that enabled during the first 50 years expansion of Chu and Yue northward and Qi southward. Qin increased its control of the local tribes and began its expansion southwest to Sichuan.
=== Early Warring States ===
==== The three Jins recognized (403–364 BC) ====
In 403 BC, the court of King Weilie of Zhou officially recognized Zhao, Wei and Han as immediate vassals, thereby raising them to the same rank as the other warring states.
From before 405 until 383 BC the three Jins were united under the leadership of Wei and expanded in all directions. The most important figure was Marquess Wen of Wei (445–396 BC). In 408–406 BC he conquered the State of Zhongshan to the northeast on the other side of Zhao. At the same time he pushed west across the Yellow River to the Luo River taking the area of Xihe (literally 'west of the [Yellow] river').
The growing power of Wei caused Zhao to back away from the alliance. In 383 BC it moved its capital to Handan and attacked the small state of Wey. Wey appealed to Wei which attacked Zhao on the western side. Being in danger, Zhao called in Chu. As usual, Chu used this as a pretext to annex territory to its north, but the diversion allowed Zhao to occupy a part of Wei. This conflict marked the end of the power of the united Jins and the beginning a period of shifting alliances and wars on several fronts.
In 376 BC, the states of Han, Wei and Zhao deposed Duke Jing of Jin and divided the last remaining Jin territory between themselves, which marked the final end of the Jin state.
In 370 BC, Marquess Wu of Wei died without naming a successor, which led to a war of succession. After three years of civil war, Zhao from the north and Han from the south invaded Wei. On the verge of conquering Wei, the leaders of Zhao and Han fell into disagreement about what to do with Wei, and both armies abruptly retreated. As a result, King Hui of Wei (still a Marquess at the time) was able to ascend the throne of Wei.
Zhao extended from the Shanxi plateau across the plain to the borders of Qi. Wei reached east to Qi, Lu, and Song. To the south, the weaker state of Han held the east–west part of the Yellow River valley, surrounded the Zhou royal domain at Luoyang and held an area north of Luoyang called Shangdang.
==== Qi resurgence under Tian (379–340 BC) ====
Duke Kang of Qi died in 379 BC with no heir from the house of Jiang, which had ruled Qi since the state's founding. The throne instead passed to the future King Wei, from the house of Tian. The Tian had been very influential at court towards the end of Jiang rule, and now openly assumed power.
The new ruler set about reclaiming territories that had been lost to other states. He launched a successful campaign against Zhao, Wey and Wei, once again extending Qi territory to the Great Wall. Sima Qian writes that the other states were so awestruck that nobody dared attack Qi for more than 20 years. The demonstrated military prowess also had a calming effect on Qi's own population, which experienced great domestic tranquility during Wei's reign.
By the end of King Wei's reign, Qi had become the strongest of the states and proclaimed itself "king"; establishing independence from the Zhou dynasty (see below).
==== Wars of Wei ====
King Hui of Wei (370–319 BC) set about restoring the state. In 362–359 BC he exchanged territories with Han and Zhao in order to make the boundaries of the three states more rational.
In 364 BC, Wei was defeated by Qin at the Battle of Shimen and was only saved by the intervention of Zhao. Qin won another victory in 362 BC. In 361 BC the Wei capital was moved east to Daliang to be out of the reach of Qin.
In 354 BC, King Hui of Wei started a large-scale attack on Zhao. By 353 BC, Zhao was losing badly and its capital, Handan, was under siege. The state of Qi intervened. The famous Qi strategist, Sun Bin the great-great-great-grandson of Sun Tzu, the author of the Art of War, proposed to attack the Wei capital while the Wei army was tied up besieging Zhao. The strategy was a success; the Wei army hastily moved south to protect its capital, was caught on the road and decisively defeated at the Battle of Guiling. The battle is remembered in the second of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, "besiege Wei, save Zhao"—meaning to attack a vulnerable spot to relieve pressure at another point.
Domestically, King Hui patronized philosophy and the arts, and is perhaps best remembered for hosting the Confucian philosopher Mencius at his court; their conversations form the first two chapters of the book which bears Meng Zi's name.
=== Dukes become kings ===
==== Qi and Wei became kingdoms (344 BC) ====
The title of king (wang, 王) was held by figurehead rulers of the Zhou dynasty, while the rulers of most states held the title of duke (gong, 公) or marquess (hou, 侯). A major exception was Chu, whose rulers were called kings since King Wu of Chu started using the title c. 703 BC.
In 344 BC the rulers of Qi and Wei mutually recognized each other as kings: King Wei of Qi and King Hui of Wei, in effect declaring their independence from the Zhou court. This marked a major turning point: unlike those in the Spring and Autumn period, the new generation of rulers ascending the thrones in the Warring States period would not entertain even the pretence of being vassals of the Zhou dynasty, instead proclaiming themselves fully independent kingdoms.
==== Shang Yang reforms Qin (356–338 BC) ====
During the early Warring States period Qin generally avoided conflicts with the other states. This changed during the reign of Duke Xiao, when prime minister Shang Yang made centralizing and authoritarian reforms in accordance with his Legalist philosophy between the years 356 and 338 BC.
Shang introduced land reforms, privatized land, rewarded farmers who exceeded harvest quotas, enslaved farmers who failed to meet quotas, and used enslaved subjects as rewards for those who met government policies. As manpower was short in Qin relative to the other states at the time, Shang enacted policies to increase its manpower. As Qin peasants were recruited into the military, he encouraged active immigration of peasants from other states into Qin as a replacement workforce; this policy simultaneously increased the manpower of Qin and weakened the manpower of Qin's rivals.
Shang made laws forcing citizens to marry at a young age and passed tax laws to encourage raising multiple children. He also enacted policies to free convicts who worked in opening wastelands for agriculture. Shang abolished primogeniture and created a double tax on households that had more than one son living in the household, to break up large clans into nuclear families. Shang also moved the capital to reduce the influence of nobles on the administration.
The rise of Qin was recognized by the royal court, and in 343 BC the king conferred the title of Count (伯 Bó) on Duke Xiao. As was customary, a conference was hosted which the feudal lords attended, and during which the Son of Heaven bestowed the title.
After the reforms Qin became much more aggressive. In 340 Qin took land from Wèi after it had been defeated by Qi. In 316 Qin conquered Shu and Ba in Sichuan to the southwest. Development of this area took a long time but slowly added greatly to Qin's wealth and power.
==== Qin defeats Wei (341–340 BC) ====
In 341 BC, Wei attacked Han. Qi allowed Han to be nearly defeated and then intervened. The generals from the Battle of Guiling met again (Sun Bin and Tian Ji versus Pang Juan), using the same tactic, attacking Wei's capital. Sun Bin feigned a retreat and then turned on the overconfident Wei troops and decisively defeated them at the Battle of Maling. After the battle all three of the Jin successor states appeared before King Xuan of Qi, pledging their loyalty.
In the following year Qin attacked the weakened Wei. Wei was devastatingly defeated and ceded a large part of its territory in return for truce. With Wei severely weakened, Qi and Qin became the dominant states in China.
Wei came to rely on Qi for protection, with King Hui of Wei meeting King Xuan of Qi on two occasions. After Hui's death, his successor King Xiang also established a good relationship with his Qi counterpart, with both promising to recognize the other as "king".
==== Chu conquers Yue (334 BC) ====
Early in the Warring States period, Chu was one of the strongest states in China. The state rose to a new level of power around 389 BC when King Dao of Chu (楚悼王) named the famous reformer Wu Qi as his chancellor.
Chu rose to its peak in 334 BC, when it conquered Yue to its east on the Pacific coast. The series of events leading up to this began when Yue prepared to attack Qi to its north. The King of Qi sent an emissary who persuaded the King of Yue to attack Chu instead. Yue initiated a large-scale attack at Chu but was defeated by Chu's counter-attack. Chu then proceeded to conquer Yue.
==== Qin, Han and Yan became kingdoms (325–323 BC) ====
King Xian of Zhou had attempted to use what little royal prerogative he had left by appointing the dukes Xian (384–362 BC), Xiao (361–338 BC) and Hui (338–311 BC) of Qin as hegemons, thereby in theory making Qin the chief ally of the court.
However, in 325 BC, the confidence of Duke Hui grew so great that he proclaimed himself "king" of Qin; adopting the same title as the king of Zhou and thereby effectively proclaiming independence from the Zhou dynasty. King Hui of Qin was guided by his prime minister Zhang Yi, a prominent representative of the School of Diplomacy.
He was followed in 323 BC by King Xuanhui of Han and King Yi of Yan, as well as King Cuo of the minor state Zhongshan. In 318 BC even the ruler of Song, a relatively minor state, declared himself king. Uniquely, while King Wuling of Zhao had joined the other kings in declaring himself king, he retracted this order in 318 BC, after Zhao suffered a great defeat at the hands of Qin.
==== Partition of Zhou (314 BC) ====
King Kao of Zhou had enfeoffed his younger brother as Duke Huan of Henan. Three generations later, this cadet branch of the royal house began calling themselves "dukes of East Zhou".
Upon the ascension of King Nan in 314, East Zhou became an independent state. The king came to reside in what became known as West Zhou.
=== Horizontal and vertical alliances (334–249 BC) ===
Towards the end of the Warring States period, the state of Qin became disproportionately powerful compared with the other six states. As a result, the policies of the six states became overwhelmingly oriented towards dealing with the Qin threat, with two opposing schools of thought. One school advocated a 'vertical' or north–south alliance called hezong (合縱) in which the states would ally with each other to repel Qin. The other advocated a 'horizontal' or east–west alliance called lianheng (連橫), in which a state would ally with Qin to participate in its ascendancy.
There were some initial successes in hezong, though mutual suspicions between allied states led to the breakdown of such alliances. Qin repeatedly exploited the horizontal alliance strategy to defeat the states one by one. During this period, many philosophers and tacticians travelled around the states, recommending that the rulers put their respective ideas into use. These "lobbyists", such as Su Qin, who advocated vertical alliances, and Zhang Yi, who advocated horizontal alliances, were famous for their tact and intellect, and were collectively known as the School of Diplomacy, whose Chinese name (縱橫家 'the school of the vertical and horizontal') was derived from the two opposing ideas.
==== Su Qin and the first vertical alliance (334–300 BC) ====
Beginning in 334 BC the diplomat Su Qin spent years visiting the courts of Yan, Zhao, Han, Wei, Qi and Chu and persuaded them to form a united front against Qin. In 318 BC all states except Qi launched a joint attack on Qin, which was not successful.
King Hui of Qin died in 311 BC, followed by prime minister Zhang Yi one year later. The new monarch, King Wu, reigned only four years before dying without legitimate heirs. Some damaging turbulence ensued throughout 307 BC before a son of King Hui by a concubine (i.e. a younger half-brother of King Wu) could be established as King Zhao, who in stark contrast to his predecessor went on to rule for an unprecedented 53 years.
After the failure of the first vertical alliance, Su Qin eventually came to live in Qi, where he was favored by King Xuan and drew the envy of the ministers. An assassination attempt in 300 BC left Su mortally wounded but not dead. Sensing death approaching, he advised the newly crowned King Min have him publicly executed to draw out the assassins. King Min complied with Su's request and killed him, putting an end to the first generation of Vertical alliance thinkers.
==== The first horizontal alliance (300–287 BC) ====
King Min of Qi came to be highly influenced by Lord Mengchang, a grandson of the former King Wei of Qi. Lord Mengchang made a westward alliance with the states of Wei and Han. In the far west, Qin, which had been weakened by a succession struggle in 307, yielded to the new coalition and appointed Lord Mengchang its chief minister. The alliance between Qin and Qi was sealed by a Qin princess marrying King Min. This horizontal or east–west alliance might have secured peace except that it excluded the State of Zhao.
Around 299 BC, the ruler of Zhao became the last of the seven major states to proclaim himself "king".
In 298 BC, Zhao offered Qin an alliance and Lord Mengchang was driven out of Qin. The remaining three allies, Qi, Wei and Han, attacked Qin, driving up the Yellow River below Shanxi to the Hangu Pass. After 3 years of fighting they took the pass and forced Qin to return territory to Han and Wei. They next inflicted major defeats on Yan and Chu. During the 5-year administration of Lord Mengchang, Qi was the major power in China.
In 294, Lord Mengchang was implicated in a coup d'état and fled to Wei. His alliance system collapsed.
Qi and Qin made a truce and pursued their own interests. Qi moved south against the state of Song whilst the Qin General Bai Qi pushed back eastward against a Han/Wei alliance, gaining victory at the Battle of Yique.
In 288, King Zhao of Qin and King Min of Qi took the title di (帝 'emperor'), of the west and east respectively. They swore a covenant and started planning an attack on Zhao.
==== Su Dai and the second vertical alliance ====
In 287 BC the strategist Su Dai, younger brother of Su Qin and possibly an agent of Yan, persuaded King Min that the Zhao war would only benefit Qin. King Min agreed and formed a 'vertical' alliance with the other states against Qin. Qin backed off, abandoned the presumptuous title of "Di", and restored territory to Wei and Zhao. In 286 Qi annexed the state of Song.
==== The second horizontal alliance and fall of Qi ====
In 285 BC, the success of Qi had frightened the other states. Under the leadership of Lord Mengchang, who was exiled in Wei, Qin, Zhao, Wei and Yan formed an alliance. Yan had normally been a relatively weak ally of Qi and Qi feared little from this quarter. Yan's onslaught under general Yue Yi came as a devastating surprise. Simultaneously, the other allies attacked from the west. Chu declared itself an ally of Qi but contented itself with annexing some territory to its north. Qi's armies were destroyed while the territory of Qi was reduced to the two cities of Ju and Jimo. King Min himself was later captured and executed by his own followers.
King Min was succeeded by King Xiang in 283 BC. His general Tian Dan was eventually able to restore much of Qi's territory, but it never regained the influence it had under King Min.
==== Qin and Zhao expansion ====
In 278 BC, the Qin general Bai Qi attacked from Qin's new territory in Sichuan to the west of Chu. The capital of Ying was captured and Chu's western lands on the Han River were lost. The effect was to shift Chu significantly to the east.
After Chu was defeated in 278, the remaining great powers were Qin in the west and Zhao in the north-center. There was little room for diplomatic maneuver and matters were decided by wars. Zhao had been much strengthened by King Wuling of Zhao (325–299). In 307 he enlarged his cavalry by copying the northern nomads. In 306 he took more land in the northern Shanxi plateau. In 305 he defeated the north-eastern border state of Zhongshan. In 304 he pushed far to the north-west and occupied the east–west section of the Yellow River in the north of the Ordos Loop. King Huiwen of Zhao (298–266) chose able servants and expanded against the weakened Qi and Wei. In 296 his general Lian Po defeated two Qin armies.
In 269 BC Fan Sui became chief advisor to Qin. He advocated authoritarian reforms, irrevocable expansion and an alliance with distant states to attack nearby states (the twenty-third of the Thirty-Six Stratagems). His maxim "attack not only the territory, but also the people" enunciated a policy of mass slaughter that became increasingly frequent.
==== Qin-Zhao wars (282–257 BC) ====
In 265 King Zhaoxiang of Qin made the first move by attacking the weak state of Han which held the Yellow River gateway into Qin. He moved north-east across Wei territory to cut off the Han exclave of Shangdang north of Luoyang and south of Zhao. The Han king agreed to surrender Shangdang, but the local governor refused and presented it to King Xiaocheng of Zhao. Zhao sent out Lian Po who based his armies at Changping and Qin sent out general Wang He. Lian Po was too wise to risk a decisive battle with the Qin army and remained inside his fortifications. Qin could not break through and the armies were locked in stalemate for three years. The Zhao king decided that Lian Po was not aggressive enough and sent out Zhao Kuo who promised a decisive battle. At the same time Qin secretly replaced Wang He with the notoriously violent Bai Qi. When Zhao Kuo left his fortifications, Bai Qi used a Cannae maneuver, falling back in the center and surrounding the Zhao army from the sides. After being surrounded for 46 days, the starving Zhao troops surrendered in September 260 BC. It is said that Bai Qi had all the prisoners killed and that Zhao lost 400,000 men.
Qin was too exhausted to follow up its victory. Some time later it sent an army to besiege the Zhao capital but the army was destroyed when it was attacked from the rear. Zhao survived, but there was no longer a state that could resist Qin on its own. The other states could have survived if they remained united against Qin, but they did not.
In 257 BC, Qin army failed to besiege Handan and was defeated by the allied force of Zhao, Wei and Chu during the Battle of Handan.
==== End of Zhou dynasty (256–249 BC) ====
The forces of King Zhao of Qin defeated King Nan of Zhou and conquered West Zhou in 256 BC, claiming the Nine Cauldrons and thereby symbolically becoming The Son of Heaven.
King Zhao's exceptionally long reign ended in 251 BC. His son King Xiaowen, already an old man, died just three days after his coronation and was succeeded by his son King Zhuangxiang of Qin. The new Qin king proceeded to conquer East Zhou, seven years after the fall of West Zhou. Thus the 800-year Zhou dynasty, nominally China's longest-ruling regime, finally came to an end.
Sima Qian contradicts himself regarding the ultimate fate of the East Zhou court. Chapter 4 (The Annals of Zhou) concludes with the sentence "thus the sacrifices of Zhou ended", but in the following chapter 5 (The Annals of Qin) we learn that "Qin did not prohibit their sacrifices; the Lord of Zhou was allotted a patch of land in Yangren where he could continue his ancestral sacrifices".
=== Qin unites China (247–221 BC) ===
King Zhuangxiang of Qin ruled for only three years. He was succeeded by his son Zheng, who unlike the two elderly kings that preceded him was only 13 years old at his coronation. As an adult, Zheng became a brilliant commander who, in the span of just nine years, unified China.
==== Conquest of Han ====
In 230 BC, Qin conquered Han. Han, the weakest of the Seven Warring States, was adjacent to the much stronger Qin, and had suffered continuous assaults by Qin in earlier years of the Warring States period. This went on until King Zheng of Qin sent general Wang Jian to attack Zhao. King An of Han, frightened by the thought that Han would be the next target of the Qin state, immediately sent diplomats to surrender the entire kingdom without a fight, saving the Han populace from the terrible potential consequences of an unsuccessful resistance.
==== Conquest of Wei ====
In 225 BC, Qin conquered Wei. The Qin army led a direct invasion into Wei by besieging its capital Daliang but soon realized that the city walls were too tough to break into. They devised a new strategy in which they utilized the power of a local river that was linked to the Yellow River. The river was used to flood the city's walls, causing massive devastation to the city. Upon realizing the situation, King Jia of Wei hurriedly came out of the capital and surrendered it to the Qin army in order to avoid further bloodshed of his people.
==== Conquest of Chu ====
In 223 BC, Qin conquered Chu.
The first invasion was however an utter disaster when 200,000 Qin troops, led by the general, Li Xin, were defeated by 500,000 Chu troops in the unfamiliar territory of Huaiyang, modern-day northern Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. Xiang Yan, the Chu commander, had lured Qin by allowing a few initial victories, but then counterattacked and burnt two large Qin camps.
In 222 BC, Wang Jian was recalled to lead a second military invasion with 600,000 men against the Chu state. High in morale after their victory in the previous year, the Chu forces were content to sit back and defend against what they expected to be a siege of Chu. However, Wang Jian decided to weaken Chu's resolve and tricked the Chu army by appearing to be idle in his fortifications whilst secretly training his troops to fight in Chu territory. After a year, the Chu defenders decided to disband due to apparent lack of action from the Qin. Wang Jian invaded at that point, with full force, and overran Huaiyang and the remaining Chu forces. Chu lost the initiative and could only sustain local guerrilla-style resistance until it too was fully conquered with the destruction of Shouchun and the death of its last leader, Lord Changping, in 223 BC. At their peak, the combined armies of Chu and Qin are estimated to have ranged from hundreds of thousands to a million soldiers, more than those involved in the campaign of Changping between Qin and Zhao 35 years earlier.
==== Conquest of Zhao and Yan ====
In 222 BC, Qin conquered Zhao and Yan.
After the conquest of Zhao, the Qin army turned its attention towards Yan. Realizing the danger and gravity of this situation, Crown Prince Dan of Yan had sent Jing Ke to assassinate King Zheng of Qin, but this failure only helped to fuel the rage and determination of the Qin king, and he increased the number of troops to conquer the Yan state.
==== Conquest of Qi ====
In 221 BC, Qin conquered Qi, the final unconquered state. It had not previously contributed or helped other states when Qin was conquering them. As soon as Qin's intention to invade it became clear, Qi swiftly surrendered all its cities, completing the unification of China and ushering in the Qin dynasty. The last Qi king lived out his days in exile in Gong and was not given a posthumous name, therefore he is known to posterity by his personal name Jian.
The Qin king Ying Zheng declared himself as Qin Shi Huangdi, "The first Sovereign Emperor of Qin".
In the rule of the Qin state, the union was based solely on military power. The feudal holdings were abolished, and noble families were forced to live in the capital city Xianyang, in order to be supervised. A national road (as well as greater use of canals) allowed for faster and easier deployment and supply of the army. The peasants were given a wider range of land rights, although they were subject to taxation, creating a large amount of revenue to the state.
== Military theory and practice ==
=== Increasing scale of warfare ===
The chariot remained a major factor in Chinese warfare long after it went out of fashion in the Middle East. Near the beginning of the Warring States period there is a shift from chariots to massed infantry, possibly associated with the invention of the crossbow. This had two major effects. First it led the dukes to weaken their chariot-riding nobility so they could get direct access to the peasantry who could be drafted as infantry. This change was associated with the shift from aristocratic to bureaucratic government. Second, it led to a massive increase in the scale of warfare. When the Zhou overthrew the Shang at the Battle of Muye they used 45,000 troops and 300 chariots. For the Warring States period the following figures for the military strengths of various states are reported:
Qin 1,000,000 infantry, 1,000 chariots, 10,000 horses;
Chu same numbers;
Wei 200–360,000 infantry, 200,000 spearmen, 100,000 servants, 600 chariots, 5,000 cavalry;
Han 300,000 total;
Qi several hundred thousand;
For major battles, the following figures are reported:
Battle of Maling 100,000 killed;
Battle of Yique 240,000 killed;
General Bai Qi is said to have been responsible for 890,000 enemy deaths over his career.
Many scholars think these numbers are exaggerated (records are inadequate, they are much larger than those from similar societies, soldiers were paid by the number of enemies they killed and the Han dynasty had an interest in exaggerating the bloodiness of the age before China was unified). Regardless of exaggeration, it seems clear that warfare had become excessive during this period. The bloodshed and misery of the Warring States period goes a long way in explaining China's traditional and current preference for a united throne.
=== Military developments ===
The Warring States period saw the introduction of many innovations to the art of warfare in China, such as the use of iron and of cavalry.
Warfare in the Warring States period evolved considerably from the Spring and Autumn period, as most armies made use of infantry and cavalry in battles, and the use of chariots became less widespread. The use of massed infantry made warfare bloodier and reduced the importance of the aristocracy, which in turn made the kings more despotic. From this period onward, as the various states competed with each other by mobilizing their armies to war, nobles in China belonged to the literate class, rather than to the warrior class as had previously been the case.
The various states fielded massive armies of infantry, cavalry, and chariots. Complex logistical systems maintained by efficient government bureaucracies were needed to supply, train, and control such large forces. The size of the armies ranged from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand men.
Iron weapons became more widespread and began to replace bronze. Most armour and weapons of this period were made from iron.
The first official native Chinese cavalry unit was formed in 307 BC during the military reforms of King Wuling of Zhao, who advocated 'nomadic dress and horse archery'. But the war chariot still retained its prestige and importance, despite the tactical superiority of cavalry.
The crossbow was the preferred long-range weapon of this period, due to several reasons. The crossbow could be mass-produced easily, and mass training of crossbowmen was possible. These qualities made it a powerful weapon against the enemy.
Infantrymen deployed a variety of weapons, but the most popular was the dagger-axe. The dagger-axe came in various lengths, from 9 to 18 feet; the weapon consisted of a thrusting spear with a slashing blade appended to it. Dagger-axes were an extremely popular weapon in various kingdoms, especially for the Qin, who produced 18-foot-long pike-like weapons.
The Qiang battle spear was named as the king 'wang' of all ancient weapons. It had the biggest impact on the battlefield and was quite difficult to master. The second important weapon of that era was the double-edged battle sword Jian. The fighting methods of using the Qiang spear and Jian sword were very different from what we see in movies or re-enactment shows today. Professional warriors of that era used the military concepts of "Master" Sun Tzu and created several successful "Ge Dou" martial schools.
=== Military thought ===
The Warring States was a great period for military strategy; of the Seven Military Classics of China, four were written during this period:
The Art of War It is attributed to Sun Tzu, a highly influential study of strategy and tactics.
Wuzi It is attributed to Wu Qi, a statesman and commander who served the states of Wei and then Chu.
Wei Liaozi of uncertain authorship.
The Methods of the Sima It is attributed to Sima Rangju, a commander serving the state of Qi.
== Culture and society ==
The Warring States period was an era of warfare in ancient China, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation; the major states, ruling over large territories, quickly sought to consolidate their powers, leading to the final erosion of the Zhou court's prestige. As a sign of this shift, the rulers of all the major states (except for Chu, which had claimed kingly title much earlier) abandoned their former feudal titles for the title of 王, or King, claiming equality with the rulers of the Zhou.
At the same time, the constant conflict and need for innovative social and political models led to the development of many philosophical doctrines, later known as the Hundred Schools of Thought. The most notable schools of thought include Mohism (expounded by Mozi), Confucianism (represented by Mencius and Xunzi), Legalism (represented by Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, Shen Dao and Han Fei) and Taoism (represented by Zhuangzi and Lao Tzu).
The many states that were competing between each other attempted to display their power not only militarily but in their courts and in state philosophy. Many differing rulers adopted the differing philosophies to their own advantage or that of their kingdom.
Mencius attempted to instate Confucianism as a state philosophy, proposing that through the governing of moral principles like benevolence and righteousness, the state would win popular support from one state and those neighboring, eliminating the need of a war altogether. Mencius had attempted to convince King Hui of Liang, although was unsuccessful since the king saw no advantage in the period of wars.
Mohism was developed by Mozi (468–376 BC) and it provided a unified moral and political philosophy based on impartiality and benevolence. Mohists had the belief that people change depending on environments around. The same was applied to rulers, which is why one must be cautious of foreign influences. Mozi was very much against warfare, although he was a great tactician in defense. He defended the small state of Song from many attempts of the Chu state.
Taoism was advocated by Laozi, and believed that human nature was good and can achieve perfection by returning to its original state. It believed that like a baby, humans are simple and innocent although with development of civilizations it lost its innocence only to be replaced by fraud and greed. Contrarily to other schools, it did not want to gain influence in the offices of states and Laozi even refused to be the minister of the state of Chu.
Legalism created by Shang Yang in 338 BC, rejected all notions of religion and practices, and believed a nation should be governed by strict law. Not only were severe punishments applied, but they would be grouped with the families and made mutually responsible for criminal act. It proposed radical reforms, and established a society based on solid ranks. Peasants were encouraged to practice agriculture as occupation, and military performance was rewarded. Laws were also applied to all ranks with no exception; even the king was not above punishment. The philosophy was adapted by the Qin state and it created it into an organized, centralized state with a bureaucracy chosen on the basis of merit.
This period is most famous for the establishment of complex bureaucracies and centralized governments, as well as a clear legal system. The developments in political and military organization were the basis of the power of the Qin state, which conquered the other states and unified them under the Qin dynasty in 221 BC.
=== Nobles, bureaucrats and reformers ===
The phenomenon of intensive warfare, based on mass formations of infantry rather than the traditional chariots, was one major trend which led to the creation of strong central bureaucracies in each of the major states. At the same time, the process of secondary feudalism which permeated the Spring and Autumn period, and led to such events as the partition of Jin and the usurpation of Qi by the Tian clan, was eventually reversed by the same process of bureaucratisation.
Under the demands of warfare, the states adopted bureaucratic reforms in the Warring States period. Wei adopted these in 445 BC, Zhao in 403 BC, Chu in 390 BC, Han in 355 BC, Qi in 357 BC and Qin in 350 BC. Power was centralised by curbing the landed aristocrats and sinecures and creating a new hierarchy based on meritorious service to the state, which were drawn from the lower rungs of society. Systematic auditing and reporting systems, and fixed salaries for officials were created.
The reforms of Shang Yang in Qin, and of Wu Qi in Chu, both centred on increased centralisation, the suppression of the nobility, and a vastly increased scope of government based on Legalist ideals, which were necessary to mobilise the large armies of the period.
=== Sophisticated arithmetic ===
A bundle of 21 bamboo slips from the Tsinghua collection dated to 305 BC are the world's earliest example of a two digit decimal multiplication table, indicating that sophisticated commercial arithmetic was already established during this period.
Rod numerals were used to represent both negative and positive integers, and rational numbers, a true positional number system, with a blank for zero dating back to the Warring States period.
The nine linked-rings puzzle, an advanced puzzle device which requires mathematical analysis to solve, was invented during the period.
== Literature ==
An important literary achievement of the Warring States period is the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, which summarizes the preceding Spring and Autumn period. The less famous work Guoyu is thought to be by the same author.
Many sayings of Spring and Autumn philosophers, which had previously been circulated orally, were put into writing in the Warring States. These include the Analects and The Art of War.
== Economic developments ==
The Warring States period saw the proliferation of iron working in China, replacing bronze as the dominant type of metal used in warfare. Areas such as Shu (present-day Sichuan) and Yue (present-day Zhejiang) were also brought into the Chinese cultural sphere during this time. Trade also became important, and some merchants had considerable power in politics, the most prominent of which was Lü Buwei, who rose to become Chancellor of Qin and was a key supporter of the eventual Qin Shihuang.
At the same time, the increased resources of consolidated, bureaucratic states, coupled with the logistical needs of mass levies and large-scale warfare, led to the proliferation of economic projects such as large-scale waterworks. Major examples of such waterworks include the Dujiangyan Irrigation System, which controlled the Min River in Sichuan and turned the former backwater region into a major Qin logistical base, and the Zhengguo Canal which irrigated large areas of land in the Guanzhong Plain, again increasing Qin's agricultural output.
The Guanzi is considered one of the most foundational texts of the developing political economy in the Warring States period. It addresses principles of price regulation in the context of effectively dealing with commodities that are "light" (connoting a commodity which is unimportant, non-essential, or inexpensive) or "heavy" (a commodity which is important, essential, or expensive) and how whether a commodity is "light" or "heavy" is understood in relation to other commodities.
== See also ==
Feudalism
Sengoku period – A period in Japanese history named after this period
Three Kingdoms
Warlord Era
== References ==
=== Citations ===
=== Sources ===
== Further reading ==
Li Xueqin (1985). Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations. Translated by Chang, K.C. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-03286-2.
Yap, Joseph P. (2009). Wars with the Xiongnu: A Translation from Zizhi Tongjian. Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.: AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4490-0604-4.
Sima Guang (2016). Zizhi Tongjian: Warring States and Qin. Vol. 1 to 8 - 403-207 BCE. Translated by Yap, Joseph P. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1533086938. LCCN 2016908788.
== External links ==
Warring States period - World History Encyclopedia
Warring States Project, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Rulers of the warring states – Chinese Text Project
China's Warring States period, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Chris Cullen, Vivienne Lo & Carol Michaelson (In Our Time, Apr. 1, 2004)
Warring States wine made more than 2,300 years ago, as deep as the sea |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam_Nabatanzi | Mariam Nabatanzi | Mariam Nabatanzi Babirye (born c. 1980) also known as Maama Uganda or Mother Uganda, is a Ugandan woman known for birthing 44 children, 38 of whom are still alive. As of March 2025, her eldest children were 33 years old, and the youngest were eight years old. In 2015, her husband abandoned the family, reportedly unable to support so many children.
Born around 1980, Babirye first gave birth when she was 13 years old, having been forced into marriage the year before. By the age of 36, she had given birth to a total of 44 children, including three sets of quadruplets, four sets of triplets, and six sets of twins, for a total of fifteen births. The number of multiple births was caused by a rare genetic condition causing hyperovulation as a result of enlarged ovaries. In 2019, when Babirye was aged 40, she underwent a medical procedure to prevent any further pregnancies.
== Life and background ==
According to Babirye, her mother abandoned her family and five brothers three days following her birth. As a seven year old child, her stepmother mixed cut glass into the food of her older siblings while Babirye was away visiting a relative; all of them died.
In 1993, a twelve year old Babirye was married off to a physically abusive 40 year old man, who was polygamous and already had multiple other wives. Her father-in-law gave her family a piece of land to support themselves, and at the age of 13, she gave birth to twins, before giving birth to triplets two years later, and then a set of quadruplets a year and a half later. She did not find this unusual, as multiple births were quite common in her family, saying:
My father gave birth to forty-five children with different women, and these all came in quintuplets, quadruples, twins and triplets.
After her sixth delivery, she approached a doctor about having no more children and was told that "attempting to stop her from having another child would lead to her early death." At age 23, she had given birth to 25 children but was advised to continue having children because "(her) ovary count was still high."
In 2015, Babirye's husband abandoned the family, unable to provide for 42 children, but not before leaving her pregnant with twins; he later on sold off the homestead where Babirye and her children were living. She and her children were hosted by her grandmother, but when her grandmother died, her relatives allowed her to remain in the homestead to house her children. As of April 2023, she still owes a balance on that homestead before she can assume full ownership.
According to Charles Kiggundu, a gynecologist at the Mulago National Specialised Hospital, after giving birth to her last set of twins via cesarian section, Babirye underwent tubal ligation, preventing any further pregnancies. One of the boys from that set of twins died in childbirth, being her most recent child to die.
== Living situation ==
Babirye and her household, comprising sixty-odd individuals, including her children, grandchildren and daughters-in-law, live in the village of Kasawo, located in the Mukono district of Central Uganda. They are largely dependent on donors who donate food, beds and other necessities, but Babirye also works as a part-time tailor, herbalist and hairdresser.
Babirye's household lives in a complex composed of five cement-block houses with corrugated iron roofs; the complex has seventeen rooms, fifteen of which are bedrooms and two are empty living and dining rooms. Nine of the bedrooms are without any beds, and the other six bedrooms have a total of eight bunk beds, four of which are not in usable condition. The other four beds accommodate a total of twenty-four children on mattresses.
== Plans ==
According to The Uganda Times, Babirye hopes to get UGX 5 million (about US$1,400) to pay off the remaining balance on her family's living complex to her grandmother's relatives to take full ownership.
She also hopes to acquire new iron sheets to replace the leaking roofs, twenty-five new bunk beds, and sixty-six new mattresses, so that each person has their own bed. Additionally, she plans to acquire some land for cultivating food and rearing animals with her family workforce, and to achieve financial security for her dependents, as well as starting a restaurant, a bridal salon, and an events management service to employ her children.
== Notes ==
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Bunster#:~:text=Claudio%20Bunster%20Weitzman%20(Latin%20American,name%20was%20Claudio%20Teitelboim%20Weitzman. | Claudio Bunster | Claudio Bunster Weitzman (Latin American Spanish: [ˈklawðjo ˈβunsteɾ]; born April 15, 1947) is a Chilean theoretical physicist. Until 2005 his name was Claudio Teitelboim Weitzman.
== Biography ==
Until 2005 Bunster thought he was the biological son of Volodia Teitelboim, when he learned that his biological father was lawyer Bruno Bunster. He was convinced that this was a machination of the leadership of the Communist Party. He became estranged from his adoptive father, changed his name and did not attend his funeral.
Claudio Bunster attended at Instituto Nacional General José Miguel Carrera, a prestigious public high school of Santiago. Bunster was educated at the University of Chile and Princeton University, where he earned his doctorate in physics in 1973. Bunster has conducted frontier research and taught at Princeton University and at the University of Texas at Austin. He has also been "Long Term Member" of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Bunster has been Director of the Center for Scientific Studies (CECS) from its inception in 1984. Originally operating from Santiago, in 2000 this autonomous institute moved South of Chile, Valdivia, in the 40S parallel, where the search has expanded and deepened in the areas of life, our planet and the cosmos.
In addition to his research in theoretical physics and his work as Director of CECs, Bunster has engaged in public service. He was Scientific Adviser to the President during the administration of President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994–2000). During his tenure as presidential adviser the Presidential Chairs in Science and the Millennium Science Initiative were established. He was also a member of the Panel on Human Rights, established by the government, and involving both the civilian and the military, to address outstanding human rights issues.
Bunster has been especially involved in incorporating the armed forces in scientific endeavors, as a way of strengthening democracy through science. This interest has led to joint work in science among CECs, the Army, Navy and Air Force of Chile and distinguished foreign institutions. Among the fruits of these collaborations are several unprecedented expeditions to Antarctica in which Bunster was directly involved.
He received Chile's National Prize for Exact Sciences in 1995 and was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2005 and was made Honorary Member of the Solvay Institutes in Brussels in 2007. The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries, awarded Bunster in 2013, with the TWAS-Lenovo Prize.
== Notes == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Fields | Kim Fields | Kim Fields Morgan (née Fields; born May 12, 1969) is an American actress and director. She first gained fame as a child actress on the television series Good Times (1978–1979), and rose to greater prominence for her role as Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey on the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1979–1981), as well as its spin-off The Facts of Life (1979–1988).
Fields made her transition into mature roles as Regine Hunter on the Fox sitcom Living Single (1993–1998). Afterwards, she began work as a director on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel, as well as Tyler Perry's House of Payne. She currently stars in the Netflix original series The Upshaws (2021–present).
== Career ==
Before appearing on The Facts of Life, Fields co-starred in a short-lived sitcom called Baby, I'm Back with Demond Wilson and Denise Nicholas, and she appeared in a television commercial for Mrs. Butterworth's syrup. She later appeared on two episodes of Good Times as a friend of Penny Gordon Woods, played by Janet Jackson. Fields' episodes on Good Times were "The Snow Storm" and "The Physical".
Fields played the role of Dorothy "Tootie" Ramsey on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life from 1979 to 1988. Even years later, many still recognize her catchphrase, "We're in troouu-ble! ". When the show began production, Fields was so short that the producers put her on roller skates during the first season so that they could avoid difficult camera angles. However, she later lost a role as Arnold Jackson's girlfriend on The Facts of Life's parent show Diff'rent Strokes because she was taller than Gary Coleman, who played Arnold. In 1984, during the run of The Facts of Life, Fields released two singles on the Critique Records label: the disco/Hi-NRG "He Loves Me He Loves Me Not" (which became a minor club hit), and "Dear Michael" (which became a minor R&B hit, reaching No. 50).
After taking time away from acting to attend Pepperdine University to earn her bachelor's degree in telecommunications, Fields appeared in a 1993 episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in which Will Smith pretended to marry her in an attempt to seduce her. Fields had a starring role in the hit Fox sitcom Living Single as Regina "Reginé" Hunter from 1993 to 1998. In this role, Fields would act alongside her real-life mother Chip Fields, who played her character's mother on the show.
Following the end of Living Single, Fields began performing R&B and rap music with a group called Impromp 2. With her degree from Pepperdine University, Fields also began directing. Fields directed a number of episodes of the All That! spin-off Kenan & Kel, in which she also appeared in two episodes. She has worked as a director on the sitcoms Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, Tyler Perry's House of Payne and BET's Let's Stay Together.
Fields guest-starred on television shows such as UPN's One on One, The Golden Palace, and Martin. She appeared as herself on HBO's The Comeback. On February 1, 2007, Fields was reunited with her co-star Lisa Whelchel on WFAA-TV's Good Morning Texas. Fields was in Dallas to promote her appearance in the production Issues: We've All Got 'Em when Whelchel was introduced as a surprise guest. It marked the first time in six years (since The Facts of Life Reunion movie) that Fields and Whelchel had seen each other.
Fields has worked with her husband Christopher Morgan on projects. In 2010, she and Morgan produced and directed a Christmas television special called Holiday Love. They shot the entire show in three days. Holiday Love aired on TV One and a second episode aired for Christmas, 2011. In an interview that included background on the show, Fields described the special as "restorative and transformative" of her Christian faith. Fields revived Holiday Love on the Internet in 2013.
On August 18, 2015, it was announced that she would be joining the cast of the Bravo reality television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta for its eighth season. On March 21, 2016, she announced that she would not return to the show for another season.
On March 8, 2016, Fields was announced as one of the celebrities who will compete on season 22 of Dancing with the Stars. She was partnered with professional dancer Sasha Farber. On May 2, 2016, during a double elimination, Fields and Farber were eliminated and finished the competition in 8th place.
In 2017, Fields played the role of Theresa Newman in the Christian film A Question of Faith, which featured Fields' first co-starring appearance in a feature film and premiered in theaters on September 29, 2017.
Since May 2021, Fields has starred on Netflix's The Upshaws, but left the show in 2025.
== Personal life ==
Fields was married to film producer Johnathon Franklin Freeman from 1995 to 2001. Fields gave birth to her first child, Sebastian Alexander Morgan, by then-boyfriend Broadway actor Christopher Morgan, on May 4, 2007. The couple introduced their son the following week in People magazine. On July 23, 2007, they were married in a private ceremony officiated by Pastor Donnie McClurkin. In July 2013, Fields announced on the talk show The Real that she and her husband were expecting another son; on December 3, 2013, they welcomed Quincy Xavier Morgan in Atlanta, Georgia.
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
=== Television ===
=== Music videos ===
=== Directing ===
== References ==
== External links ==
Kim Fields at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Otto#:~:text=Otto%20returned%20to%20competitive%20swimming%20at%20the%201986%20World%20Championships%20in%20Madrid%2C%20where%20she%20won%204%20gold%20medals%20(100%C2%A0m%20freestyle%2C%20200%C2%A0m%20individual%20medley%2C%204%C3%97100%C2%A0m%20medley%20relay%20and%204%C3%97100%C2%A0m%20freestyle%20relay)%20and%202%20silver%20medals | Kristin Otto | Kristin Otto (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁɪstɪn ˈʔɔtoː] ; born 7 February 1966) is a former East German swimmer, becoming Olympic, World and European champion, multiple times. She is most famous for being the first woman to win six gold medals at a single Olympic Games, doing so at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. In long course, she held the world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter freestyle events. Otto was also the first woman to swim the short course 100 meter backstroke in under a minute, doing so at an international short course meet at Indiana University in 1983.
== Career ==
Otto was born in Leipzig, Bezirk Leipzig (present-day Sachsen), East Germany, and began swimming at the age of 11, training in an East German sports academy. At sixteen, she participated in her first world championships, the 1982 World Aquatics Championships, winning the gold medal in the 100 meter backstroke as well as two additional gold medals in the 4×100 m relays with the East German team.
After 1982, Otto changed coaches and began concentrating on other speed strokes. At the following European Championships in 1983, Otto finished second in the 100 meter freestyle, following her fellow East German, Birgit Meineke.
In 1984, Otto set a world record in the 200 meter freestyle. She was expected to win gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, but was unable to compete due to the boycott by 14 Eastern Bloc countries, including East Germany. In 1985 she fractured a vertebra, keeping her from competing for most of the year or to go to the European Championships.
Otto returned to competitive swimming at the 1986 World Championships in Madrid, where she won 4 gold medals (100 m freestyle, 200 m individual medley, 4×100 m medley relay and 4×100 m freestyle relay) and 2 silver medals (50 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly). Her success continued the following year at the 1987 European Championships where she won 5 gold medals.
At the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games she once again was expected to win Olympic gold. She won six gold medals, as well as setting Olympic records in the 50 m freestyle and 100 m butterfly.
Otto retired from swimming in 1989. She currently works as a sports reporter for German television.
She was named the Female World Swimmer of the Year in 1984, 1986 and 1988 by Swimming World. In October 1986, she was awarded a Star of People's Friendship in gold (second class) for her sporting success.
Otto's career was marred by the revelations of widespread performance-enhancing drugs used by East German athletes: former teammate Petra Schneider openly admitted that she had used banned substances. However, Otto stated that she was not aware that she was being doped and she passed all the doping tests during competition, saying: "The medals are the only reminder of how hard I worked. It was not all drugs."
== See also ==
List of members of the International Swimming Hall of Fame
List of Olympic medalists in swimming (women)
List of World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming (women)
List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games
List of multiple Olympic gold medalists
== References ==
== External links == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusef_Salaam | Yusef Salaam | Yusef Salaam (born 1974) is an American politician, motivational speaker, and activist currently serving as a member of the New York City Council, representing the city's 9th council district since 2024. A member of the Democratic Party, Salaam, one of the Central Park Five, was wrongly convicted of acting in concert to rape a woman in Central Park in 1989. His conviction was vacated in 2002.
== Early life ==
Salaam was born in 1974 in New York City to Sharonne Salaam. He was born into a Muslim household and raised by a religious grandmother and mother who emphasized faith and spirituality. His mother exposed him and his siblings to books about different countries as well as different languages.
=== Central Park jogger case and conviction ===
On April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili, a woman jogging in Central Park, was assaulted and raped by Matias Reyes. Authorities accused Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray and Raymond Santana of assaulting her; the five teenagers—of Black and Latino race—became known as the "Central Park Five," later the "Exonerated Five." At the time, Salaam was 15. The teenagers confessed to assaulting her, but later claimed the confessions were the result of beatings and threats by police officers. Salaam later claimed that police had deprived the teenagers of "food, drink or sleep" for more than a day. All five were convicted in 1990. His conviction was upheld by the Appellate Division, and was again upheld in 1993 by the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. He was released from prison in 1997. His conviction was vacated in 2002 and in 2014 New York City paid $41 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by the Central Park Five.
=== Faith during imprisonment ===
While imprisoned, Salaam deepened his connection to Islam, later stating that his faith helped him endure his sentence and shaped his outlook on justice. In an interview with Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, He states the Quran was his way understanding why he was imprisoned after being falsely accused, understanding the Quran as the manual of life. In this interview he also said when he was imprisoned he would look at parallels between himself and the Quran, like the story of Prophet Yusuf (as) in the Quran. Salaam's grandmother would send him letters too ensure he remembers that are people who love him.
During the interview with Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, Yusef Salaam said he got closer to Allah when he was in prison. Salaam served as the imam of the youth facility for five years. After being transferred to an adult facility, he served as the Qadi (religious judge) of the Muslim community for about a year and a half, and later as the Naib (assistant or deputy leader) before his release.
== Career ==
Following his release in 1997, Salaam worked as a construction worker in an apartment complex in the Mitchell–Lama Housing Program on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. He was fired after the company discovered who he was. Salaam then worked at Weill Cornell Medicine. He has served on the board of the Innocence Project.
In 2021, Salaam considered running for the New York State Legislature, but decided against it due to residency requirements. Salaam moved back to New York City from Georgia in 2022. On February 4, 2023, Salaam announced his candidacy for the 9th City Council District of New York City representing Harlem in the 2023 elections. During the campaign, he was endorsed by Cornel West. He won the Democratic primary on July 5 defeating assemblymembers Inez Dickens and Al Taylor. He was unopposed in the general election and succeeded councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan for a term ending January 1, 2026. He is on the ballot for re-election in November 2025.
In January 2024, Salaam's car, which had Georgia license plates and dark-tinted windows that are illegal in New York, was stopped in Harlem by a New York City police car. When the officer approached his car, Salaam said he was a member of the city council and that he was on city business. He was on a business call with several of his colleagues including City Council member Sandy Nurse, who heard the entire police interaction. He was driving to dinner with his wife and four of his children. Salaam asked why he had been stopped but the officer, on hearing that he was a council member on business, cut off the interaction and walked away saying, "Take care, sir." Officers are not required to give a reason for stopping a car, but Salaam said the police should have done so voluntarily. Critics of Salaam said he smeared the police and used his position to get out of a possible ticket.
In the aftermath of the second 2024 presidential debate, Salaam confronted former president Donald Trump who previously called for Salaam to be executed, but Trump refused to walk back his statements.
== Personal life ==
Salaam is a practicing Muslim. He has ten children, three of whom are stepchildren. In 2016, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from then-president Barack Obama. In 2021, Salaam was awarded the Muhammad Ali Confident Muslim of the Year by the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research.
In film, Salaam is featured in documentarian Ken Burns's film The Central Park Five (2012). He is portrayed as an adult by Chris Chalk and as a child by Ethan Herisse in filmmaker Ava DuVernay's television miniseries When They See Us. In 2022, "Gate of the Exonerated" was dedicated at the northern end of Central Park in honor of Salaam and the other members of the Exonerated Five.
== Electoral history ==
== Selected works ==
Salaam, Yusef (2021). Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice. New York City: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 9781538704981.
Salaam, Yusef (October 12, 2016). "I'm one of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump won't leave me alone". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Kilgannon, Corey (July 9, 2023). "From Cell to City Hall: Candidate's Win Shows Shift in Politics of Crime". The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
Taylor, Ericka (May 18, 2021). "One Of The Falsely Accused Central Park Five Tells His Story In 'Better, Not Bitter'". NPR. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
Davies, Dave (May 26, 2021). "Central Park 'Exonerated 5' Member Reflects On Freedom And Forgiveness". Fresh Air. NPR. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
== External links ==
Official website
Yusef Salaam at IMDb
Appearances on C-SPAN |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KTCZ-FM | KTCZ-FM | KTCZ-FM (97.1 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota and serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul radio market and Western Wisconsin. KTCZ airs a hybrid modern adult contemporary radio format. The station is owned and operated by iHeartMedia and has studios and offices on Utica Avenue South in St. Louis Park.
KTCZ's transmitter is located on the KMSP Tower located at 550 Gramsie Road near Interstate 694 in Shoreview. KTCZ broadcasts in the HD Radio hybrid format. The HD2 subchannel carries contemporary Christian music from the K-Love network, and feeds four FM translator stations, while the HD3 subchannel carries an urban contemporary format known as "Hot 102.5", and feeds FM translator K273BH (102.5 FM).
KTCZ has an auxiliary transmitter with an effective radiated power (ERP) of 40,000 watts located at the IDS Center in Downtown Minneapolis.
== History ==
=== WTCN-FM ===
The 97.1 frequency was home to one of the first FM stations in the Twin Cities, signing on the air in December 27, 1946 as WTCN-FM. It was co-owned with WTCN (now WWTC), one of the oldest radio stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul, having signed on the air in 1925.
In 1949, WTCN-TV was launched on channel 4 with studios at Radio City Theater at 9th Street and LaSalle Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. WTCN's radio studios moved to the TV facility in September 1949, with WTCN-FM joining them by February 1950. All three stations were sold in 1952. The TV station was spun off to a new company, Midwest Radio and Television, which also purchased a majority share of WCCO Radio from CBS that same year. Midwest changed the call letters to match its newly acquired WCCO, while WTCN-TV was sold to the Minnesota Television Service Corporation headed by St. Paul businessman Robert Butler, a former ambassador to Cuba and Australia. Butler's company quickly applied for a new TV license on channel 11, but had to negotiate for the frequency with the owner of WMIN, who also applied for the channel. The two stations, WTCN and WMIN, arranged to share the TV broadcast day, alternating every two hours. This became the area's third TV station on September 1, 1953. The WTCN call sign remained with it until 1985, when it became WUSA.
=== KWFM and KTCR-FM ===
WTCN-FM became KWFM in 1954. Al Tedesco purchased KWFM in 1968, mating it with daytimer KTCR. As a result of the sale, the FM station became KTCR-FM. Tedesco and his two brothers were inducted into the Pavek Museum of Radio Hall of Fame Archived June 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine in 2005.
In the early 1980s, KTCR-FM was a struggling country music station, and was up against aggressive competition during this time, most notably from KEEY-FM.
=== KTCZ ===
On February 8, 1984, after Tedesco decided to sell his stations to John and Kathleen Parker, KTCR-FM dropped the country format and became KTCZ, "Cities 97" with a mix of progressive rock, alternative rock, jazz and new-age music, an approach similar to stations such as WXRT in Chicago and KBCO in Denver. KTCZ's other influences reach back even further, to progressive FM rock stations from the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the freeform days of KQRS-FM.
In the 1980s, the term "adult album alternative" or AAA did not exist. It was a relatively eclectic format, different from any other rock station in the Twin Cities, designed for female as well as male listeners. Over time, the jazz and new-age was dropped, and the station went through a few different phases, at various points leaning more toward classic rock or alternative rock.
Parker Communications sold the station in 1994 to Chancellor Broadcasting. In 2000, Chancellor was merged into Clear Channel Communications. In 2014, Clear Channel was renamed as iHeartMedia, Inc.
The station's original studios and transmitter were located at 38th Street and Minnehaha Avenue in south Minneapolis from at least the mid-1950s until 1985. The tower was short for a full-power FM station, at a height above average terrain (HAAT) of approximately 150 feet. In 1985, the transmitter was moved to the site of co-owned KTCJ (AM) in New Hope, where it was positioned on one of the three AM towers. Later, KTCZ's transmitter was moved to the KMSP-TV tower in Shoreview, from where most of the other Twin Cities FM stations transmit. KMWA now uses the New Hope tower.
In 2012, the station dropped its longtime "Quality Music from Then and Now" positioner in favor of "Discover New Music", as the format evolved into modern adult contemporary.
On August 20, 2018, at 12 p.m., after promoting a "major announcement" through the prior weekend, the station rebranded slightly to "Cities 97.1", re-adjusting its format to play more songs from its longtime adult album alternative format, adding music from artists like Leon Bridges and Amy Shark, and reducing the number of hot AC recurrents. With the changes, KTCZ introduced a new slogan, "Uniquely Twin Cities". The first song under the adjusted format was "Beautiful Day" by U2.
On February 4, 2019, KTCZ-FM announced its new morning show featuring Hunter Quinn and Mollie Kendrick. Quinn was formerly with Seattle country station KNUC, while Kendrick was promoted from her evening air shift at KTCZ. At the same time, interim morning host Paul Fletcher would return to afternoons. The morning show had been without a permanent host since Keri Noble's exit in November 2018.
== HD Radio ==
=== HD2 ===
On April 25, 2006, Clear Channel Communications announced that KTCZ's HD2 subchannel would broadcast "Studio HD," featuring original acoustic rock and chill music. On December 23, 2012, KTCZ-HD2 changed its format to sports radio, branded as "The Score." By Autumn of 2013, "The Score" was replaced by a simulcast of the
"New Music" specialty channel found on the IHeartRadio online/mobile platform.
In June 2014, following the flip of co-owned KQQL's HD2 channel, KTCZ-FM-HD2 adopted their 1980s music format, branded as "Kool 1-0-80s." It later switched to the Educational Media Foundation's "Air 1" Christian rock format. At first, Air 1 was simulcast on FM translator W225AP at 92.9 FM in St. Paul. It later added two other translators, K221ES (92.1 FM) and K249ED (97.7 FM), both in Albertville.
=== HD3 ===
On June 5, 2015, KTCZ-FM-HD3 launched a classic hip hop format, branded as "Hot 102.5." The HD3 subchannel feeds translator K273BH at 102.5 MHz. The format shifted to urban contemporary on February 12, 2018.
== Studio C ==
Studio C is a room located at the radio station, with equipment used to record bands and singers, as well as chairs to accommodate a small audience. Many acts who come to the Twin Cities are invited to Studio C to play a few songs and have some brief fan interactions.
From 1989 to 2018, KTCZ each holiday season would release an album, cassette tape and/or CD, known as the Cities 97 Sampler. Proceeds would benefit Minnesota charities. Most of the Cities 97 Sampler tracks were recorded in Studio C in front of a small audience, with the remaining tracks recorded live at local clubs in and around the Twin Cities. Some recordings that did not make the cut for the Cities 97 Sampler can be found on the KTCZ webpage.
== References ==
== External links ==
Cities 97.1 official website
Facility details for Facility ID 10142 (KTCZ-FM) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
KTCZ-FM in Nielsen Audio's FM station database
Facility details for Facility ID 142406 (W225AP) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
W225AP at FCCdata.org
Facility details for Facility ID 141753 (K260BA) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
K260BA at FCCdata.org
Facility details for Facility ID 140150 (K273BH) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
K273BH at FCCdata.org
Facility details for Facility ID 145809 (K288GR) in the FCC Licensing and Management System
K288GR at FCCdata.org
Radiotapes.com - Airchecks of KTCR-FM / KTCZ-FM along with an aircheck of the format switch from country to Cities 97 (plus airchecks and videos of other Twin Cities radio stations)
Program log from January/February 1947 at Radiotapes.com
WTCN TV & Radio billboard, 1949 Archived November 7, 2015, at the Wayback Machine from the Minnesota Historical Society
WTCN TV & Radio billboard, 1950 Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine from the Minnesota Historical Society |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Carey,_Lady_Berkeley | Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley | Lady Elizabeth Berkeley (née Carey; later Chamberlain; 24 May 1576 – 23 April 1635), was an English courtier and patron of the arts.
== Life ==
Elizabeth Carey was the only child of George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, and Elizabeth Spencer. Queen Elizabeth I was one of her godmothers. Her childhood was divided between the Hunsdon residence at Blackfriars, London, Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight, and (from 1593) the manor of West Drayton, Middlesex.
She married Sir Thomas Berkeley on 19 February 1596, probably at Blackfriars, when she was nineteen years old. Her family were patrons of Shakespeare's theatre company, and her wedding has been put forward as one of the possible occasions when A Midsummer Night's Dream was performed for the first time in public. On 5 January 1606, at the wedding festivities of the Earl of Essex and Lady Frances Howard, Elizabeth was one of the female dancers representing the "Powers of Juno" in Ben Jonson's masque Hymenaei: there is an extant portrait of her dressed in her masque costume.
She bore her husband a daughter and a son:
Theophila Berkeley (1596–1643), who married Sir Robert Coke. Theophila was educated "under the sole direction of her mother", and was later said to be fluent in French, Italian, Latin and Greek. Theophila was a companion of the king's daughter Elizabeth, when she lived at Coombe Abbey, and was a bridesmaid at her wedding to Frederick V of the Palatinate.
George Berkeley, 8th Baron Berkeley (7 October 1601 – 10 August 1658), who was tutored by Philemon Holland of Coventry. George married Elizabeth Stanhope, the daughter of Sir Michael Stanhope, by whom he had issue.
Elizabeth and her husband circulated between Berkeley residences including New Park, Gloucestershire, Claverdon, Warwickshire (owned by her maternal family), and Caludon Castle, near Coventry (the last being the principal home of her father-in-law, Henry, 7th Baron Berkeley, until his death in 1613). However, Sir Thomas was financially imprudent and ran up enormous debts. In a crisis of 1606–7, Elizabeth took over the management of his affairs (selling her own inheritance at Tonbridge and Hadlow, Kent, to minimise the burden); and in 1609 Sir Thomas signed a contract handing over all responsibility for household management to Elizabeth and the Berkeley family steward, John Smyth of Nibley. When Sir Thomas died (aged 37) in 1611, she paid off the many outstanding debts.
In 1618 she bought the estate of Cranford, Middlesex for the sum of £7,000 from the co-heirs of Sir Richard Aston. She also acquired the manor of Durdans, near Epsom, Surrey, which was settled on her daughter Theophila. In February 1622, she remarried Sir Thomas Chamberlain (or Chamberland), a Justice of the King's Bench. When he died on 17 September 1625, her second husband bequeathed a generous £10,000 to her son from her first marriage.
Elizabeth died on 23 April 1635 and was buried on 25 April in Cranford parish church. Her white marble effigy, depicting her in her shroud, is by Nicholas Stone.
== Learning and patronage ==
Carey's mother was educated and a noted patron of the arts, and passed these traits on to her daughter. Carey was tutored by Henry Stanford. In 1594, aged 18, she is known to have translated two of Petrarch's sonnets from Italian into English. In the same year, Thomas Nashe dedicated The Terrors of the Night to her, praising her "sharpe Wit" and "religious piety". (The previous year, Nashe had dedicated Christ's Teares Over Jerusalem to her mother.) Peter Erondelle's French primer and book of manners, The French Garden (1605), was also dedicated to her, and it has been suggested that she served as the model for the character of "Lady Rimellaine" in the book. In 1610, she was patron of Philemon Holland's translation from the Latin of William Camden's Britannia. She appears to have considered contributing £20, and perhaps £40, towards the volume; and in a commendatory poem Thomas Muriell praised her as the "rare Phoenix cause of this translation". However, shortly before publication, she seems to have become dissatisfied with the quality of Holland's work and withdrew her support: the published book does not mention her patronage, although she is mentioned in the next edition of 1637. She is also listed among the many dedicatees of Camden's Annales (1625).
She donated volumes in Latin, Greek, French, Italian and English to Coventry school and city library. In later life, John Smyth described her living at Cranford, "amongst her thousands of books".
== Ancestry ==
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
Beilin, Elaine V. (2011) [2004]. "Carey [Carew], Elizabeth, Lady Hunsdon (1552–1618)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4641. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.) [on her mother, but includes a paragraph on Lady Berkeley]
Broadway, Jan (1999). "John Smyth of Nibley: a Jacobean man-of-business and his service to the Berkeley family". Midland History. 24: 79–97. doi:10.1179/mdh.1999.24.1.79.
Broadway, Jan (2021). The Wives of the Berkeleys: families and marriage in Tudor and Stuart England. Gloucester: Xmera. ISBN 9780956742810.
Duncan-Jones, Katherine (1999). "Bess Carey's Petrarch: newly discovered Elizabethan sonnets". Review of English Studies. n.s. 50 (199): 304–19. doi:10.1093/res/50.199.304.
Harris, Oliver D. (2015). "William Camden, Philemon Holland and the 1610 translation of Britannia". Antiquaries Journal. 95: 279–303. doi:10.1017/S0003581515000189. S2CID 163181232.
Stone, Lawrence (1973). Family and Fortune: Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 019822401X. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alenush_Terian | Alenush Terian | Ālenush Teriān (Armenian: Ալենուշ Տէրեան; Persian: آلنوش طریان; also: آلنوش تریان; November 9, 1921 – March 4, 2011) was an Iranian-Armenian astronomer and physicist and is called 'Mother of Modern Iranian Astronomy'.
== Early life ==
She was born on November 9, 1921, to an Armenian family in Tehran, Iran. Her father, Arto, was a stage director, poet and translator (with the pen name Arizad meaning Born to Aryan) who had translated Shahnameh, from Persian to Armenian. Her mother, Varto Terian, was a stage actress and director.
== Education ==
Teriān graduated in 1947 in the Science Department of University of Tehran. She began her career in the physics laboratory of this university and was elected the chief of laboratory operations in the same year.
She left Iran for France, by her father's financial support, where in 1956 she obtained her doctorate in atmospheric physics from Sorbonne University. Upon this she returned to Iran and became assistant professor in thermodynamics at University of Tehran. Later she worked in solar physics in the then West Germany for a period of four months through a scholarship that was awarded by the German government to University of Tehran. In 1964 Teriān became the first female professor of physics in Iran.
In 1966, Teriān became a member of the Geophysics Committee of the University of Tehran. In 1969 she was elected chief of the solar physics studies at this university and began to work in the solar observatory, of which she was one of the founders. Teriān retired in 1979. At the time of her death she was living in Tehran.
Teriān's 90th birthday celebration in Tehran was attended by a number of Iranian parliamentarians and over 100 Iranian Armenians.
Terian died on March 4, 2011, at the age of 90.
== See also ==
Iranian women
Iranian Armenians
== References ==
== External links ==
Photographs of the 90th-year birthday ceremony of Professor Ālenush Teriān in Tehran, Mehr News Agency, 9 November 2010.
Media related to Alenush Terian (astronomer) at Wikimedia Commons |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Cave_Fire | Painted Cave Fire | The Painted Cave Fire was a devastating wildfire in June, 1990 that burned in the Santa Ynez Mountains and the city of Santa Barbara, within Santa Barbara County, California.
The fire, which began near Painted Cave, was intentionally set near the intersection of Highway 154 (San Marcos Pass Road) and Painted Cave Road, burned 5,000 acres (20 km2), destroyed 427 buildings, and resulted in two deaths.
== Progression ==
The day had already been a long one for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department which had battled a 3-alarm fire in the county dump. While still mopping up from the dump fire, the call went out at 6:02 p.m. for a brush fire on Highway 154 and Painted Cave Road. On this Wednesday evening temperatures topped off at 109 °F (43 °C) degrees, an all-time record for that date, fueling some of the worst sundowner winds ever recorded. The first engine arrived on scene at 6:05 p.m. and was met with winds gusting over 40 miles per hour (64 km/h) with about 2 acres (0.81 ha) actively burning. Less than 20 minutes later, the fire had traveled over 2 miles (3.2 km) and flames were reaching 70 feet (21 m) into the air.
The fire proceeded into residential neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, fueled by sundowner winds, eventually jumping U.S. Route 101 at 7:42PM. In less than two hours the fire had traveled nearly 4 miles (6.4 km), destroying 430 structures and killing one person. It was the largest loss of structures since the Bel Air Fire of 1961. The state fire marshal called it the "fastest-moving fire of its type ever in the United States."
There were two fatalities in the fire. Andrea Lang Gurka, age 37, died while fleeing the flames along San Marcos Pass Road. An unnamed state prisoner working as a firefighter also died.
== Investigation and settlement ==
Investigators determined that the Painted Cave fire had been intentionally set. A suspect was discovered in 1995, but not charged. The Santa Barbara County instead sued the man, and in 2000 he was ordered to pay $2.75 million in damages.
== See also ==
Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quainton_Road_railway_station#:~:text=Quainton%20Road%20railway%20station%20was,(71%20km)%20from%20London. | Quainton Road railway station | Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in under-developed countryside near Quainton, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, 44 miles (71 km) from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a railway station at the nearest point to it. Serving a relatively underpopulated area, Quainton Road was a crude railway station, described as "extremely primitive".
It became a junction station in 1871 with the opening of the line to Brill. In 1899, it became a main line station with the opening of the Great Central Railway London extension.
In 1933, the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership to become the Metropolitan line of the London Passenger Transport Board's London Underground, including Quainton Road. The LPTB aimed to move away from freight operations and saw no way in which the rural parts of the MR could be made into viable passenger routes. In 1935, the Brill Tramway was closed. From 1936, underground trains were withdrawn north of Aylesbury, leaving the London and North Eastern Railway (successor to the GCR) as the only operator using the station, although underground services were restored for a short period in the 1940s. In 1963, stopping passenger services were withdrawn, but fast passenger trains continued to pass through. In 1966, the line was closed to passenger traffic and local goods trains ceased using the station. The line through the station was singled and used by occasional freight trains only.
In 1969, the Quainton Road Society was formed with the aim of preserving the station. In 1971, it absorbed the London Railway Preservation Society, taking over its collection of historic railway equipment including many locomotives, and passenger and non-passenger rolling stock. The station was fully restored and reopened as a museum, the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. In addition to the locomotives, stock, and original station buildings, the museum has also acquired the former Oxford Rewley Road railway station and a London Transport building from Wembley Park, both of which have been reassembled on the site. Although no scheduled trains pass through Quainton Road, the station remains connected to the railway network. Freight trains still use this line, and passenger trains still call at the station for special events at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.
== Origins ==
On 15 June 1839, entrepreneur and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham, Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet, opened the Aylesbury Railway. Built under the direction of Robert Stephenson, it connected the London and Birmingham Railway's Cheddington railway station, on the West Coast Main Line, to Aylesbury High Street railway station in eastern Aylesbury, the first station in the Aylesbury Vale. On 1 October 1863, the Wycombe Railway opened a branch line from Princes Risborough railway station to Aylesbury railway station on the western side of Aylesbury, making Aylesbury the terminus of two small and unconnected branch lines.
Meanwhile, to the north of Aylesbury, the Buckinghamshire Railway was being built by Sir Harry Verney. The scheme consisted of a line running roughly south-west to north-east from Oxford to Bletchley, and a line running south-east from Brackley via Buckingham, joining roughly halfway along the Oxford–Bletchley line. The first section opened on 1 May 1850, and the rest opened on 20 May 1851. The Buckinghamshire Railway intended to extend the line southwards to connect to its station at Aylesbury, but this extension was not built.
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (10 September 1823 – 26 March 1889), the only son of Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was in serious financial difficulties by the middle of the 19th century. The 2nd Duke had spent heavily on artworks, womanising, and attempting to influence elections, and by 1847, he was nicknamed "the Greatest Debtor in the World". Over 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) of the family's 55,000-acre (22,000 ha) estates, and their London home at Buckingham House, were sold to meet debts, and the family seat of Stowe House was seized by bailiffs as security and its contents sold. The only property remaining in the control of the Grenville family was the family's relatively small ancestral home of Wotton House, and its associated lands around Wotton Underwood in Buckinghamshire. Deeply in debt, the Grenvilles began to look for ways to maximise profits from their remaining farmland around Wotton, and to seek business opportunities in the emerging fields of heavy industry and engineering. Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, who became the Marquess of Chandos on the death of his grandfather Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in 1839, was appointed chairman of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) on 27 May 1857. On the death of his father on 29 July 1861, he became the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, and resigned from the chairmanship of the LNWR, returning to Wotton House to manage the family's remaining estates.
== Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway ==
On 6 August 1860, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&B), with the 3rd Duke (then still Marquess of Chandos) as chairman and Sir Harry Verney as deputy chairman, was incorporated by Act of Parliament with the object of connecting the Buckinghamshire Railway (by now operated by the LNWR) to Aylesbury. The 2nd Duke used his influence to ensure the new route would run via Quainton, near his remaining estates around Wotton, instead of the intended more direct route via Pitchcott. Beset by financial difficulties, the line took over eight years to build, eventually opening on 23 September 1868. The new line was connected to the Wycombe Railway's Aylesbury station, and joined the existing Buckinghamshire Railway lines at the point where the Oxford–Bletchley line and the line to Buckingham already met. Verney Junction railway station was built at the point where the lines joined, named after Sir Harry who owned the land on which it was built, since there was no nearby town. Aylesbury now had railways to the east, north and southwest, but no line southeast towards London and the Channel ports.
Quainton Road station was built on a curve in the line at the nearest point to the Duke's estates at Wotton. Six miles (10 km) northwest of Aylesbury, it was southwest of the small village of Quainton and immediately northwest of the road connecting Quainton to Akeman Street. The railway towards Aylesbury crossed the road via a level crossing immediately southeast of the station. The Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway had spent most of their limited budget on the construction of the line itself. Details of the design of the original Quainton Road station are lost, but it is likely that the station had a single timber-covered earth platform and minimal buildings; it was described in 1890 as being extremely primitive.
== Wotton Tramway ==
With a railway now running near the boundary of the Wotton House estate at Quainton Road, the 3rd Duke decided to open a small-scale agricultural railway to connect the estate to the railway. The line was intended purely for the transport of construction materials and agricultural produce, and not passengers. The line was to run roughly southwest from Quainton Road to a new railway station near Wotton Underwood. Just west of the station at Wotton the line split. One section would run west to Wood Siding near Brill. A short stub called Church Siding would run northwest into the village of Wotton Underwood itself, terminating near the parish church, and a 1-mile 57 chain (1 mile 1,254 yards; 2.8 km) siding would run north to a coal siding near Kingswood.
He extended it soon afterwards to provide a passenger service to the town of Brill, and the tramway was converted to locomotive operation, known as the Brill Tramway. All goods to and from the Brill Tramway passed through Quainton Road, making it relatively heavily used despite its geographical isolation, and traffic increased further when construction began on Ferdinand de Rothschild's mansion of Waddesdon Manor. The plan of extending the Brill Tramway to Oxford, which would have made Quainton Road a major junction station, was abandoned. Instead, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the Brill Tramway were absorbed by London's Metropolitan Railway (MR), which already operated the line from Aylesbury to London. The MR rebuilt Quainton Road and re-sited it to a more convenient location, allowing through running between the Brill Tramway and the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway. When the Great Central Railway (GCR) from the north of England opened, Quainton Road became a significant junction at which trains from four directions met, and by far the busiest of the MR's rural stations.
Construction began on the line on 8 September 1870. It was built as cheaply as possible, using the cheapest available materials and winding around hills wherever feasible to avoid expensive earthworks. The station platforms were crude earth banks 6 inches (150 mm) high, held in place by wooden planks. As the Duke intended that the line be worked by horses, it was built with longitudinal sleepers to reduce the risk of them tripping.
On 1 April 1871, the section between Quainton Road and Wotton was formally opened by the Duke in a brief ceremony. At the time of its opening, the line was unnamed, although it was referred to as "The Quainton Tramway" in internal correspondence. The extension from Wotton to Wood Siding was complete by 17 June 1871; the opening date of the northern branch to Kingswood is not recorded, but it was not yet fully open in February 1873. The London and North Western Railway immediately began to operate a dedicated service from Quainton Road, with three vans per week of milk collected from the Wotton estate shipped to Broad Street. Passengers were not carried, other than estate employees and people accompanying livestock.
The tramway did not link to the A&B, but had its own station at Quainton Road at a right angle to the A&B. A 13-foot (4.0 m) diameter turntable at the end of the tramway linked to a spur from the A&B. This spur ran behind a goods shed, joining the A&B line to the northwest of the road. The Tramway had no buildings at Quainton Road, using the A&B's facilities when necessary. As the tramway ran on the east side of the road, opposite the station, the spur line had its own level crossing to reach the main line. In 1871, permission was granted to build a direct connection between the two lines, but it was not built.
=== Expansion of the Wotton Tramway ===
In late 1871, the residents of Brill, the former seat of the Mercian kings and the only significant town near Wotton House, petitioned the Duke to extend the route to Brill and to run a passenger service on the line. In January 1872, a passenger timetable was published for the first time, and the line was officially named the "Wotton Tramway", but it was commonly known as the "Brill Tramway" from its opening to passengers until closure. The new terminus of Brill opened in March 1872. With horses unable to cope with the loads being carried, the Tramway was upgraded for locomotive use. The lightly laid track with longitudinal sleepers limited the locomotive weight to a maximum of nine tons, lighter than almost all locomotives then available, so it was not possible to use standard locomotives. Two traction engines converted for railway use were bought from Aveling and Porter at a cost of £398 (about £44,900 as of 2023) each. The locomotives were chosen on grounds of weight and reliability, and had a top speed on the level of only 8 miles per hour (13 km/h), taking 95–98 minutes to travel the six miles (10 km) between Brill and Quainton Road, an average speed of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).
The line was heavily used for the shipment of bricks from the brickworks around Brill, and of cattle and milk from the dairy farms on the Wotton estate. By 1875, the line was carrying around 40,000 gallons (180,000 L; 48,000 US gal) of milk each year. Delivery of linseed cake to the dairy farms and of coal to the area's buildings were also important uses of the line. The line also began to carry large quantities of manure from London to the area's farms, carrying 3,200 tons (3,300 t) in 1872. As it was the only physical link between the Tramway and the national railway network, almost all of this traffic passed through Quainton Road station.
By the mid-1870s, the slow speed of the Aveling and Porter locomotives and their unreliability and inability to handle heavy loads were recognised as major problems for the Tramway. In 1874, Ferdinand de Rothschild bought a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) site near the Tramway's Waddesdon station to use as a site for his country mansion of Waddesdon Manor. The Tramway's management recognised that the construction works would lead to a significant increase in the haulage of heavy goods, and that the Aveling and Porter engines would be unable to cope with the increased loads. The newly established engineering firm of W. G. Bagnall wrote to the Duke offering to hire a locomotive to him for trials. The offer was accepted, and on 18 December 1876, the locomotive was delivered. The tests were generally successful, and an order was placed to buy a locomotive from Bagnall for £640 (about £76,100 in 2023) which was delivered on 28 December 1877. With trains now hauled by the Bagnall locomotive (the Kingswood branch generally remained worked by horses, and occasionally by the Aveling and Porter engines), traffic levels soon rose. Milk traffic rose from 40,000 gallons carried in 1875 to 58,000 gallons (260,000 L; 70,000 US gal) in 1879, and in 1877, the Tramway carried a total of 20,994 tons (21,331 t) of goods. In early 1877, the Tramway was shown on Bradshaw maps for the first time, and from May 1882 Bradshaw included its timetable.
Although the introduction of the Bagnall locomotives and the traffic generated by the works at Waddesdon Manor had boosted the line's fortunes, it remained in serious financial difficulty. The only connection with the national railway network was by the turntable at Quainton Road. Although the 3rd Duke of Buckingham was both the owner of the Wotton Tramway and Chairman of the A&B, the latter regarded the Tramway as a nuisance, and in the 1870s, pursued a policy of charging disproportionately high fees for through traffic between the Tramway and the main line, with the intention of forcing the Tramway out of business. A&B trains would deliberately miss connections with the Tramway, causing milk shipped via Quainton Road to become unsellable. The Tramway sought legal advice and was informed that the Duke would be likely to win a legal action against the A&B. However, the A&B was in such a precarious financial position that any successful legal action against it would likely have forced its through Quainton Road to close, severing the Tramway's connection with the national network. Many Tramway passengers changed trains at Quainton Road to continue their journey on the A&B; in 1885, 5,192 passengers did so. The Tramway's management suggested that the A&B subsidise the Tramway to the sum of £25 (about £3,400 in 2023) per month to allow passenger services to continue, but the A&B agreed to pay only £5 (about £700 in 2023) per month. By the mid-1880s, the Tramway was finding it difficult to cover the operating expenses of either goods or passenger operations.
== Metropolitan Railway takeover of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway ==
Charles Pearson (1793–1862) had proposed the idea of an underground railway connecting the City of London with the relatively distant main-line termini in around 1840. Construction began in 1860. On 9 January 1863, the line opened as the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world's first underground passenger railway. The MR was successful and grew steadily, extending its services and acquiring other local railways north and west of London. In 1872, Edward Watkin (1819–1901) was appointed its chairman. A director of many railway companies, he had a vision of unifying a string of railways to create a single line from Manchester via London to an intended Channel Tunnel and on to France. In 1873, Watkin entered negotiations to take control of the A&B and the section of the former Buckinghamshire Railway north from Verney Junction to Buckingham. He planned to extend the MR north from London to Aylesbury and the Tramway southwest to Oxford, creating a through route from London to Oxford. Rail services between Oxford and London at this time were poor: although still an extremely roundabout route, this scheme would have formed the shortest route from London to Oxford, Aylesbury, Buckingham and Stratford upon Avon. The Duke of Buckingham was enthusiastic, and authorisation was sought from Parliament. Parliament did not share the enthusiasm of Watkin and the Duke, and in 1875, the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire Union Railway Bill was rejected. Watkin did, however, receive consent in 1881 to extend the MR to Aylesbury.
== Wotton Tramway Oxford extension scheme ==
With the MR extension to Aylesbury approved, in March 1883, the Duke announced his own scheme to extend the Tramway to Oxford. The turntable at Quainton Road would be replaced by a junction to the south of the turntable to allow through running of trains. The stretch from Quainton Road to Brill would be straightened and improved to main-line standards, and the little-used stations at Waddesdon Road and Wood Siding would be closed. From Brill, the line would pass in a 1,650-yard (1,510 m) tunnel through Muswell Hill to the south of Brill, and on via Boarstall before crossing from Buckinghamshire into Oxfordshire at Stanton St. John, calling at Headington on the outskirts of Oxford and terminating at a station to be built in the back garden of 12 High Street, St Clement's, near Magdalen Bridge.
At 23 miles (37 km), the line would have been by far the shortest route between Oxford and Aylesbury, compared with 28 miles (45 km) via the Great Western Railway (GWR), which had absorbed the Wycombe Railway, and 34 miles (55 km) via the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the LNWR. The Act of Parliament authorising the scheme received the Royal Assent on 20 August 1883, and the new Oxford, Aylesbury and Metropolitan Junction Railway Company, including the Duke of Buckingham, Ferdinand de Rothschild and Harry Verney among its directors, was created. The scheme caught the attention of the expansionist Metropolitan Railway, who paid for the survey to be conducted. Despite the scheme's powerful backers, the expensive Muswell Hill tunnel deterred investors and the company found it difficult to raise capital. De Rothschild promised to lend money for the scheme in return for guarantees that the line would include a passenger station at Westcott, and that the Duke would press the A&B into opening a station at the nearest point to Waddesdon Manor. Waddesdon Manor railway station was duly opened on 1 January 1897.
== Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad ==
The new company was unable to raise sufficient investment to begin construction of the Oxford extension, and had been given only five years by Parliament to build it. On 7 August 1888, less than two weeks before the authorisation was due to expire, the directors of the Oxford, Aylesbury and Metropolitan Junction Railway Company received the Royal Assent for a revised and much cheaper version. To be called the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad (O&AT), this envisaged the extension being built to the same light specifications as the existing Tramway.
On 26 March 1889, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos died, aged 65. By this time the construction of the MR extension to Aylesbury was well underway, and on 1 July 1891, the MR formally absorbed the A&B. Sir Harry Verney died on 12 February 1894, and on 31 March 1894, the MR took over the operation of the A&B from the GWR. On 1 July 1894, the MR extension to Aylesbury was completed, giving the MR a unified route from London to Verney Junction. The MR embarked on a programme of upgrading and rebuilding the stations along the newly acquired line.
Construction from Brill to Oxford had not yet begun. Further Acts of Parliament were granted in 1892 and 1894, varying the proposed route slightly and allowing for its electrification, but no work was carried out other than some preliminary surveying. On 1 April 1894, with the proposed extension to Oxford still intended, the O&AT exercised a clause of the 1888 Act and took over the Tramway. Work began on upgrading the line in preparation for the extension. The line from Quainton Road to Brill was relaid with improved rails on transverse sleepers, replacing the original flimsy rails and longitudinal sleepers. At around this time, two Manning Wardle locomotives were brought into use.
== Re-siting ==
The rebuilding of the Tramway greatly improved service speeds, reducing journey times between Quainton Road and Brill to between 35 and 43 minutes. The population of the area had remained low; in 1901, Brill had a population of only 1,206. Passenger traffic remained a relatively insignificant part of the Tramway's business, and in 1898 passenger receipts were only £24 per month (about £3,400 in 2023).
Quainton Road had seen little change since its construction by the A&B in 1868, and in 1890 was described by The Times as "one of the most primitive-looking stations in the British Isles". While the line to Brill was being upgraded, the MR were rebuilding and re-siting Quainton Road as part of its improvement programme, freeing space for a direct link between the former A&B and the O&AT to be built. The new station was re-sited to the southeast of the road, on the same side as the turntable connection with the Tramway. The new station had two platforms on the former A&B line and a third platform for Brill trains. In 1896, the level crossings around the station were replaced by a road bridge over the railway. A curve between the former A&B and the Tramway opened on 1 January 1897, allowing through running without the need to turn the engine and carriages individually on the turntable for the first time. The MR made a concerted effort to generate passenger traffic on the line. From 1910 to 1914, Pullman cars operated between Aldgate and Verney Junction, calling at Quainton Road, and a luxurious hotel was built in the new village of Verney Junction.
== Metropolitan Railway takeover of Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad services ==
By 1899, the MR and the O&AT were cooperating closely. Although the line had been upgraded in preparation for the Oxford extension and had been authorised as a railway in 1894, construction of the extension had yet to begin. On 27 November, the MR arranged to lease the Tramway from the O&AT, for an annual fee of £600 (about £85,000 in 2023) with an option to buy the line outright. From 1 December 1899, the MR took over all operations on the Tramway. The O&AT's single passenger coach, a relic of Wotton Tramway days, was removed from its wheels and used as a platelayer's hut at Brill. An elderly Brown, Marshalls and Co passenger coach was transferred to the line to replace it, and a section of each platform was raised to accommodate the higher doors of this coach, using earth and old railway sleepers.
D class locomotives, introduced by the MR to improve services on the former Tramway line, damaged the track, and in 1910, the line between Quainton Road and Brill was relaid to MR standards using old track removed from the inner London MR route, still considered adequate for light use on a rural branch line. Following this track upgrading, the speed limit was increased to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h). The MR was unhappy with the performance and safety record of the D Class locomotives, and sold them to other railways between 1916 and 1922, replacing them with A class locomotives.
== Great Central Railway ==
In 1893, another of Edward Watkin's railways, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, had been authorised to build a new 92-mile (148 km) line from Annesley in Nottinghamshire south to Quainton Road. Watkin had intended to run services from Manchester and Sheffield via Quainton Road and along the MR to Baker Street. Following Watkin's retirement in 1894, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway obtained permission for a separate station in London near Baker Street at Marylebone, and the line was renamed the Great Central Railway (GCR). The new line joined the MR just north of Quainton Road, and opened to passengers on 15 March 1899.
Although it served a lightly populated area, the opening of the GCR made Quainton Road an important junction station at which four railway lines met. The number of passengers using the station rose sharply. It had many passengers in comparison to other stations in the area. In 1932, the last year of private operation, the station saw 10,598 passenger journeys, earning a total of £601 (about £52,700 in 2023) in passenger receipts.
Quainton Road was by far the busiest of the MR's rural passenger stations north of Aylesbury. Verney Junction railway station saw only 943 passenger journeys in the same year, and the five other stations on the Brill Tramway had a combined passenger total of 7,761.
=== Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway ===
Following Watkin's retirement, relations between the GCR and the MR deteriorated badly. The GCR route to London ran over the MR from Quainton Road to London, and to reduce reliance on the hostile MR, GCR General Manager William Pollitt decided to create a link with the Great Western Railway and a route into London that bypassed the MR. In 1899, the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway began construction of a new line, commonly known as the Alternative Route, to link the GWR at Princes Risborough to the GCR at Grendon Underwood, about three miles (5 km) north of Quainton Road. Although formally an independent company, the new line was operated as a part of the GCR. A substantial part of GCR traffic to and from London was diverted onto the Alternative Route, reducing the significance of Quainton Road as an interchange and damaging the profitability of the MR.
== London Transport ==
On 1 July 1933 the MR, along with London's other underground railways aside from the short Waterloo & City Railway, was taken into public ownership as part of the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB). Despite being 44 miles (71 km) from London, Quainton Road became part of the London Underground network. By this time, the lines from Quainton Road to Verney Junction and Brill were in severe decline. Competition from the newer lines and from improving road haulage had drawn away much of the Tramway's custom in particular, and Brill trains would often run without a single passenger.
Frank Pick, managing director of the Underground Group from 1928 and the Chief Executive of the LPTB, aimed to move the network away from freight services and concentrate on the electrification and improvement of the core routes in London. He saw the lines beyond Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Brill and Verney Junction as having little future as financially viable passenger routes. On 1 June 1935, the LPTB gave the required six months' notice to the O&AT that it intended to terminate operations on the Brill Tramway.
== Closure ==
The last scheduled passenger train on the Brill Tramway left Quainton Road in the afternoon of 30 November 1935. Hundreds of people gathered, and a number of members of the Oxford University Railway Society travelled from Oxford in an effort to buy the last ticket. Accompanied by firecrackers and fog signals, the train ran to Brill, where the passengers posed for a photograph. Late that evening, a two-coach staff train pulled out of Brill, accompanied by a band bearing a white flag and playing Auld Lang Syne. The train stopped at each station, picking up the staff, documents and valuables from each. At 11.45 pm the train arrived at Quainton Road, greeted by hundreds of locals and railway enthusiasts. At the stroke of midnight, the rails connecting the Tramway to the main line were ceremonially severed.
Quainton Road remained open, but with the closure of the Brill Tramway it was no longer a significant junction. The line to Verney Junction was closed to passengers on 6 July 1936. London Transport passenger services beyond Aylesbury were withdrawn, leaving the former GCR (part of the London and North Eastern Railway after 1923) as the only passenger services to Quainton Road. .A connection between the GCR and the former Buckinghamshire Railway at Calvert was opened in 1942,.London Transport services were briefly restored in 1943 with the extension of the Metropolitan line's London–Aylesbury service to Quainton Road, but this service was once more withdrawn in 1948.
London Transport reduced the A&B route between Quainton Road and Verney Junction to a single track in 1939–40. LT continued to operate freight services until 6 September 1947, when the Quainton Road–Verney Junction route closed altogether,
Quainton Road closed to passengers on 4 March 1963 and to goods on 4 July 1966. On 3 September 1966, passenger services on the GCR line from Aylesbury to Rugby were withdrawn, leaving only the stretch from Aylesbury to Calvert, running through the now-closed Quainton Road, open for freight trains. This was reduced to a single track shortly afterwards. The signal box at Quainton Road was abandoned on 13 August 1967, and the points connecting to the goods yard were disconnected.
== Restoration ==
While other closed stations on the former MR lines north of Aylesbury were generally demolished or sold, in 1969 the Quainton Railway Society was formed to operate a working museum at the station. On 24 April 1971, the society absorbed the London Railway Preservation Society, taking custody of its collection of historic railway equipment. The station was maintained in working order and used as a bookshop and ticket office, and the sidings—still intact, although disconnected from the railway line in 1967—were used for locomotive restoration work.
The Quainton Railway Society, which operates the station as the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, restored the main station building to its 1900 appearance. A smaller building on the former Brill platform, once a shelter for passengers waiting for Brill and down trains, was used first as a store then as a shop for a number of years before its current use to house an exhibit on the history of the Brill Tramway. A former London Transport building from Wembley Park was dismantled and re-erected at Quainton Road to serve as a maintenance shed. From 1984 until 1990, the station briefly came back into passenger use, when special Saturday Christmas shopping services between Aylesbury and Bletchley were operated by British Rail Network SouthEast on Saturdays only, and stopped at Quainton Road. From August Bank Holiday 1971 until the 1987 season, and again from August Bank Holiday 2001, the station has had special passenger trains from Aylesbury in connection with events at the centre – these shuttles now run regularly each Spring and August Bank Holiday weekend.
Rewley Road, the Oxford terminus of Harry Verney's Buckinghamshire Railway and of the Oxford to Cambridge Line, closed to passengers on 1 October 1951 with trains diverted to the former GWR Oxford General, the current Oxford station. In co-operation with the Science Museum, Rewley Road was dismantled in 1999, the main station building and part of the platform canopy being moved to Quainton Road for preservation and improved visitor facilities with the main shop and office of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre, thus maintaining it as a working building. A number of former Ministry of Supply food warehouses in what is now the extended Down Yard have been converted for various uses by the Society, including storage and exhibition of rolling stock.
Although the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre's steam trains run on the sidings which were disconnected from the network in 1967, the station still has a working railway line running to it, used for occasional special passenger trains from Aylesbury in connection with events at the centre. Regular freight trains, mainly landfill trains from waste transfer depots in Greater London to the former brick pits at Calvert, passed through until October 2021, when Network Rail closed the line to the north and lifted the tracks. In 2023, the Station Road bridge was in-filled with foamed concrete to strengthen it until its replacement is opened at which point the tracks to the north will be replaced. In 2010, the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre was negotiating for a reconnection of the link between its sidings and the main line, to allow the centre's locomotives to run to Aylesbury when the line is not in use by freight trains, and to rebuild part of the Brill Tramway between Quainton Road and Waddesdon Road.
== Media use ==
Quainton Road is regularly used as a filming location for period drama, and programmes such as The Jewel in the Crown, the Doctor Who serial Black Orchid, and the ITV series Midsomer Murders have been filmed there. The location tasks in the 8th series of Taskmaster were also filmed around the site.
== See also ==
Great Central Main Line
Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway
== Notes and references ==
=== Notes ===
=== References ===
=== Bibliography ===
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Media related to Quainton Road railway station at Wikimedia Commons |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Manning | Alexander Manning | Alexander Henderson Manning (11 May 1819 – 20 October 1903) was a Canadian contractor, businessman, and the 20th Mayor of Toronto, serving a single term in 1873 and a second in 1885. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to Toronto in 1834. He worked on the construction of several projects, including the Welland Canal and the Library of Parliament. He was elected as alderman for Toronto City Council, representing St. Lawrence Ward in 1856 and 1857. He was re-elected as an alderman from 1867 to 1873. He was selected by the Toronto City Council to be mayor in 1873, but was not reelected the following year when the mayor was chosen by popular vote. He won the election for mayor of Toronto in 1884, but was again unsuccessful in his reelection bid the following year. In his later life, Manning was an investor in the Grand Opera House, funded the construction of Toronto's Old City Hall, and was a director of several companies. At the time of his death in 1903, it was reported that he was the largest individual taxpayer in Toronto.
== Early life and building career ==
Born in Dublin, Ireland, on 11 May 1819, Manning was educated in Dublin and immigrated to Toronto in 1834. Four years later, he lived in Ohio but returned to Toronto after two years. He worked as a builder and was a partner in a sawmill business. He worked on the construction of various projects, including the Welland Canal and the Toronto Normal and Model School.
In the 1850s Manning invested in real estate within Toronto. In the 1860s he demanded overtime payments for constructing roads in Grey County, an act that was used to politically attack Manning for being greedy with obtaining public funds. From 1870 to 1874, he worked with the masonry and brickwork for the Canadian Library of Parliament. He was also an investor for the Toronto Street Railway and constructed railways in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, and other locations across Canada.
== Political career and first mayoral term ==
Manning was unsuccessful in his first election for alderman for St. Lawrence Ward with the Toronto City Council in 1855, but was elected to the position the following year and reelected in 1857. He was not an alderman in the following city council.
Manning returned to the Toronto City Council as an alderman for St. Lawrence Ward in 1867, and would be reelected every year until 1873. He nominated himself for mayor of the city in 1872, but was not selected by his fellow councillors for the role. The following year he nominated himself again and was successful. During his time in office, he advocated for a commissioner to be in charge of public projects and the city formed a technique to assess and collect taxes. The city also controversially bought privately owned waterworks, an action that divided the opinions of city council and the public. Manning ran in the 1874 mayoral election, which returned to selecting the mayor by popular vote, but lost due to public allegations of misdeeds during the tendering process of improving the waterworks projects.
== Continuing business career and second mayoral term ==
During his time as alderman and mayor, Manning won his first government contract to build the Welland Canal and Cornwall Canal. His contract with the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1879 was criticised for being given to Manning because of his influence within the Conservative Party. A royal commission investigated the tendering process and reported that the price of the contract was not rigged but that were irregularities in how the contract was awarded. This controversy hindered his ability to obtain more contracts and his company went bankrupt in 1883.
Manning ran to become mayor in 1879, but came in third. He declined the nomination for mayor in 1881, but in 1884 over 5,000 citizens signed a petition for Manning to run for the position. Manning ran as an independent candidate and focused on his prior experience as mayor and promised financial restraint and clean water within the city. His opponent, John Jacob Withrow, criticised the tax assessments on Manning's income and businesses, and Manning responded by reading his assessor reports out loud and defending the reductions he received. Manning won the mayoral race with the support of Conservative voters.
As mayor, he kept the tax rate low and was an effective administrator of the city. He advocated for a better sanitation system in the city, but was hampered by his association with dishonest associates. He also advocated for the creation of the Home for Incurables. Manning called for the creation of the Toronto Volunteers Reception Committee to prepare events for the return of troops from the North-West Rebellion. He also formed a committee to construct a monument commemorating the men who participated in fighting for the government in the rebellion. The monument was erected in 1895. At first, Manning believed that he would be unchallenged in his reelection as mayor, but a growing civic reform movement organised and produced a candidate named William Holmes Howland. Howard, an advocate for the temperance movement, emphasised Manning's presidency of the Toronto Brewing and Malting Company. Manning supported the Daily Mail in their employment dispute against the Toronto Typographical Union, causing the union to campaign against Manning. Manning was unsuccessful in his reelection campaign.
== Post-political career ==
Manning participated in several Toronto social organisations, including the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society of Toronto, the St. Patrick's Society of Toronto, and the National Club of Toronto. He was also an investor in Toronto's Grand Opera House, and bought the building when it went bankrupt in 1876. In 1884 he hired E. J. Lennox to design a large office block called Manning Arcade, and also funded the construction of Old City Hall in Toronto. He was a member of the Toronto Board of Trade, a director of the Traders Bank of Canada and the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and president of the Toronto Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company and the North American Land Company Limited.
== Personal life and death ==
Manning married his first wife, Adeline Augusta Whittemore, on 6 February 1850. She died in 1861, and he married his second wife, Susan Celina Smith, later that year on 1 August. He and Smith had two sons and two daughters.
Manning died in Toronto on 20 October 1903. He was buried at St. James Cemetery in a tomb he built for his family. At the time of his death, he was the largest individual ratepayer in Toronto.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie | Lizzie Magie | Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips (née Magie; May 9, 1866 – March 2, 1948) was an American game designer, writer, feminist, and Georgist. She invented The Landlord's Game, the precursor to Monopoly, to illustrate teachings of the progressive era economist Henry George.
== Life and career ==
Elizabeth J. Magie was born in Macomb, Illinois, in 1866 to Mary Jane (née Ritchie) and James K. Magie, a newspaper publisher and an abolitionist who accompanied Abraham Lincoln as he traveled around Illinois in the late 1850s debating politics with Stephen Douglas.
After moving to the D.C. and Maryland area in the early 1880s, she worked as a stenographer and typist at the Dead Letter Office. She was also a short story writer, poetry writer, comedian, stage actress, feminist, and engineer.
At the age of 26, Magie received a patent for her invention that made the typewriting process easier by allowing paper to go through the rollers more easily. At the time, women were credited with less than one percent of all patents. She also worked as a news reporter for a brief time in the early 1900s. In 1910, at age 44, she married Albert Wallace Phillips. They had no children.
== Political activism ==
Magie was an outspoken activist for the feminist movement, and Georgism, which reflected her father's political beliefs when she was young. Georgism refers to the economic perspective that instead of taxing income or other sources, the government should create a universal land tax based on the usefulness, size, and location of the land (Single tax). Then, after funding the government, the left over money would be distributed to the people. Many progressive political leaders at the time supported this economic perspective as it motivated people to cultivate land, redistributed wealth to people of low socioeconomic standing, eradicated the idea that landowners or landlords held the power and monetary value of the land that citizens used, and let people own all of the value and benefits of their creations. This belief became the basis for her game known as The Landlord's Game.
Furthermore, she believed that women were as capable as men in inventing, business, and other professional areas. In the 1800s, this belief was considered both novel and radical. When she worked as a stenographer, she was making around $10 a week which was not enough to support herself without the help of a husband.
In order to bring the struggles of women in the United States to the public's attention, she bought an advertisement and tried to auction herself off as a "young woman American slave" looking for a husband to own her. This advertisement was meant to show the position of women and black people in the country, emphasizing the fact that the only people that were truly free were white men. The ad that Magie published became the talk of the town. It spread rapidly through the news and gossip columns around the country. Magie made a name for herself as an outspoken and proud feminist.
== The Landlord's Game ==
Magie first made her game, known as The Landlord's Game, popular among friends while living in Brentwood, Maryland. In 1903, Magie applied to the U.S. Patent Office for a patent on her board game. She was granted U.S. Patent 748,626 on January 5, 1904. Magie received her patent before women in the United States had the vote nationally.
The Landlord's Game was designed to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for it. Originally, the goal of the game was to simply obtain wealth. In the following patents, the game developed to eventually have two different settings: one being the monopolist set up (known as Monopoly) where the goal was to own industries, create monopolies, and win by forcing others out of their industries and the other being the anti-monopolist setup (known as Prosperity) where the goal was to create products and interact with opponents. The game would later go on to be the inspiration for the game Monopoly.
In 1906, she moved to Chicago. That year, she and fellow Georgists formed the Economic Game Co. to self-publish her original edition of The Landlord's Game. In 1910, the Parker Brothers published her humorous card game Mock Trial. Then, the Newbie Game Co. in Scotland patented The Landlord's Game as "Bre'r Fox and Bre'r Rabbit;". However, there was no proof that the game was actually protected by the British patent.
She and her husband moved back to the east coast of the U.S. and patented a revised version of the game in 1924. As her original patent had expired in 1921, this is seen as her attempt to reassert control over her game, which was now being played at some colleges where students made their own copies. In 1932, her second edition of The Landlord's Game was published by the Adgame Company of Washington, D.C. This version included both Monopoly and Prosperity.
Magie also developed other games including Bargain Day and King's Men in 1937 and a third version of The Landlord's Game in 1939. In Bargain Day, shoppers compete with each other in a department store; King's Men is an abstract strategy game.
== Death ==
Magie died at the age of 81 in 1948. She was buried with her husband Albert Wallace Phillips, who had died in 1937, in Columbia Gardens Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. They had no children. At her death, she was not credited for the impact that she had on the board game community and American culture.
== Monopoly ==
Magie's game was becoming increasingly popular around the Northeastern United States. College students attending Harvard, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania, left-leaning middle-class families, and Quakers were all playing her board game. Three decades after The Landlord's Game was invented in 1904, Parker Brothers published a modified version, known as Monopoly. Charles Darrow claimed the idea as his own, stating that he invented the game in his basement. Magie later spoke out against them and reported that she had made a mere $500 from her invention and received none of the credit for Monopoly.
In January 1936, an interview with Magie appeared in a Washington, D.C. newspaper, in which she was critical of Parker Brothers. Magie spoke to reporters about the similarities between Monopoly and The Landlord's Game. The article published spoke to the fact that Magie spent more money making her game than she received in earnings, especially with the lack of credit she received after Monopoly was created. After the interviews, Parker Brothers agreed to publish two more of her games but continued to give Darrow the credit for inventing the game itself.
Darrow was known as the inventor of Monopoly until Ralph Anspach, creator of the Anti-Monopoly game, discovered Magie's patents. Anspach had researched the history of Monopoly in relation to a legal struggle against Parker Brothers regarding his own game, and discovered Darrow's decision to take credit for its invention, despite his having learned about it through friends. Subsequently, Magie's invention of The Landlord's Game has been given more attention and research. Despite the fact that Darrow and Parker Brothers capitalized on and were credited with her idea, she has posthumously received credit for one of the most popular board games.
== Legacy ==
It was only after her death that the impact Magie had on many aspects of American culture and life began to be appreciated. First and foremost, she helped to popularize the circular board game. Most board games at the time were linear; a circular board game that concentrated on interacting both socially and competitively with the opponents was a novel idea. Her board game not only laid the foundation and inspiration for Monopoly, the most famous board game in the United States, but also provided entertainment that taught about Georgist principles, the value in spreading wealth, and the harmfulness of monopolies. This aspect of her game was absent from the Darrow version of Monopoly.
She also contributed to the women's movement and black people's rights, through educating others about these concepts, inventing board games at a time when women held less than one percent of US patents, and publishing political material in newspapers to speak out against the oppression of women and black communities in the United States.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Adams, Cecil (March 18, 2011). "Monopoly's Anti-Capitalist Origins: When 'Go' used to say 'Labor upon Mother Earth produces wages'". Washington City Paper.
Lizzie, Magie (Autumn 1902). "Commentary on The Landlords' Game". The Single Tax Review.
Pilon, Mary (2017). The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game. BloomsburyUSA. ISBN 9781620405710.
An edited extract is available at: Pilon, Mary (April 11, 2015). "The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game's leftwing origins". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 10, 2025.
Sadowski, David, as "Clarence B. Darwin" (2006). Passing Go: Early Monopoly, 1933-37. Folkopoly Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Walsh, Tim (2004). The Playmakers: Amazing Origins of Timeless Toys. Keys Publishing. ISBN 0-9646973-4-3.
Wolfe, Burton H. (1976). "The Monopolization of Monopoly: The $500 Buyout". The San Francisco Bay Guardian. Archived from the original on December 10, 2005. The story of Lizzie Magie and Parker Brothers.
== External links ==
A History of Games, including Monopoly BBC Radio The History Hour, January 3, 2022
Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History PBS American Experience, WGBH Educational Foundation, February 20, 2023 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#:~:text=Despite%20this%2C%20on%20November%206,accelerated%20H.264%20video%20decoding. | Google Chrome | Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was launched in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, on which it serves as the platform for web applications.
Most of Chrome's source code comes from Google's free and open-source software project known as Chromium, but Chrome is licensed as proprietary freeware. WebKit was the original rendering engine, but Google eventually forked it to create the Blink engine; all Chrome variants except iOS used Blink as of 2017.
As of September 2025, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 71.77% worldwide browser market share (after peaking at 72.38% in November 2018) on personal computers. It is the most in use browser on tablets (having surpassed Safari), and is also dominant on smartphones. With a market share of 71.77% across all platforms combined, Chrome is the most used web browser in the world today.
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was previously involved in the "browser wars" (a part of U.S. corporate history) and was against the expansion of the company into such a new area. However, Google co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, spearheaded a software demonstration that pushed Schmidt into making Chrome a core business priority, which resulted in it becoming a commercial success. Because of the proliferation of Chrome, Google has expanded the "Chrome" brand name to other products. This includes ChromeOS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Chromebit, Chromebox, and Chromebase.
== History ==
Google chief executive Eric Schmidt opposed the development of an independent web browser for six years. He stated that "at the time, Google was a small company", and he did not want to go through "bruising browser wars". Company co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired several Mozilla Firefox developers and built a demonstration of Chrome. Afterwards, Schmidt said, "It was so good that it essentially forced me to change my mind."
In September 2004, rumors of Google building a web browser first appeared. Online journals and U.S. newspapers stated at the time that Google was hiring former Microsoft web developers, among others. It also came shortly after the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0, which was surging in popularity and taking market share from Internet Explorer, which had noted security problems.
Chrome is based on the open-source code of the Chromium project. Development of the browser began in 2006, spearheaded by Sundar Pichai.
Google has since become the world's most popular search engine. 90% of searches on search engines come from Google users
=== Announcement ===
The release announcement was originally scheduled for September 3, 2008, and a comic by Scott McCloud was to be sent to journalists and bloggers explaining the features within the new browser. Copies intended for Europe were shipped early, and German blogger Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped made a scanned copy of the 38-page comic available on his website after receiving it on September 1, 2008. Google subsequently made the comic available on Google Books, and mentioned it on their official blog along with an explanation for the early release. The product was named "Chrome" as an initial development project code name, because it is associated with fast cars and speed. Google kept the development project name as the final release name, as a "cheeky" or ironic moniker, as one of the main aims was to minimize the user interface chrome.
=== Public release ===
The browser was first publicly released, officially as a beta version, on September 2, 2008, for Windows XP and newer, and with support for 43 languages, and later as a "stable" public release on December 11, 2008. On that same day, a CNET news item drew attention to a passage in the Terms of Service statement for the initial beta release, which seemed to grant Google a license to all content transferred via the Chrome browser. This passage was inherited from the general Google terms of service. Google responded to this criticism immediately by stating that the language used was borrowed from other products, and removed this passage from the Terms of Service.
Chrome quickly gained about 1% usage share. After the initial surge, usage share dropped until it hit a low of 0.69% in October 2008. It then started rising again and by December 2008, Chrome again passed the 1% threshold. In early January 2009, CNET reported that Google planned to release versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux in the first half of the year. The first official macOS and Linux developer previews of Chrome were announced on June 4, 2009, with a blog post saying they were missing many features and were intended for early feedback rather than general use. In December 2009, Google released beta versions of Chrome for macOS and Linux. Google Chrome 5.0, announced on May 25, 2010, was the first stable release to support all three platforms.
Chrome was one of the twelve browsers offered on BrowserChoice.eu to European Economic Area users of Microsoft Windows in 2010.
=== Development ===
Chrome was assembled from 25 different code libraries from Google and third parties such as Mozilla's Netscape Portable Runtime, Network Security Services, NPAPI (dropped as of version 45), Skia Graphics Engine, SQLite, and several other open-source projects. The V8 JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark coordinated by Lars Bak. According to Google, existing implementations were designed "for small programs, where the performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important", but web applications such as Gmail "are using the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and JavaScript", and therefore would significantly benefit from a JavaScript engine that could work faster.
Chrome initially used the WebKit rendering engine to display web pages. In 2013, they forked the WebCore component to create their own layout engine, Blink. Based on WebKit, Blink only uses WebKit's "WebCore" components, while substituting other components, such as its own multi-process architecture, in place of WebKit's native implementation. Chrome is internally tested with unit testing, automated testing of scripted user actions, fuzz testing, as well as WebKit's layout tests (99% of which Chrome is claimed to have passed), and against commonly accessed websites inside the Google index within 20–30 minutes. Google created Gears for Chrome, which added features for web developers typically relating to the building of web applications, including offline support. Google phased out Gears as the same functionality became available in the HTML5 standards.
In March 2011, Google introduced a new simplified logo to replace the previous 3D logo that had been used since the project's inception. Google designer Steve Rura explained the company's reasoning for the change: "Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit – to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all."
On January 11, 2011, the Chrome product manager, Mike Jazayeri, announced that Chrome would remove H.264 video codec support for its HTML5 player, citing the desire to bring Google Chrome more in line with the currently available open codecs available in the Chromium project, which Chrome is based on. Despite this, on November 6, 2012, Google released a version of Chrome on Windows which added hardware-accelerated H.264 video decoding. In October 2013, Cisco announced that it was open-sourcing its H.264 codecs, and it would cover all fees required.
On February 7, 2012, Google launched Google Chrome Beta for Android 4.0 devices. On many new devices with Android 4.1 or later preinstalled, Chrome is the default browser. In May 2017, Google announced a version of Chrome for augmented reality and virtual reality devices.
== Features ==
Google Chrome features a minimalistic user interface, with its user-interface principles later being implemented in other browsers. For example, the merging of the address bar and search bar into the omnibox or omnibar.
=== Web standards support ===
The first release of Google Chrome passed both the Acid1 and Acid2 tests. Beginning with version 4.0, Chrome passed all aspects of the Acid3 test, However, as of April 2017 Chrome no longer passes Acid3 due to changing consensus on Web standards.
As of May 2011, Chrome has very good support for JavaScript/ECMAScript according to Ecma International's ECMAScript standards conformance Test 262 (version ES5.1 May 18, 2012). This test reports as the final score the number of tests a browser failed; hence, lower scores are better. In this test, Chrome version 37 scored 10 failed/11,578 passed. For comparison, Firefox 19 scored 193 failed/11,752 passed, and Internet Explorer 9 had a score of 600+ failed, while Internet Explorer 10 had a score of 7 failed.
In 2011, on the official CSS 2.1 test suite by the standardization organization W3C, WebKit, the Chrome rendering engine, passed 89.75% (89.38% out of 99.59% covered) CSS 2.1 tests.
On the HTML5 web standards test, Chrome 41 scored 518 out of 555 points, placing it ahead of the five most popular desktop browsers. Chrome 41 on Android scored 510 out of 555 points. Chrome 44 scored 526, only 29 points less than the maximum score.
=== User interface ===
By default, the main user interface includes back, forward, refresh/cancel, and menu buttons. A home button is not shown by default, but can be added through the Settings page to take the user to the new tab page or a custom home page.
Tabs are the main component of Chrome's user interface and have been moved to the top of the window rather than below the controls. This subtle change contrasts with many existing tabbed browsers, which are based on windows and contain tabs. Tabs, with their state, can be transferred between window containers by dragging. Each tab has its own set of controls, including the Omnibox.
The Omnibox is a URL box that combines the functions of both the address bar and search box. If a user enters the URL of a site previously searched from, Chrome allows pressing Tab to search the site again directly from the Omnibox. When a user starts typing in the Omnibox, Chrome provides suggestions for previously visited sites (based on the URL or in-page text), popular websites (not necessarily visited before – powered by Google Instant), and popular searches. Although Instant can be turned off, suggestions based on previously visited sites cannot be turned off. Chrome will also autocomplete the URLs of sites visited often. If a user types keywords into the Omnibox that do not match any previously visited websites and presses enter, Chrome will conduct the search using the default search engine.
One of Chrome's differentiating features is the New Tab Page, which can replace the browser home page and is displayed when a new tab is created. Originally, this showed thumbnails of the nine most visited websites, along with frequent searches, recent bookmarks, and recently closed tabs; similar to Internet Explorer and Firefox with Google Toolbar, or Opera's Speed Dial. In Google Chrome 2.0, the New Tab Page was updated to allow users to hide thumbnails they did not want to appear.
Starting in version 3.0, the New Tab Page was revamped to display thumbnails of the eight most visited websites. The thumbnails could be rearranged, pinned, and removed. Alternatively, a list of text links could be displayed instead of thumbnails. It also features a "Recently closed" bar that shows recently closed tabs and a "tips" section that displays hints and tricks for using the browser. Starting with Google Chrome 3.0, users can install themes to alter the appearance of the browser. Many free third-party themes are provided in an online gallery, accessible through a "Get themes" button in Chrome's options.
Chrome includes a bookmarks submenu that lists the user's bookmarks, provides easy access to Chrome's Bookmark Manager, and allows the user to toggle a bookmarks bar on or off.
On January 2, 2019, Google introduced Native Dark Theme for Chrome on Windows 10.
In 2023, it was announced that Chrome would be completely revamped, using Google's Material You design language, the revamp would include more rounded corners, Chrome colors being swapped out for a similar dynamic color system introduced in Android 12, a revamped address bar, new icons and tabs, and a more simplified 3 dot menu.
=== Built-in tools ===
Starting with Google Chrome 4.1, the application added a built-in translation bar using Google Translate. Language translation is currently available for 52 languages. When Chrome detects a foreign language other than the user's preferred language set during the installation time, it asks the user whether or not to translate.
Chrome allows users to synchronize their bookmarks, history, and settings across all devices with the browser installed by sending and receiving data through a chosen Google Account, which in turn updates all signed-in instances of Chrome. This can be authenticated either through Google credentials or a sync passphrase.
For web developers, Chrome has an element inspector that allows users to look inside any web page's Document Object Model (DOM) structure and examine the code elements that make up the webpage.
Chrome has special URLs that load application-specific pages instead of websites or files on disk. Chrome also has a built-in ability to enable experimental features. Originally called about:labs, the address was changed to about:flags to make it less obvious to casual users.
The desktop edition of Chrome can save pages as HTML with assets in a "_files" subfolder, or as an unprocessed HTML-only document. It also offers an option to save in the MHTML format.
=== Desktop shortcuts and apps ===
Chrome allows users to make local desktop shortcuts that open web applications in the browser. The browser, when opened in this way, contains none of the regular interface except for the title bar, so as not to "interrupt anything the user is trying to do". This allows web applications to run alongside local software (similar to Mozilla Prism and Fluid).
This feature, according to Google, would be enhanced with the Chrome Web Store, a one-stop web-based web applications directory which opened in December 2010.
In September 2013, Google started making Chrome apps "For your desktop". This meant offline access, desktop shortcuts, and less dependence on Chrome—apps launch in a window separate from Chrome, and look more like native applications.
==== Chrome Web Store ====
Announced on December 7, 2010, the Chrome Web Store allows users to install web applications as extensions to the browser, although most of these extensions function simply as links to popular web pages or games, some of the apps, like Springpad, do provide extra features like offline access. The themes and extensions have also been tightly integrated into the new store, allowing users to search the entire catalog of Chrome extras.
The Chrome Web Store was opened on February 11, 2011, with the release of Google Chrome 9.0.
=== Extensions ===
Browser extensions can modify Google Chrome. They are supported by the browser's desktop edition, but not on mobile. These extensions are written using web technologies like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. They are distributed through Chrome Web Store, initially known as the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery. Some extensions focus on providing accessibility features. Google Tone is an extension developed by Google that when enabled, can use a computer's speakers to exchange URLs with nearby computers with an Internet connection that have the extension enabled as well.
On September 9, 2009, Google enabled extensions by default on Chrome's developer channel and provided several sample extensions for testing. In December, the Google Chrome Extensions Gallery beta began with approximately 300 extensions. It was launched on January 25, 2010, along with Google Chrome 4.0, containing approximately 1500 extensions.
In 2014, Google started preventing some Windows users from installing extensions not hosted on the Chrome Web Store. The following year Google reported a "75% drop in customer support help requests for uninstalling unwanted extensions" which led them to expand this restriction to all Windows and Mac users.
==== Manifest V3 ====
In October 2018, Google announced a major future update to Chrome's extension API, known as "Manifest V3" (in reference to the manifest file contained within extensions). Manifest V3 is intended to modernize the extension architecture and improve the security and performance of the browser; it adopts declarative APIs to "decrease the need for overly-broad access and enable more performant implementation by the browser", replaces background pages with feature-limited "Service Workers" to reduce resource usage, and prohibits remotely-hosted code.
Google faced criticism for this change since it limits the number of rules and types of expressions that may be checked by ad blockers. Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for ad-blocking filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself.
==== Notable examples ====
=== Speed ===
The JavaScript virtual machine used by Chrome, the V8 JavaScript engine, has features such as dynamic code generation, hidden class transitions, and precise garbage collection.
In 2008, several websites performed benchmark tests using the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark tool as well as Google's own set of computationally intense benchmarks, which include ray tracing and constraint solving. They unanimously reported that Chrome performed much faster than all competitors against which it had been tested, including Safari (for Windows), Firefox 3.0, Internet Explorer 7, Opera, and Internet Explorer 8. However, on October 11, 2010, independent tests of JavaScript performance, Chrome has been scoring just behind Opera's Presto engine since it was updated in version 10.5.
On September 3, 2008, Mozilla responded by stating that their own TraceMonkey JavaScript engine (then in beta), was faster than Chrome's V8 engine in some tests. John Resig, Mozilla's JavaScript evangelist, further commented on the performance of different browsers on Google's own suite, commenting on Chrome's "decimating" of the other browsers, but he questioned whether Google's suite was representative of real programs. He stated that Firefox 3.0 performed poorly on recursion-intensive benchmarks, such as those of Google, because the Mozilla team had not implemented recursion-tracing yet.
Two weeks after Chrome's launch in 2008, the WebKit team announced a new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish Extreme, citing a 36% speed improvement over Chrome's V8 engine.
Like most major web browsers, Chrome uses DNS prefetching to speed up website lookups, as do other browsers like Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer (called DNS Pre-resolution), and in Opera as a UserScript (not built-in).
Chrome formerly used their now-deprecated SPDY protocol instead of only HTTP when communicating with servers that support it, such as Google services, Facebook, Twitter. SPDY support was removed in Chrome version 51. This was due to SPDY being replaced by HTTP/2, a standard that was based upon it.
In November 2019, Google said it was working on several "speed badging" systems that let visitors know why a page is taking time to show up. The variations include simple text warnings and more subtle signs that indicate a site is slow. No date has been given for when the badging system will be included with the Chrome browser.
Chrome formerly supported a Data Saver feature for making pages load faster called Lite Mode. Previously, Chrome engineers Addy Osmani and Scott Little announced Lite Mode would automatically lazy-load images and iframes for faster page loads. Lite Mode was switched off in Chrome 100, citing a decrease in mobile data costs for many countries.
=== Security ===
Chrome periodically retrieves updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a site flagged as potentially harmful. This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API".
Chrome uses a process-allocation model to sandbox tabs. Using the principle of least privilege, each tab process cannot interact with critical memory functions (e.g. OS memory, user files) or other tab processes – similar to Microsoft's "Protected Mode" used by Internet Explorer 9 or greater. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail". This enforces a computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user and sandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user. On Linux sandboxing uses the seccomp mode.
In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported that using Chrome when connected to the internet using a VPN can be a serious security issue due to the browser's support for WebRTC.
On September 9, 2016, it was reported that starting with Chrome 56, users will be warned when they visit insecure HTTP websites to encourage more sites to make the transition to HTTPS.
On December 4, 2018, Google announced its Chrome 71 release with new security features, including a built-in ad-blocking system. In addition, Google also announced its plan to crack down on websites that make people involuntarily subscribe to mobile subscription plans.
On September 2, 2020, with the release of Chrome 85, Google extended support for Secure DNS in Chrome for Android. DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) was designed to improve safety and privacy while browsing the web. Under the update, Chrome automatically switches to DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) if the current DNS provider supports the feature.
==== Password management ====
===== Windows =====
Since 2008, Chrome has been faulted for not including a master password to prevent casual access to a user's passwords. Chrome developers have indicated that a master password does not provide real security against determined hackers and have refused to implement one. Bugs filed on this issue have been marked "WontFix". As of February 2014, Google Chrome asks the user to enter their Windows account password before showing saved passwords.
===== Linux =====
On Linux, Google Chrome/Chromium can store passwords in three ways: GNOME Keyring, KWallet, or plain text. Google Chrome/Chromium chooses which store to use automatically, based on the desktop environment in use. Passwords stored in GNOME Keyring or KWallet are encrypted on disk, and access to them is controlled by dedicated daemon software. Passwords stored in plain text are not encrypted. Because of this, when either GNOME Keyring or KWallet is in use, any unencrypted passwords that have been stored previously are automatically moved into the encrypted store. Support for using GNOME Keyring and KWallet was added in version 6, but using these (when available) was not made the default mode until version 12.
===== macOS =====
As of version 45, the Google Chrome password manager is no longer integrated with Keychain, since the interoperability goal is no longer possible.
==== Security vulnerabilities ====
No security vulnerabilities in Chrome were exploited in the three years of Pwn2Own from 2009 to 2011. At Pwn2Own 2012, Chrome was defeated by a French team who used zero day exploits in the version of Flash shipped with Chrome to take complete control of a fully patched 64-bit Windows 7 PC using a booby-trapped website that overcame Chrome's sandboxing.
Chrome was compromised twice at the 2012 CanSecWest Pwnium. Google's official response to the exploits was delivered by Jason Kersey, who congratulated the researchers, noting "We also believe that both submissions are works of art and deserve wider sharing and recognition." Fixes for these vulnerabilities were deployed within 10 hours of the submission.
A significant number of security vulnerabilities in Chrome occurred in the Adobe Flash Player. For example, the 2016 Pwn2Own successful attack on Chrome relied on four security vulnerabilities. Two of the vulnerabilities were in Flash, one was in Chrome, and one was in the Windows kernel. In 2016, Google announced that it was planning to phase out Flash Player in Chrome, starting in version 53. The first phase of the plan was to disable Flash for ads and "background analytics", with the ultimate goal of disabling it completely by the end of the year, except on specific sites that Google has deemed to be broken without it. Flash would then be re-enabled with the exclusion of ads and background analytics on a site-by-site basis.
Leaked documents from 2013 to 2016 codenamed Vault 7 detail the capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, such as the ability to compromise web browsers (including Google Chrome).
==== Malware blocking and ad blocking ====
Google introduced download scanning protection in Chrome 17. In February 2018, Google introduced an ad blocking feature based on recommendations from the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Sites that employ invasive ads are given a 30-day warning, after which their ads will be blocked. Consumer Reports recommended users install dedicated ad-blocking tools instead, which offer increased security against malware and tracking.
==== Plugins ====
Chrome supported, up to version 45, plug-ins with the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI), so that plug-ins (for example Adobe Flash Player) run as unrestricted separate processes outside the browser and cannot be sandboxed as tabs are. ActiveX is not supported. Since 2010, Adobe Flash has been integral to Chrome and does not need be installed separately. Flash is kept up to date as part of Chrome's own updates. Java applet support was available in Chrome with Java 6 update 12 and above. Support for Java under macOS was provided by a Java Update released on May 18, 2010.
On August 12, 2009, Google introduced a replacement for NPAPI that is more portable and more secure called Pepper Plugin API (PPAPI). The default bundled PPAPI Flash Player (or Pepper-based Flash Player) was available on ChromeOS first, then replaced the NPAPI Flash Player on Linux from Chrome version 20, on Windows from version 21 (which also reduced Flash crashes by 20%), and eventually came to macOS at version 23.
On September 23, 2013, Google announced that it would be deprecating and then removing NPAPI support. NPAPI support was removed from Linux in Chrome release 35. NPAPI plugins like Java can no longer work in Chrome (but there are workarounds for Flash by using PPAPI Flash Player on Linux including for Chromium).
On April 14, 2015, Google released Chrome v42, disabling the NPAPI by default. This makes plugins that do not have a PPAPI plugin counterpart incompatible with Chrome, such as Java, Silverlight, and Unity. However, NPAPI support could be enabled through the chrome://flags menu until the release of version 45 on September 1, 2015, which removed NPAPI support entirely.
=== Privacy ===
==== Incognito mode ====
The private browsing feature called Incognito mode prevents the browser from locally storing any history information, cookies, site data, or form inputs. Downloaded files and bookmarks will be stored. In addition, user activity is not hidden from visited websites or the Internet service provider.
Incognito mode is similar to the private browsing feature in other web browsers. It does not prevent saving in all windows: "You can switch between an incognito window and any regular windows you have open. You'll only be in incognito mode when you're using the incognito window".
The iOS version of Chrome also supports the optional ability to lock incognito tabs with Face ID, Touch ID, or the device's passcode. In 2022, Google began to implement this feature into Android versions of Chrome. This feature is now available for Android 12 devices and above, assuming the hardware allows it.
In 2024, Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in incognito mode.
==== Do Not Track ====
In February 2012, Google announced that Chrome would implement the Do Not Track (DNT) standard to inform websites of the user's desire not to be tracked. The protocol was implemented in version 23. In line with the W3's draft standard for DNT, it is turned off by default in Chrome.
=== Stability ===
A multi-process architecture is implemented in Chrome where, by default, a separate process is allocated to each site instance and plugin. This procedure is termed process isolation, and raises security and stability by preventing tasks from interfering with each other. An attacker successfully gaining access to one application gains access to no others, and failure in one instance results in a Sad Tab screen of death, similar to the well-known Sad Mac, but only one tab crashes instead of the whole application. This strategy exacts a fixed per-process cost up front, but results in less memory bloat over time as fragmentation is confined to each instance and no longer needs further memory allocations. This architecture was later adopted in Safari and Firefox.
Chrome includes a process management utility called Task Manager which lets users see what sites and plugins are using the most memory, downloading the most bytes and overusing the CPU and provides the ability to terminate them. Chrome Version 23 ensures its users an improved battery life for the systems supporting Chrome's GPU accelerated video decoding.
=== Release channels, cycles and updates ===
The first production release on December 11, 2008, marked the end of the initial Beta test period and the beginning of production. Shortly thereafter, on January 8, 2009, Google announced an updated release system with three channels: Stable (corresponding to the traditional production), Beta, and Developer preview (also called the "Dev" channel). Where there were before only two channels: Beta and Developer, now there are three. Concurrently, all Developer channel users were moved to the Beta channel along with the promoted Developer release. Google explained that now the Developer channel builds would be less stable and polished than those from the initial Google Chrome Beta period. Beta users could opt back to the Developer channel as desired.
Each channel has its own release cycle and stability level. The Stable channel is updated roughly quarterly, with features and fixes that passed "thorough" testing in the Beta channel. Beta is updated roughly monthly, with "stable and complete" features migrated from the Developer channel. The Developer channel is updated once or twice per week and was where ideas and features were first publicly exposed, "(and sometimes fail) and can be very unstable at times". [Quoted remarks from Google's policy announcements.]
On July 22, 2010, Google announced it would ramp up the speed at which it releases new stable versions; the release cycles were shortened from quarterly to six weeks for major Stable updates. Beta channel releases now come roughly at the same rate as Stable releases, though approximately one month in advance, while Dev channel releases appear roughly once or twice weekly, allowing time for basic release-critical testing. This faster release cycle also brought a fourth channel: the "Canary" channel, updated daily from a build produced at 09:00 UTC from the most stable of the last 40 revisions. The name refers to the practice of using canaries in coal mines, so if a change "kills" Chrome Canary, it will be blocked from migrating down to the Developer channel, at least until fixed in a subsequent Canary build. Canary is "the most bleeding-edge official version of Chrome and somewhat of a mix between Chrome dev and the Chromium snapshot builds". Canary releases run side by side with any other channel; it is not linked to the other Google Chrome installation and can therefore run different synchronization profiles, themes, and browser preferences. This ensures that fallback functionality remains even when some Canary updates may contain release-breaking bugs. It does not natively include the option to be the default browser, although on Windows and macOS it can be set through System Preferences. Canary was Windows-only at first; a macOS version was released on May 3, 2011.
The Chrome beta channel for Android was launched on January 10, 2013; like Canary, it runs side by side with the stable channel for Android. Chrome Dev for Android was launched on April 29, 2015.
All Chrome channels are automatically distributed according to their respective release cycles. The mechanism differs by platform. On Windows, it uses Google Update, and auto-update can be controlled via Group Policy. Alternatively, users may download a standalone installer of a version of Chrome that does not auto-update. On macOS, it uses Google Update Service, and auto-update can be controlled via the macOS "defaults" system. On Linux, it lets the system's normal package management system supply the updates. This auto-updating behavior is a key difference from Chromium, the non-branded open-source browser which forms the core of Google Chrome. Because Chromium also serves as the pre-release development trunk for Chrome, its revisions are provided as source code, and buildable snapshots are produced continuously with each new commit, requiring users to manage their own browser updates.
In March 2021, Google announced that starting with Chrome 94 in the third quarter of 2021, Google Chrome Stable releases will be made every four weeks, instead of six weeks as they have been since 2010. Also, Google announced a new release channel for system administrators and browser embedders with releases every eight weeks.
==== Release version numbers ====
Releases are identified by a four-part version number, e.g., 42.0.2311.90 (Windows Stable release April 14, 2015). The components are major.minor.build.patch.
Major.minor reflects scheduling policy
Build.patch identifies content progression
Major represents a product release. These are scheduled 7–8 per year, unlike other software systems where the major version number updates only with substantial new content.
Minor is usually 0. References to version 'x' or 'x.0', e.g., 42.0, refer to this major.minor designation.
Build is ever-increasing. For a release cycle, e.g., 42.0, there are several builds in the Canary and Developer periods. The last build number from Developer is kept throughout Beta and Stable and is locked with the major.minor for that release.
Patch resets with each build, incrementing with each patch. The first patch is 0, but usually the first publicly released patch is somewhat higher. In Beta and Stable, only patch increments.
Chromium and Chrome release schedules are linked through Chromium (Major) version Branch Point dates, published annually. The Branch Points precede the final Chrome Developer build (initial) release by 4 days (nearly always) and the Chrome Stable initial release by roughly 53 days.
Example: The version 42 Branch Point was February 20, 2015. Developer builds stopped advancing at build 2311 with release 42.0.2311.4 on February 24, 4 days later. The first Stable release, 42.0.2311.90, was April 14, 2015, 53 days after the Branch Point.
=== Color management ===
Chrome supports color management by using the system-provided ICC v2 and v4 support on macOS, and from version 22 supports ICC v2 profiles by default on other platforms.
=== Dinosaur Game ===
In Chrome, when not connected to the Internet and an error message displaying "No internet" is shown, on the top, an "8-bit" Tyrannosaurus rex is shown, but when pressing the space bar on a keyboard, mouse-clicking on it or tapping it on touch devices, the T-Rex instantly jumps once and starts dashing across a cactus-ridden desert, revealing it to be an Easter egg in the form of a platform game. The game itself is an infinite runner, and there is no time limit in the game as it progresses faster and periodically tints to a black background. A school or enterprise manager can disable the game.
== Platforms ==
The current version of Chrome runs on:
Windows 10 or later
Windows Server 2016 or later
macOS Monterey or later
64-bit versions of Ubuntu 18.04+, Debian 10+, openSUSE 15.5+ and Fedora 39+
Android 10 or later
iOS 17 or later
iPadOS 17 or later
As of April 2016, stable 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available for Windows, with only 64-bit stable builds available for Linux and macOS. 64-bit Windows builds became available in the developer channel and as canary builds on June 3, 2014, in the beta channel on July 30, 2014, and in the stable channel on August 26, 2014. 64-bit macOS builds became available as canary builds on November 7, 2013, in the beta channel on October 9, 2014, and in the stable channel on November 18, 2014.
Starting with the release of version 89, Chrome will only be supported on Intel/Intel x86 and AMD processors with the SSE3 instruction set.
=== Android ===
A beta version for Android 4.0 devices was launched on February 7, 2012, available for a limited number of countries from Google Play.
Notable features: synchronization with desktop Chrome to provide the same bookmarks and view the same browser tabs, page pre-rendering, hardware acceleration.
Many of the latest HTML5 features: almost all of the Web Platform's features: GPU-accelerated canvas, including CSS 3D Transforms, CSS animations, SVG, WebSocket (including binary messages), Dedicated Workers; it has overflow scroll support, strong HTML5 video support, and new capabilities such as IndexedDB, WebWorkers, Application Cache and the File APIs, date- and time-pickers, parts of the Media Capture API. Also supports mobile oriented features such as Device Orientation and Geolocation.
Mobile customizations: swipe gesture tab switching, link preview allows zooming in on (multiple) links to ensure the desired one is clicked, font size boosting to ensure readability regardless of the zoom level.
Features missing in the mobile version include sandboxed tabs, Safe Browsing, apps or extensions, Adobe Flash (now and in the future), Native Client, and the ability to export user data such a list of their opened tabs or their browsing history into portable local files.
Development changes: remote debugging, part of the browser layer has been implemented in Java, communicating with the rest of the Chromium and WebKit code through Java Native Bindings. The code of Chrome for Android is a fork of the Chromium project. It is a priority to upstream most new and modified code to Chromium and WebKit to resolve the fork.
The April 17, 2012, update included availability in 31 additional languages and in all countries where Google Play is available. A desktop version of a website can also be requested, as opposed to a mobile version. In addition, Android users can now add bookmarks to their Android home screens if they choose and decide which apps should handle links opened in Chrome.
On June 27, 2012, Google Chrome for Android exited beta and became stable.
Chrome 18.0.1026311, released on September 26, 2012, was the first version of Chrome for Android to support mobile devices based on Intel x86.
Starting from version 25, the Chrome version for Android is aligned with the desktop version, and usually new stable releases are available at the same time for both the Android and the desktop versions. Google released a separate Chrome for Android beta channel on January 10, 2013, with version 25. As of 2013 a separate beta version of Chrome is available in the Google Play Store – it can run side by side with the stable release.
=== iOS and iPadOS ===
Chrome is available on Apple's mobile iOS and iPadOS operating systems. Released in the Apple App Store on June 26, 2012, it supports the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, and the current version requires that the device has iOS 16.0 or greater installed. In accordance with Apple's requirements for browsers released through their App Store, this version of Chrome uses the iOS WebKit – which is Apple's own mobile rendering engine and components, developed for their Safari browser – therefore it is restricted from using Google's own V8 JavaScript engine. Chrome is the default web browser for the iOS and iPadOS Gmail application.
In a review by Chitika, Chrome was noted as having 1.5% of the iOS web browser market as of July 18, 2012. In October 2013, Chrome had 3% of the iOS browser market.
=== Linux ===
On Linux distributions, support for 32-bit Intel processors ended in March 2016, although Chromium is still supported. As of Chrome version 26, Linux installations of the browser may be updated only on systems that support GCC v4.6 and GTK v2.24 or later. Thus deprecated systems include (for example) Debian 6's 2.20, and RHEL 6's 2.18.
=== Windows ===
Support for Google Chrome on Windows XP and Windows Vista ended in April 2016. The last release of Google Chrome that can be run on Windows XP and Vista was version 49.0.2623.112, released on April 7, 2016, then re-released on April 11, 2016.
Support for Google Chrome on Windows 7 was originally supposed to end on July 15, 2021. However, the date was moved back to January 15, 2022, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since enterprises took more time to migrate to Windows 10 or 11, the end of support date was pushed back again until January 15, 2023. Support for not only Windows 7, but also Windows 8 and 8.1 ended on this date. The last version to support these versions of Windows is Chrome 109.
"Windows 8 mode" was introduced in 2012 and has since been discontinued. It was provided to the developer channel, which enabled Windows 8 and 8.1 users to run Chrome with a full-screen, tablet-optimized interface, with access to snapping, sharing, and search functionalities. In October 2013, Windows 8 mode on the developer channel changed to use a desktop environment mimicking the interface of ChromeOS with a dedicated windowing system and taskbar for web apps. This was removed on version 49 and users that have upgraded to Windows 10 will lose this feature.
=== macOS ===
Google dropped support for Mac OS X 10.5 with the release of Chrome 22. Support for 32-bit versions of Chrome ended in November 2014 with the release of Chrome 39. Support for Mac OS X 10.6, OS X 10.7, and OS X 10.8 ended in April 2016 with the release of Chrome 50. Support for OS X 10.9 ended in April 2018 with the release of Chrome 66. Support for OS X 10.10 ended in January 2021 with the release of Chrome 88. Support for OS X 10.11 and macOS 10.12 ended in August 2022 with the release of Chrome 104. Support for macOS 10.13 and macOS 10.14 ended in September 2023 with the release of Chrome 117. Support for macOS 10.15 ended in September 2024 with the release of Chrome 129. Support for macOS 11 ended in August 2025 with the release of Chrome 139.
=== ChromeOS ===
Google Chrome is the basis of Google's ChromeOS operating system that ships on specific hardware from Google's manufacturing partners. The user interface has a minimalist design resembling the Google Chrome browser. ChromeOS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Web; the only applications on the devices are a browser incorporating a media player and a file manager.
Google announced ChromeOS on July 7, 2009.
== Reception ==
Google Chrome was met with acclaim upon release. In 2008, Matthew Moore of The Daily Telegraph summarized the verdict of early reviewers: "Google Chrome is attractive, fast and has some impressive new features..."
Initially, Microsoft reportedly played down the threat from Chrome and predicted that most people would embrace Internet Explorer 8. Opera Software said that "Chrome will strengthen the Web as the biggest application platform in the world". But by February 25, 2010, BusinessWeek had reported that "For the first time in years, energy and resources are being poured into browsers, the ubiquitous programs for accessing content on the Web. Credit for this trend – a boon to consumers – goes to two parties. The first is Google, whose big plans for the Chrome browser have shaken Microsoft out of its competitive torpor and forced the software giant to pay fresh attention to its own browser, Internet Explorer. Microsoft all but ceased efforts to enhance IE after it triumphed in the last browser war, sending Netscape to its doom. Now it's back in gear." Mozilla said that Chrome's introduction into the web browser market comes as "no real surprise", that "Chrome is not aimed at competing with Firefox", and furthermore that it would not affect Google's revenue relationship with Mozilla.
Chrome's design bridges the gap between desktop and so-called "cloud computing." At the touch of a button, Chrome lets you make a desktop, Start menu, or QuickLaunch shortcut to any Web page or Web application, blurring the line between what's online and what's inside your PC. For example, I created a desktop shortcut for Google Maps. When you create a shortcut for a Web application, Chrome strips away all of the toolbars and tabs from the window, leaving you with something that feels much more like a desktop application than like a Web application or page.
With its dominance in the web browser market, Google has been accused of using Chrome and Blink development to push new web standards that are proposed in-house by Google and subsequently implemented by its services first and foremost. These have led to performance disadvantages and compatibility issues with competing browsers, and in some cases, developers intentionally refusing to test their websites on any other browser than Chrome. Tom Warren of The Verge went as far as comparing Chrome to Internet Explorer 6, the default browser of Windows XP that was often targeted by competitors due to its similar ubiquity in the early 2000s. In 2021, computer scientist and lawyer Jonathan Mayer stated that Chrome has increasingly become an agent for Google LLC than a user agent, as it is "the only major web browser that lacks meaningful privacy protections by default, shoves users toward linking activity with a Google Account, and implements invasive new advertising capabilities."
== Criticism ==
=== Privacy ===
==== Incognito mode ====
A class-action lawsuit seeking $5 billion in damages was filed against Google in 2020 because it misled consumers into thinking it would not track them when using incognito mode, despite using various means to do so. In December 2023, a settlement was reportedly agreed to, with public disclosure expected in February 2024.
==== Listening capabilities ====
In June 2015, the Debian developer community discovered that Chromium 43 and Chrome 43 were programmed to download the Hotword Shared Module, which could enable the OK Google voice recognition extension, although by default it was "off". This raised privacy concerns in the media. The module was removed in Chrome 45, which was released on September 1, 2015, and was only present in Chrome 43 and 44.
==== User tracking concerns ====
Chrome sends details about its users and their activities to Google through both optional and non-optional user tracking mechanisms.
Some of the tracking mechanisms can be optionally enabled and disabled through the installation interface and through the browser's options dialog. Unofficial builds, such as SRWare Iron, seek to remove these features from the browser altogether. The RLZ library, which is used to measure the success of marketing promotions, is not included in the Chromium browser either.
In March 2010, Google devised a new method to collect installation statistics: the unique ID token included with Chrome is now used for only the first connection that Google Update makes to its server.
The optional suggestion service included in Google Chrome has been criticized because it provides the information typed into the Omnibox to the search provider before the user even hits return. This allows the search engine to provide URL suggestions, but also provides them with web use information tied to an IP address.
Chrome previously was able to suggest similar pages when a page could not be found. For this, in some cases, Google servers were contacted. The feature has since been removed.
A 2019 review by Washington Post technology columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler found that in a typical week of browsing, Chrome allowed thousands more cookies to be stored than Mozilla Firefox. Fowler pointed out that because of its advertising businesses, despite the privacy controls it offers users, Google is a major producer of third-party cookies and has a financial interest in collecting user data; he recommended switching to Firefox, Apple Safari, or Chromium-based Brave.
==== IP Protection ====
In 2023, Google proposed a technology that claims to "hide the IP and traffic of its users" by routing Chrome traffic to Google servers. This has drawn criticism as all traffic is readily available for Google to use.
=== Advertising ===
Also tied with Google is its advertising business, which, given the vast market share of Chrome, sought to introduce features that protect this revenue stream, mainly the introduction of a cookie-tracking alternative named Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which evolved into Topics, and Manifest V3 API changes for extensions.
==== FLoC ====
In January 2021, Google stated it was making progress on developing privacy-friendly alternatives that would replace third-party cookies currently being used by advertisers and companies to track browsing habits. Google then promised to phase out the use of cookies in its web browser in 2022, implementing its FLoC technology instead. The announcement triggered antitrust concerns from multiple countries for abusing the Chrome browser's market monopoly, with the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission both opening formal probes. The FLoC proposal also drew criticism from DuckDuckGo, Brave, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for underestimating the ability of the API to track users online.
On January 25, 2022, Google announced it had killed off development of its FLoC technologies and proposed the new Topics API to replace it. Topics is similarly intended to replace cookies, using one's weekly web activity to determine a set of five interests. Topics are supposed to refresh every three weeks, changing the type of ads served to the user and not retaining the gathered data.
==== Manifest V3 ====
Manifest V3 has faced criticism for changes to the WebRequest API used by ad blocking and privacy extensions to block and modify network connections. The declarative version of WebRequest uses rules processed by the browser, rather than sending all network traffic through the extension, which Google stated would improve performance. However, DeclarativeWebRequest is limited in the number of rules that may be set, and the types of expressions that may be used. Additionally, the prohibition of remotely-hosted code will restrict the ability for filter lists to be updated independently of the extension itself. As the Chrome Web Store review process has an invariable length, filter lists may not be updated in a timely fashion.
Google has been accused of using Manifest V3 to inhibit ad-blocking software due to its vested interest in the online advertising market. Google cited performance issues associated with WebRequest, as well as its use in malicious extensions. In June 2019, it announced that it would increase the aforementioned cap from 30,000 to 150,000 entries to help quell concerns about limitations to filtering rules. In 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued a statement that Manifest V3 was "outright harmful to privacy efforts", as it would greatly limit the functionality of ad blocking extensions.
In December 2022, Google announced the transition would be paused "to address developer feedback and deliver better solutions to migration issues". In November 2023, Google announced it would resume the transition to Manifest V3; support for Manifest V2 extensions would be removed entirely from non-stable builds of Chrome beginning June 2024. Other Chromium-based web browsers will adopt Manifest V3, including Microsoft Edge. Manifest V3 support is being added to Mozilla Firefox's implementation of Chrome's extension API (WebExtensions) for compatibility reasons, but Mozilla has stated that its implementation would not contain limitations that affect privacy and content-blocking extensions, and that its implementation of V2 would not be deprecated.
=== Anti-competition ===
In August 2024, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly over search services. In November 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) demanded that Google sell Chrome to stop Google from maintaining its monopoly in online search.
On August 12, 2025, artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI made a bid to buy the browser from Google for $34.5 billion. Perplexity stated that the sale could remedy anti-trust litigation against Google, in which a judge was considering compelling the sale of Chrome.
== Usage ==
=== Market share ===
Chrome overtook Firefox in November 2011 in worldwide usage. As of December 2025, according to StatCounter, Google Chrome had 75% worldwide desktop usage share, making it the most widely used web browser.
It was reported by StatCounter, a web analytics company, that for the single day of Sunday, March 18, 2012, Chrome was the most used web browser in the world for the first time. Chrome secured 32.7% of the global web browsing on that day, while Internet Explorer followed closely behind with 32.5%.
From May 14–21, 2012, Google Chrome was for the first time responsible for more Internet traffic than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which had long held its spot as the most used web browser in the world. According to StatCounter, 31.88% of web traffic was generated by Chrome for a sustained period of one week and 31.47% by Internet Explorer. Though Chrome had topped Internet Explorer for a single day's usage in the past, this was the first time it had led for one full week.
At the 2012 Google I/O developers' conference, Google claimed that there were 310 million active users of Chrome, almost double the number in 2011, which was stated as 160 million active users.
In June 2013, according to StatCounter, Chrome overtook Internet Explorer for the first time in the US.
In August 2013, Chrome was used by 43% of internet users worldwide. This study was done by Statista, which also noted that in North America, 36% of people use Chrome, the lowest in the world.
=== Enterprise deployment ===
In December 2010, Google announced that to make it easier for businesses to use Chrome, they would provide an official Chrome MSI package. For business use, it is helpful to have full-fledged MSI packages that can be customized via transform files (.mst) – , but the MSI provided with Chrome is only a very limited MSI wrapper fitted around the normal installer, and many businesses find that this arrangement does not meet their needs. The normal downloaded Chrome installer puts the browser in the user's local app data directory and provides invisible background updates, but the MSI package will allow installation at the system level, providing system administrators control over the update process – it was formerly possible only when Chrome was installed using Google Pack. Google also created group policy objects to fine-tune the behavior of Chrome in the business environment, for example, by setting automatic update intervals, disabling auto-updates, and configuring a home page. Until version 24 the software is known not to be ready for enterprise deployments with roaming profiles or Terminal Server/Citrix environments.
In 2010, Google first started supporting Chrome in enterprise environments by providing an MSI wrapper around the Chrome installer. Google starting providing group policy objects, with more added each release, and today there are more than 500 policies available to control Chrome's behavior in enterprise environments.
In 2016, Google launched Chrome Browser Enterprise Support, a paid service enabling IT admins to access Google experts to support their browser deployment. In 2019, Google launched Chrome Browser Cloud Management, a dashboard that gives business IT managers the ability to control content accessibility, app usage and browser extensions installed on its deployed computers.
=== Chromium ===
In September 2008, Google released a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open-source project called Chromium. This move enabled third-party developers to study the underlying source code and to help port the browser to the macOS and Linux operating systems. The Google-authored portion of Chromium is released under the permissive BSD license. Other portions of the source code are subject to a variety of open-source licenses. Chromium is similar to Chrome, but lacks built-in automatic updates and a built-in Flash player, as well as Google branding and has a blue-colored logo instead of the multicolored Google logo. Chromium does not implement user RLZ tracking. Initially, the Google Chrome PDF viewer, PDFium, was excluded from Chromium, but was later made open-source in May 2014. PDFium can be used to fill PDF forms.
== Developing for Chrome ==
It is possible to develop applications, extensions, and themes for Chrome. They are zipped in a .crx file and contain a manifest.json file that specifies basic information (such as version, name, description, privileges, etc.), and other files for the user interface (icons, popups, etc.). Google has an official developer's guide on how to create, develop, and publish projects. Chrome has its own web store where users and developers can upload and download these applications and extensions.
== Impersonation by malware ==
As with Microsoft Internet Explorer, the popularity of Google Chrome has led to the appearance of malware abusing its name. In late 2015, an adware replica of Chrome named "eFast" appeared, which would usurp the Google Chrome installation and hijack file type associations to make shortcuts for common file types and communication protocols link to itself, and inject advertisements into web pages. Its similar-looking icon was intended to deceive users.
== See also ==
Browser wars – Competition between web browsing applications for share of worldwide usage
Google Chrome Experiments – Online showroom of web browser based experiments
Google Chrome Frame – Plug-in designed for Internet Explorer based on the open-source Chromium project
Google Workspace – Productivity and collaboration software
History of web browsers
List of Google products
List of Google Easter eggs
List of web browsers
Widevine – Digital rights management technology
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Google I/O 2009 - Exploring Chrome Internals on YouTube, presented by Darin Fisher, a member of the Chrome team
Google I/O 2010 - Chrome at Google I/O 2010 (recap / Chrome team sessions & demos from that year).
Google I/O 2011 -Chrome-focused day / keynote segments and Chrome sessions are in the 2011 video uploads
Google I/O 2012 - Official I/O sessions listings (includes web/Chrome sessions).
Google I/O 2013 - Sessions page and Chrome team deep dives
Google I/O 2014 - I/O 2014 host page + specific Chrome/web talks
Google I/O 2015 - I/O 2015 site and videos include Polymer / modern web API sessions
Google I/O 2016 - Web and Chrome at Google I/O 2016 — dedicated playlist and many Chrome/web sessions
Google I/O 2017 - I/O 2017 all-sessions playlist + many Chrome/web technical talks.
Google I/O 2018 - Chrome & Web at Google I/O 2018 playlist (DevTools, performance, web platform features).
Google I/O 2022 — All Google I/O 2022 Sessions and playlists include Web/Chrome updates - see the I/O 2022 sessions playlist and the “Web” track.
Google I/O 2023 — ChromeOS and Web playlists (dedicated ChromeOS playlist and Web sessions for I/O 2023).
Google I/O 2024 — All sessions (I/O 2024) and a “Web at I/O 2024” playlist highlighting Chrome and web platform updates.
Google I/O 2025 — I/O 2025 explore page and the All Sessions (2025) playlist — includes the Web track and Chrome/ChromeOS sessions (privacy, performance, DevTools, AI features in the browser). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadora_Duncan#:~:text=She%20wore%20a%20long%2C%20flowing,of%20American%20filmmaker%2C%20Preston%20Sturges. | Isadora Duncan | Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877, or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American-born dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance and performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. Born and raised in California, she lived and danced in Western Europe, the U.S., and Soviet Russia from the age of 22. She died when her scarf became entangled in the wheel and axle of the car in which she was travelling in Nice, France.
== Early life ==
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, the youngest of the four children of Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Her brothers were Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan; her sister, Elizabeth Duncan, was also a dancer. Soon after Isadora's birth, her father was investigated and charged following the collapse of the family’s bank, which coincided with a larger reorganization of San Francisco’s finances, a period of crushing reversals and closing of silver mines. Although the jury voted for his acquittal, Isadora's mother (angered over his infidelities as well as the financial scandal) divorced him, and from then on the family struggled with poverty. Joseph Duncan, along with his third wife and their daughter, died in 1898 when the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan ran aground off the coast of Cornwall.
After her parents' divorce, Isadora's mother moved with her family to Oakland, California, where she worked as a seamstress and piano teacher. Isadora attended school from the ages of six to ten, but she dropped out, having found it constricting. She and her three siblings earned money by teaching dance to local children.
In 1896, Duncan became part of Augustin Daly's theater company in New York, but she soon became disillusioned with the form and craved a different environment with less of a hierarchy.
== Work ==
Duncan's novel approach to dance had been evident since the classes she had taught as a teenager, where she "followed [her] fantasy and improvised, teaching any pretty thing that came into [her] head". A desire to travel brought her to Chicago, where she auditioned for many theater companies, finally finding a place in Augustin Daly's company. This took her to New York City where her unique vision of dance clashed with the popular pantomimes of theater companies. While in New York, Duncan also took some classes with Marie Bonfanti but was quickly disappointed by ballet routine.
Feeling unhappy and unappreciated in America, Duncan moved to London in 1898. She performed in the drawing rooms of the wealthy, taking inspiration from the Greek vases and bas-reliefs in the British Museum. The earnings from these engagements enabled her to rent a studio, allowing her to develop her work and create larger performances for the stage. From London, she traveled to Paris, where she was inspired by the Louvre and the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and danced in the salons of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux and Princesse Edmond de Polignac. In France, as elsewhere, Duncan delighted her audience.
In 1902, Loie Fuller invited Duncan to tour with her. This took Duncan all over Europe as she created new works using her innovative technique, which emphasized natural movement in contrast to the rigidity of traditional ballet. She spent most of the rest of her life touring Europe and the Americas in this fashion. Despite mixed reaction from critics, Duncan became quite popular for her distinctive style and inspired many visual artists, such as Antoine Bourdelle, Dame Laura Knight, Auguste Rodin, Arnold Rönnebeck, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and Abraham Walkowitz, to create works based on her.
In 1910, Duncan met the occultist Aleister Crowley at a party, an episode recounted by Crowley in his Confessions. He refers to Duncan as "Lavinia King", and used the same invented name for her in his 1929 novel Moonchild (written in 1917). Crowley wrote of Duncan that she "has this gift of gesture in a very high degree. Let the reader study her dancing, if possible in private than in public, and learn the superb 'unconsciousness' – which is magical consciousness – with which she suits the action to the melody." Crowley was, in fact, more attracted to Duncan's bohemian companion Mary Dempsey (a.k.a. Mary D'Este or Desti), with whom he had an affair. Desti had come to Paris in 1901 where she soon met Duncan, and the two became inseparable. Desti, who also appeared in Moonchild (as "Lisa la Giuffria") and became a member of Crowley's occult order, later wrote a memoir of her experiences with Duncan.
In 1911, the French fashion designer Paul Poiret rented a mansion – Pavillon du Butard in La Celle-Saint-Cloud – and threw lavish parties, including one of the more famous grandes fêtes, La fête de Bacchus on June 20, 1912, re-creating the Bacchanalia hosted by Louis XIV at Versailles. Isadora Duncan, wearing a Greek evening gown designed by Poiret, danced on tables among 300 guests; 900 bottles of champagne were consumed until the first light of day.
=== Opening schools of dance ===
Duncan disliked the commercial aspects of public performance, such as touring and contracts, because she felt they distracted her from her real mission, namely the creation of beauty and the education of the young. To achieve her mission, she opened schools to teach young girls her philosophy of dance. The first was established in 1904 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany. This institution was in existence for three years and was the birthplace of the "Isadorables" (Anna, Maria-Theresa, Irma, (Gretel), Lisa, and Erika), Duncan optimistically dreamed her school would train “thousands of young dancing maidens” in non-professional community dance. It was a boarding school that in addition to a regular education, also taught dance but the students were not expected or even encouraged to be professional dancers. Duncan did not legally adopt all six girls as is commonly believed. Nevertheless, three of them (Irma, Anna and Lisa) would use the Duncan surname for the rest of their lives. After about a decade in Berlin, Duncan established a school in Paris that soon closed because of the outbreak of World War I.
In 1914, Duncan moved to the United States and transferred her school there. A townhouse on Gramercy Park in New York was provided for its use, and its studio was nearby, on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South). Otto Kahn, the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., gave Duncan use of the very modern Century Theatre at West 60th Street and Central Park West for her performances and productions, which included a staging of Oedipus Rex that involved almost all of Duncan's extended entourage and friends. During her time in New York, Duncan posed for studies by the photographer Arnold Genthe.
Duncan had planned to leave the United States in 1915 aboard the RMS Lusitania on its ill-fated voyage, but historians believe her financial situation at the time drove her to choose a more modest crossing. In 1921, Duncan's leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union, where she founded a school in Moscow. However, the Soviet government's failure to follow through on promises to support her work caused her to return in 1924 to the West and leave the school to her protégée and adopted daughter, German-born Irma Doretta Henrietta Erih-Grimm Duncan (1897—1977). In 1924, Duncan composed a dance routine called Varshavianka to the tune of the Polish revolutionary song known in English as Whirlwinds of Danger.
== Philosophy and technique ==
Breaking with convention, Duncan imagined she had traced dance to its roots as a sacred art. She developed from this notion a style of free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature, and natural forces, as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping, and tossing. Duncan wrote of American dancing: "let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance." Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique.
Duncan also cited the sea as an early inspiration for her movement, and she believed movement originated from the solar plexus. Duncan placed an emphasis on "evolutionary" dance motion, insisting that each movement was born from the one that preceded it, that each movement gave rise to the next, and so on in organic succession. It is this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.
Duncan's philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. She said that in order to restore dance to a high art form instead of merely entertainment, she strove to connect emotions and movement: "I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body's movement." She believed dance was meant to encircle all that life had to offer—joy and sadness. Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with a passion for freedom of movement. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Greek tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Greek forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement that corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not. Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece: she was also inspired by ancient Greek art, and utilized some of its forms in her movement (as shown on photos).
== Personal life ==
=== Children ===
Duncan bore three children, all out of wedlock. Deirdre Beatrice was born September 24, 1906. Her father was theatre designer Gordon Craig. Patrick Augustus was born May 1, 1910, fathered by Paris Singer, one of the many sons of sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. Deirdre and Patrick both died by drowning in 1913; while out on a car ride with their nanny, the automobile accidentally went into the River Seine. Following this tragedy, Duncan spent several months on the Greek island of Corfu with her brother and sister, then several weeks at the Viareggio seaside resort in Italy with actress Eleonora Duse.
In her autobiography, Duncan relates that in her deep despair over the deaths of her children, she begged a young Italian stranger, the sculptor Romano Romanelli, to sleep with her because she was desperate for another child. She gave birth to a son on August 13, 1914, but he died shortly after birth.
=== Relationships ===
When Duncan stayed at the Viareggio seaside resort with Eleonora Duse, Duse had just left a relationship with the rebellious and epicene young feminist Lina Poletti. This fueled speculation as to the nature of Duncan and Duse's relationship, but there has never been any indication that the two were involved romantically.
Duncan was loving by nature and was close to her mother, siblings and all of her male and female friends. Later on, in 1921, after the end of the Russian Revolution, Duncan moved to Moscow, where she met the poet Sergei Yesenin, who was eighteen years her junior. On May 2, 1922, they officially married, and Duncan took Soviet citizenship. After that Yesenin accompanied her on a tour of Europe and the United States. However, the marriage was brief as they grew apart while getting to know each other. In May 1923, Yesenin returned to Moscow. Two years later he was found dead in an apparent suicide.
Duncan also had a relationship with the poet and playwright Mercedes de Acosta, as documented in numerous revealing letters they wrote to each other. In one, Duncan wrote, "Mercedes, lead me with your little strong hands and I will follow you – to the top of a mountain. To the end of the world. Wherever you wish."
However, the claim of a purported relationship made after Duncan’s death by de Acosta (a controversial figure for her alleged relations) is in dispute. Friends and relatives of Duncan believed her claim is false based on forged letters and done for publicity’s sake. In addition, Lily Dikovskaya, one of Duncan’s students from her Moscow School, wrote in In Isadora’s Steps that Duncan “was focused on higher things”.
=== Later years ===
By the late 1920s, Duncan, in her late 40s, was depressed by the deaths of her three young children. She spent her final years financially struggling, moving between Paris and the Mediterranean, running up debts at hotels. Her autobiography My Life was published in 1927 shortly after her death. The Australian composer Percy Grainger called it a "life-enriching masterpiece."
In his book Isadora, An Intimate Portrait, Sewell Stokes, who met Duncan in the last years of her life, described her extravagant waywardness. In a reminiscent sketch, Zelda Fitzgerald wrote how she and her husband, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, sat in a Paris cafe watching a somewhat drunken Duncan. He would speak of how memorable it was, but all that Zelda recalled was that while all eyes were watching Duncan, she was able to steal the salt and pepper shakers from the table.
== Death ==
On September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was a passenger in an Amilcar CGSS automobile owned by Benoît Falchetto, a French-Italian mechanic. She wore a long, flowing, hand-painted silk scarf, created by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American filmmaker Preston Sturges. Desti, who saw Duncan off, had asked her to wear a cape in the open-air vehicle because of the cold weather, but she would agree to wear only the scarf. As they departed, she reportedly said to Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire! " ("Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!"); but according to the American novelist Glenway Wescott, Desti later told him that Duncan's actual parting words were, "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love"). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst.
Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled in the wheel well around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, pulling her from the open car and breaking her neck. Desti said she called out to warn Duncan about the scarf almost immediately after the car left. Desti took Duncan to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
As The New York Times noted in its obituary, Duncan "met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera". "According to dispatches from Nice, Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement." Other sources noted that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's remark that "affectations can be dangerous". At the time of her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to undergo probate in the U.S.
Duncan was cremated, and her ashes were placed next to those of her children in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. On the headstone of her grave is inscribed École du Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris ("Ballet School of the Opera of Paris").
== Works ==
Duncan, Isadora (1927) "My Life" New York City: Boni & Liveright OCLC 738636
Project Gutenberg Canada #941 HTML HTML zipped Text Text zipped EPUB
My Life at Faded Page (Canada) : text, HTML, EPUB, .mobi, PDF, HTML .zip
Duncan, Isadora; Cheney, Sheldon (ed.) The Art of the Dance. New York: Theater Arts, 1928. ISBN 0-87830-005-8
Works by Isadora Duncan at Faded Page (Canada)
Works by Isadora Duncan at Open Library
== Legacy ==
Duncan is known as "The Mother of Dance". While her schools in Europe did not last long, Duncan's work had an impact on the art and her style is still danced based upon the instruction of Maria-Theresa Duncan, Anna Duncan, and Irma Duncan, three of her six pupils. Through her sister, Elizabeth, Duncan's approach was adopted by Jarmila Jeřábková from Prague where her legacy persists. By 1913 she was already being celebrated. When the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was built, Duncan's likeness was carved in its bas-relief over the entrance by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and included in painted murals of the nine muses by Maurice Denis in the auditorium. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.
Anna, Lisa, Theresa and Irma, pupils of Isadora Duncan's first school, carried on the aesthetic and pedagogical principles of Isadora's work in New York and Paris. Choreographer and dancer Julia Levien was also instrumental in furthering Duncan's work through the formation of the Duncan Dance Guild in the 1950s and the establishment of the Duncan Centenary Company in 1977.
Another means by which Duncan's dance techniques were carried forth was in the formation of the Isadora Duncan Heritage Society, by Mignon Garland, who had been taught dance by two of Duncan's key students. Garland was such a fan that she later lived in a building erected at the same site and address as Duncan, attached a commemorative plaque near the entrance, which is still there as of 2016. Garland also succeeded in having San Francisco rename an alley on the same block from Adelaide Place to Isadora Duncan Lane.
In medicine, the Isadora Duncan Syndrome refers to injury or death consequent to entanglement of neckwear with a wheel or other machinery.
== Photo gallery ==
== In popular culture ==
Duncan has attracted literary and artistic attention from the 1920s to the present, in novels, film, ballet, theatre, music, and poetry.
In literature, Duncan is portrayed in:
Aleister Crowley's Moonchild (as 'Lavinia King'), published in 1923.
Upton Sinclair's World's End (1940) and Between Two Worlds (1941), the first two novels in his Pulitzer Prize winning Lanny Budd series.
Amelia Gray's novel Isadora (2017).
A Series of Unfortunate Events, in which two characters are named after her, Isadora Quagmire and Duncan Quagmire.
The poem Fever 103 by Sylvia Plath, in which the speaker alludes to Isadora's scarves.
Among the films and television shows featuring Duncan are:
In 1965, a youthful Isadora Duncan was portrayed by Kathy Garver in the television show Death Valley Days.
The 1966 BBC biopic by Kenneth Russell, Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World, which was introduced by Duncan's biographer, Sewell Stokes, Duncan was played by Vivian Pickles.
The 1968 film Isadora, nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, stars Vanessa Redgrave as Duncan. The film was based in part of Duncan's autobiography. Redgrave was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Duncan.
In 1976, Saturday Night Live parodied Isadora Duncan in a Great Moments in Herstory sketch during Season 1, Episode 15. Hosted by Jill Clayburgh, the skit featured Clayburgh as Duncan and Gilda Radner in a comedic retelling of the dancer’s tragic demise, exaggerating the absurdity of her fatal scarf accident.
Archival footage of Duncan was used in the 1985 popular documentary That's Dancing!.
A 1989 documentary, Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2016, Lily-Rose Depp portrayed Duncan in The Dancer, a French biographical musical drama of dancer Loie Fuller.
In the 2025 animated dramatic comedy Long Story Short the dog belonging to Shira and Kendra is named the Undeniable Isadora Duncan
Ballets based on Duncan include:
In 1976 Frederick Ashton created a short ballet entitled Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan on Lynn Seymour, in which "Ashton fused Duncan's style with an imprint of his own"; Marie Rambert claimed after seeing it that it was exactly as she remembered Duncan dancing.
In 1981, she was the subject of a ballet, Isadora, written and choreographed by the Royal Ballet's Kenneth MacMillan, and performed at Covent Garden.
On the theatre stage, Duncan is portrayed in:
A 1991 stage play When She Danced by Martin Sherman about Duncan's later years, won the Evening Standard Award for Vanessa Redgrave as Best Actress.
Duncan is featured in music in:
Celia Cruz recorded a track titled Isadora Duncan with the Fania All-Stars for the album Cross Over released in 1979.
Rock musician Vic Chesnutt included a song about Duncan on his debut album Little.
The Magnetic Fields song "Jeremy" on their second album The Wayward Bus refers to Duncan and her "impossibly long white scarves."
Post-hardcore band Burden of a Day's 2009 album Oneonethousand features a track titled "Isadora Duncan". The lyrics include references to a letter Duncan wrote to poet Mercedes de Acosta and her reported last words of "Je vais à l'amour."
== See also ==
Dancer in a Café—Painting by Jean Metzinger
Isidora, sometimes spelled Isadora
List of barefooters
List of dancers
Women in dance
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
De Fina, Pamela. Maria Theresa: Divine Being, Guided by a Higher Order. Pittsburgh: Dorrance, 2003. ISBN 0-8059-4960-7
About Duncan's adopted daughter; Pamela De Fina, student and protégée of Maria Theresa Duncan from 1979 to 1987 in New York City, received original choreography, which is held at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Duncan, Anna. Anna Duncan: In the footsteps of Isadora. Stockholm: Dansmuseet, 1995. ISBN 91-630-3782-3
Duncan, Doralee; Pratl, Carol and Splatt, Cynthia (eds.) Life Into Art. Isadora Duncan and Her World. Foreword by Agnes de Mille. Text by Cynthia Splatt. Hardcover. 199 pages. W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. ISBN 0-393-03507-7
Duncan, Irma. The Technique of Isadora Duncan. Illustrated. Photographs by Hans V. Briesex. Posed by Isadora, Irma and the Duncan pupils. Austria: Karl Piller, 1937. ISBN 0-87127-028-5
Kurth, Peter. Isadora: A Sensational Life. Little Brown, 2001. ISBN 0-316-50726-1
Levien, Julia. Duncan Dance: A Guide for Young People Ages Six to Sixteen. Illustrated. Dance Horizons, 1994. ISBN 0-87127-198-2
Peter, Frank-Manuel (ed.) Isadora & Elizabeth Duncan in Germany. Cologne: Wienand Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-87909-645-7
Savinio, Alberto. Isadora Duncan, in Narrate, uomini, la vostra storia. Bompiani,1942, Adelphi, 1984.
Schanke, Robert That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois Press, 2003.
Stokes, Sewell. Isadora, an Intimate Portrait. New York: Brentanno's Ltd, 1928.
Sturges, Preston; Sturges, Sandy (adapt. & ed.) (1991), Preston Sturges on Preston Sturges, Boston: Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-16425-0
== Further reading ==
Daly, Ann. Done into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
"Atlas F1 historical research forum about the Amilcar debate". The AUTOSPORT Forums. 2002-07-21. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2007-07-02.
== External links ==
Media related to Isadora Duncan at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Isadora Duncan at Wikiquote
Archival collections
"Images related to Isadora Duncan". NYPL Digital Gallery.
Isadora Duncan Library of Congress image galleries
Finding Aid for the Howard Holtzman Collection on Isadora Duncan ca. 1878–1990 (Collection 1729) UCLA Library Special Collections, Los Angeles, California.
Digitized manuscripts from the Howard Holtzman Collection on Isadora Duncan, ca 1878–1990 (Collection 1729) hosted by the UCLA Digital Library.
Guide to the Isadora Duncan Dance Programs and Ephemera. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Guide to the Mary Desti Collection on Isadora Duncan, 1901–1930. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Isadora Duncan pandect – by Alkis Raftis, Dora Stratou Dance Theater
Organizations
Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.
Isadora Duncan Archive - by Duncan practitioners.
Isadora Duncan International Symposium Archived 2019-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, Inc.
Isadora Duncan Heritage Society Japan Archived 2012-03-19 at the Wayback Machine
isadoraNOW Foundation
Dances By Isadora, Inc.
Dance Visions NY, Inc.
Other
Isadora Duncan biographer's page, Peter Kurth
1921 passport photo (flickr.com)
Isadora Duncan: Dancing with Russians Archived 2014-02-19 at the Wayback Machine
Isadora Duncan (bio) - Diablo Dance Theatre
"Isadora Duncan's Birthplace". Waymarking.com., 501 Taylor, San Francisco |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Parker#Life_and_career | Cornelia Parker | Cornelia Ann Parker (born 14 July 1956) is an English visual artist, best known for her sculpture and installation art.
== Life and career ==
Parker was born in 1956 in Cheshire, England. Her childhood with a mentally fragile mother and a violent father had a strong influence on her. Her German mother was a nurse in the Luftwaffe during the Second World War; her British grandfather fought in the Battle of the Somme in the First World War.
Parker studied at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design (1974–1975) and Wolverhampton Polytechnic (1975–1978). She received her MFA from Reading University in 1982 and honorary doctorates from the University of Wolverhampton in 2000, the University of Birmingham (2005), the University of Gloucestershire (2008) and the University of Manchester (2017).
In 1997, Parker was shortlisted for the Turner Prize along with Christine Borland, Angela Bulloch, and Gillian Wearing (who won the prize). She was Honorary Professor at the University of Manchester 2015–2018 and between 2016 and 2019 was Visiting Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She was appointed Honorary Fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 2020.
Cornelia Parker's first solo museum exhibition was at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in 2000. In 2019 she had a survey exhibition at MCA Sydney. A major survey exhibition of her work opened at Tate Britain in May 2022.
She has one daughter, Lily, with her former husband Jeff McMillan, and lives and works in London.
== Work ==
Parker is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) – first shown at the Chisenhale Gallery in Bow, East London – for which she had a garden shed blown up by the British Army and suspended the fragments as if suspending the explosion process in time. In the centre was a light which cast the shadows of the wood dramatically on the walls of the room. This inspired an orchestral composition of the same name by Joo Yeon Sir.
In contrast, in 1997 at the Turner Prize exhibition, Parker exhibited Mass (Colder Darker Matter) (1997), suspending the charred remains of a church that had been struck by lightning in Texas. Eight years later, Parker made a companion piece "Anti-Mass" (2005), using charcoal from a black congregation church in Kentucky, which had been destroyed by arson. Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson) (1999) is another example of Parker's suspended sculptures, featuring charred remains of an actual case of suspected arson.
The Maybe (1995) at the Serpentine Gallery, London, was a performance piece conceived by Tilda Swinton, who lay, apparently asleep, inside a vitrine. She asked Parker to collaborate with her on the project, and to create an installation in which she could sleep. Swinton's original idea was to lie in state as Snow White in a glass coffin, but through the collaboration with Parker the idea evolved into her appearing as herself and not as an actor posing as a fictional character. Parker filled the Serpentine with glass cases containing relics that belonged to famous historical figures, such as the pillow and blanket from Freud's couch, Mrs. Simpson's ice skates, Charles Dickens' quill pen and Queen Victoria's stocking. A version of the piece was later re-performed in Rome (1996) and then MoMA, New York (2013) without Parker's involvement.
Avoided Object is an ongoing series of smaller works which have been developed in liaison with various institutions, including the Royal Armouries, British Police Forces, Colt Firearms and Madame Tussauds.
Parker has made other interventions involving historical artworks. In 1998 in her solo show at the Serpentine Gallery she exhibited the backs of Turner paintings (Room for Margins) as works in their own right, she wrapped Rodin's The Kiss sculpture in Tate Britain with a mile of string (2003) as her contribution to the 2003 Tate Triennial Days Like These at Tate Britain. The intervention was titled The Distance (A Kiss With String Attached). She re-staged this piece as part of her mid-career retrospective at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, in 2015 and at Tate Britain in 2022.
Subconscious of a Monument (2005) is composed of fragments of dry soil suspended on wires from the gallery ceiling. These lumps are the now-desiccated clay which was removed from beneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa in order to prevent its collapse.
These "avoided" objects have often had their identities transformed by being burned, shot, squashed, stretched, drawn, exploded, cut, or simply dropped off cliffs. Cartoon deaths have long held a fascination for Parker: "Tom being run over by a steamroller or Jerry riddled with bullet holes." Sometimes the object's demise has been orchestrated, or it may have occurred accidentally or by natural causes. According to Parker:They might be 'preempted' objects that have not yet achieved a fully formed identity, having been plucked prematurely from the production line like Embryo Firearms 1995. They may not even be classified as objects: things like cracks, creases, shadows, dust or dirt The Negative of Whispers 1997: Earplugs made with fluff gathered in the Whispering Gallery, St Paul's Cathedral). Or they might be those territories you want to avoid psychologically, such as the backs, underbellies or tarnished surfaces of things."Another example of this work is Pornographic Drawings (1997), using ink made by the artist who used solvent to dissolve (pornographic) video tape, confiscated by HM Customs and Excise.
I resurrect things that have been killed off... My work is all about the potential of materials—even when it looks like they've lost all possibilities.
In 2009, for the opening of Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park near Edinburgh, Parker created a firework display titled Nocturne: A Moon Landing containing a lunar meteorite. Therefore, the moon "landed on Jupiter". The following year Parker made Landscape with Gun and Tree for Jupiter Artland, a nine-metre-tall cast iron and Corten steel shotgun leaning against a tree. It was inspired by the painting Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough, where Mr Andrews poses with a gun slung over his arm. The shotgun used in the piece is a facsimile of the one owned by Robert Wilson, one of the founders of Jupiter Artland.
For the Folkestone Triennial in 2011, Parker created The Folkestone Mermaid, her version of one of the popular tourist attractions in Copenhagen, The Little Mermaid. Through a process of open submission, Parker chose Georgina Baker, 38 year old mother of two, Folkestone born and bred. Unlike the idealised Copenhagen version, this is a life-size, life-cast sculpture, celebrating womankind.
To celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, Parker created Magna Carta (An Embroidery), a hand-embroidered representation of the Wikipedia article on Magna Carta as it was on 15 June 2014, completed in 2015. Embroiderers included members of the Embroiderers Guild, HM prisoners, Peers, MP's, judges, human rights lawyers, a US ambassador and his staff, and various public figures including Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Jimmy Wales, Jarvis Cocker and Doreen Lawrence.
Whilst Magna Carta (An Embroidery) was on display at the British Library, Parker presented One More Time, a Terrace Wires commission for St Pancras International Station, London, co-presented by HS1 Ltd. and the Royal Academy of Arts.
In 2016 Parker became the first female artist to be commissioned to create a new work for the Roof Garden of the Met in New York. Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) is a scaled-down replica of the house from the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho and was constructed using a salvaged red barn.
Parker continued her work as a curator for the Found exhibition for The Foundling Museum, which incorporated sixty-eight artists from an array of creative disciplines, as well as contributing her own piece, A Little Drop of Gin. This limited-edition print, nicknamed 'mother's ruin', was a photogravure using a 1750s gin glass and droppings of gin. Parker was named Artist of the Year in the 2016 Apollo Awards for her involvement and contributions in the art world.
Parker appeared in the BBC Four television series What Do Artists Do All Day?, a BBC Scotland production, first broadcast in 2013. In the programme she talks about her life and work. In May 2015, Parker was included in the Brilliant Ideas series broadcast by Bloomberg TV in which she reveals her inspirations and discusses some of her best-loved works. In summer 2016, BBC One broadcast "Danger! Cornelia Parker" as part of the TV series Imagine. In autumn 2016 she was included in Gaga for Dada, a programme to mark the 100th anniversary of Dada, presented by Vic Reeves. She also contributed to the BBC Four production Bricks! broadcast on 21 September 2016, marking the 40th anniversary of Carl Andre's sculpture Equivalent VIII, better known as "The Tate Bricks".
On 1 May 2017 Parker was chosen as the official election artist for the 2017 United Kingdom general election; she was the first woman to take on that role.
In 2017, Parker made a series of blackboard drawings with the collaboration of 5- to 10-year-old schoolchildren from Torriano Primary School. The children were asked by the artist to copy out news headlines collected from various UK and US newspapers. "At that age, children have a barely formed view of the news and world affairs—they don't yet have a vote, but the political turmoil unfolding in their young lives will have a profound effect on their futures."
In November 2019 Parker opened her first major retrospective exhibition in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney for the Tenth Sydney International Art Series.
In May 2022 Parker exhibited 100 artworks at Tate Britain in her largest solo exhibition to date. She showed several of her films, Chomskian Abstract 2007, Made in Bethlehem 2012, War Machine 2015, American Gothic 2016, Left, Right & Centre 2017, Election Abstract 2018, Thatcher’s Finger 2018 and Flag 2022. Tabish Khan, reviewing the exhibition for Culture Whisper, said "Conceptual art can often be seen as abstruse but Cornelia Parker is able to make it accessible and playful, yet she also adds a level of intelligent rigour to her work that challenges us to think about the wider world we live in. It’s precisely what conceptual art should be."
In May 2023, her photograph "Snap" was used as the cover artwork for the Peter Gabriel song "Four Kinds of Horses".
In November 2024, Parker's glass rendition of the chandelier featured in Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait was suspended in the Procuratie Vecchie in St Mark's Square, Venice. This work was created as part of Murano Illumina il Mondo (“Murano Lights Up the World”) and was the first time in living memory that artworks were permitted to be displayed in the colonnade.
== Curatorial ==
In 2011 Parker curated an exhibition titled Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the Collections Gallery at the Whitechapel Gallery in London using selected works from the Government Art Collection arranged as a colour spectrum.
For the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2014, Parker curated the Black and White Room which included a number of well-known artists who she thought should be future Royal Academicians.
In 2016, as part of her Hogarth Fellowship at the Foundling Museum, Parker curated a group exhibition titled FOUND presenting works from over sixty artists from a range of creative disciplines, asked to respond to the theme of "found", reflecting on the museum's heritage.
== Honours and recognition ==
In 2010 Parker was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. In 2000, 2005 and 2008 and 2017 she received Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Gloucestershire and Manchester respectively.
Parker won the Artist of the Year Apollo Award in 2016. Other shortlisted artists were Carmen Herrera, David Hockney, Ragnar Kjartansson, Jannis Kounellis and Helen Marten.
Parker was named the official Election Artist for the 2017 general election in the United Kingdom. In this role she observed the election campaign leading up to the vote on 8 June, and was required to produce a piece of art in response. Parker created two films and a series of 14 photographic works as a result of this commission, which were previewed on BBC Newsnight on 2 February 2018 and made available online via the UK Parliament website prior to an exhibition in Westminster Hall.
She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.
== Politics ==
In politics, prior to the 2015 general election, she was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.
== See also ==
Art of the United Kingdom
Book Works
== References ==
== External links ==
Tate: Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View
Tate: Cornelia Parker: Talking Art Cornelia Parker interviewed by writer and curator Lisa LeFeuvre. 31 May 2008
Tateshots: Cornelia Parker's 'Folkestone Mermaid' The artist talks about her work for Folkestone Triennial 2011. 23 June 2011
Sculptor and Artist Cornelia Parker (video)
IMAGINE: DANGER! Cornelia Parker First Broadcast July 2016, the artist discusses her work with Alan Yentob |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_Air_(1st_generation) | IPad Air (1st generation) | The iPad Air (retrospectively referred to unofficially as the iPad Air 1 or original iPad Air) is a tablet computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It was announced on October 22, 2013 and released on November 1, 2013. Part of the iPad line of tablet computers, the iPad Air features a thinner design than its predecessors (particularly the iPad (4th generation)), with similarities to the contemporaneous iPad Mini 2.
The iPad Air's successor, the iPad Air 2, was announced on October 16, 2014, and released on October 22, 2014, however, the 64 GB and 128 GB variants were discontinued, and later the 16 GB and 32 GB on March 21, 2016, after the announcement of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
== Features ==
=== Operating system and software ===
The iPad Air launched with iOS 7, introducing a major aesthetic redesign of the operating system, departing from skeuomorphic elements from iOS 6, such as green felt in Game Center, wood in Newsstand, and leather in Calendar, in favor of flat, colorful design. Jonathan Ive, the designer of iOS 7's new elements, described the update as "bringing order to complexity", highlighting features such as refined typography, new icons, translucency, layering, physics, and gyroscope-driven parallaxing as some of the major changes.
It can act as a hotspot with some carriers, sharing its Internet connection over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB, and also access the Apple App Store, a digital application distribution platform for iOS.
The iPad Air comes with several applications, including the Safari web browser, Mail, Photos, Video, Music, iTunes Store, App Store, Maps, Notes, Calendar, Game Center, Photo Booth, and Contacts. The iPad Air can optionally sync content and other data with a Mac or Windows computer using iTunes. Although the tablet is not designed to make phone calls over a cellular network, users can use a headset or the built-in speakers and microphone to place phone calls over Wi-Fi or cellular using a VoIP application, such as Skype. The device has a dictation application. This enables users to speak and the iPad types what they say on the screen. An Internet connection is required, as the speech is processed by Apple servers. Apple also began including its iLife (iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband) and iWork (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) apps with the device.
iOS 8 was released in 2014, alongside iPad Mini 3 and iPhone 6. iOS 8 introduced a variety of new features, including Continuity and Health (Apple)
iOS 9 was released in 2015. A major focus for the iPad was the introduction of three new multitasking features The Air supported two of these features, called Slide Over and Picture in Picture. Slide Over allows a user to "slide" a second app in from the side of the screen in a smaller window, and have it display information alongside the initial app. Picture in Picture allows a user to watch a video in a small, resizable, moveable window while remaining in another app. The third feature, dubbed Split View (which allows the user to run two apps simultaneously in a 50/50 view), was not supported by the device.
iOS 10 was released in 2016. iOS 10 brought new features, such as support for the AirPods.
iOS 11 was released in 2017. iOS 11 redesigned the control center, along with other new features.
Apple officially confirmed in June 2018 at WWDC that the iPad Air (1st generation) would get iOS 12, making it part of the second group of devices with six major iOS updates—from its original iOS 7 all the way to iOS 12.
In June 2019, Apple announced that it would drop support for the iPad Air with the release of iPadOS 13 in September 2019. The latest update is iOS 12.5.7, released on January 23, 2023.
=== Design ===
The iPad Air marked the first major design change for the iPad since the iPad 2; it has a thinner design that is 7.5 millimeters thick and has a smaller screen bezel similar to the iPad Mini. Apple reduced the overall volume for the iPad Air by using thinner components resulting in a 22% reduction in weight over the iPad 2. It retains the same 9.7-inch screen as the previous iPad model. The new front-facing camera is capable of video in 720p HD, includes face detection, and backside illumination. The rear camera received an upgrade as well; now being called the iSight camera, in addition to the same functions as the front camera it also contains a 5 MP CMOS, hybrid IR filter and a fixed ƒ/2.4 aperture. The device was available in space gray and silver colors.
As with previous generations, Apple continued to use recyclable materials. The enclosure of the iPad Air was milled from a solid block of aluminum making it 100% recyclable. The iPad Air is also free of the harmful materials BFRs and PVC.
=== Hardware ===
Even though the first-generation iPad Air inherits most of its hardware from the iPhone 5S, including the Apple A7 system-on-chip with its Secure Enclave for enhanced security and the Apple M7 motion processor, it retains the same home button design as previous 9.7-inch iPads (iPad 2–4) and therefore, just like the second-generation iPad Mini, does not support Touch ID. The A7 present in the iPad Air is slightly different however, in that it does not use a PoP design which stacks the RAM on top of the SoC. It also features a metal heat spreader to compensate for the slightly faster clock speed and to provide better thermal management. The Air also includes a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera (iSight), a FaceTime HD front-facing camera, support for 802.11n, and an estimated 10 hours of battery life. It boots faster than any previous iPad model.
As with all previous generations of iPhone and iPad hardware, there are four buttons and one switch on the iPad Air. With the device in its portrait orientation, these are: a "home" button on the face of the device under the display that returns the user to the home screen, a wake/sleep button on the top edge of the device, and two buttons on the upper right side of the device performing volume up/down functions, under which is a switch whose function varies according to device settings, functioning either to switch the device into or out of silent mode or to lock/unlock the orientation of the screen. It uses the same home button that was built in previous iPad models and therefore does not include a fingerprint scanner.
In addition, the WiFi only version weighs 469 grams while the cellular model weighs 478 grams – over 25% lighter than their respective predecessors. The display responds to other sensors: an ambient light sensor to adjust screen brightness and a 3-axis accelerometer to sense orientation and switch between portrait and landscape modes. Unlike the iPhone and iPod Touch's built-in applications, which work in three orientations (portrait, landscape-left and landscape-right), the iPad's built-in applications support screen rotation in all four orientations, including upside-down. Consequently, the device has no intrinsic "native" orientation; only the relative position of the home button changes.
The iPad Air was available with 16, 32, 64 or 128 GB of internal flash memory, with no expansion option. Apple also sells a "camera connection kit" with an SD card reader, but it can only be used to transfer photos and videos. As of the announcement of the iPad Pro 9.7-Inch on March 21, 2016, the iPad Air was discontinued.
All models can connect to a wireless LAN and offer dual band Wi-Fi support. The tablet is also manufactured either with or without the capability to communicate over a cellular network. The iPad Air (and the iPad Mini 2) cellular model comes in two variants, both of which support nano-SIMs, quad-band GSM, penta-band UMTS, and dual-band CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and B. Additionally, one variant also supports LTE bands 1–5, 7, 8, 13, 17–20, 25 and 26 while the other variant supports LTE bands 1–3, 5, 7, 8, 18–20 and TD-LTE bands 38, 39 and 40. Apple's ability to handle many different bands in one device allowed it to offer, for the first time, a single iPad variant which supports all the cellular bands and technologies deployed by all the major North American wireless providers at the time of the device's introduction.
The audio playback of the iPad Air is in stereo with two speakers located on either side of the Lightning connector.
== Reception ==
=== Critical reception ===
The iPad Air received mainly positive reviews. Writing for AnandTech, Anand Lal Shimpi writes that the iPad Air "feels like a true successor to the iPad 4," praising it for its reduced weight and size. Shimpi further states that the Air "hits a balance of features, design and ergonomics that I don't think we've ever seen in the iPad." UK Editor-in-Chief of TechRadar, Patrick Goss, gave the iPad Air a positive review, giving praise to the A7 chip and camera upgrades, as well as the crisp and colorful display. He concludes by stating: "It's hard to put into words how much Apple has improved the iPad, offering a stunning level of detail and power with a build quality that's unrivalled." Christina Bonnington of Wired awarded the Air a rating of 8 out of 10, calling the performance "outstanding" and noting that high-definition video streams and gaming animations are "smooth and stutter free." She also praised the loading speeds of Safari, the web browser.
Bonnington criticized the speakers for being slightly muddled. Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak criticized the focus on decreasing size and weight rather than increasing storage space and stated that he did not want an iPad Air as it did not fit his personal needs. Dave Smith of the International Business Times wrote that while the device was nice, it did not bring anything new to the iPad. Smith strongly criticized the lack of a fingerprint reader, and noted that the updates, such as the increased speed and the decreased size and weight, were only slight improvements.
=== Commercial reception ===
The launch date for the iPad Air did not see as large of a turnout as usual for Apple products; however, this was expected by analysts due to the delayed release of the iPad Mini 2. The iPad Air sold out in Hong Kong just 2 hours after becoming available online.
== Other models ==
=== Support ===
=== Models ===
== Timeline ==
Source: Apple Newsroom Archive.
== Explanatory notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadora_Duncan#:~:text=Duncan%20bore%20three%20children%2C%20all,sewing%20machine%20magnate%20Isaac%20Singer. | Isadora Duncan | Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877, or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American-born dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance and performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the United States. Born and raised in California, she lived and danced in Western Europe, the U.S., and Soviet Russia from the age of 22. She died when her scarf became entangled in the wheel and axle of the car in which she was travelling in Nice, France.
== Early life ==
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, the youngest of the four children of Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Her brothers were Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan; her sister, Elizabeth Duncan, was also a dancer. Soon after Isadora's birth, her father was investigated and charged following the collapse of the family’s bank, which coincided with a larger reorganization of San Francisco’s finances, a period of crushing reversals and closing of silver mines. Although the jury voted for his acquittal, Isadora's mother (angered over his infidelities as well as the financial scandal) divorced him, and from then on the family struggled with poverty. Joseph Duncan, along with his third wife and their daughter, died in 1898 when the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan ran aground off the coast of Cornwall.
After her parents' divorce, Isadora's mother moved with her family to Oakland, California, where she worked as a seamstress and piano teacher. Isadora attended school from the ages of six to ten, but she dropped out, having found it constricting. She and her three siblings earned money by teaching dance to local children.
In 1896, Duncan became part of Augustin Daly's theater company in New York, but she soon became disillusioned with the form and craved a different environment with less of a hierarchy.
== Work ==
Duncan's novel approach to dance had been evident since the classes she had taught as a teenager, where she "followed [her] fantasy and improvised, teaching any pretty thing that came into [her] head". A desire to travel brought her to Chicago, where she auditioned for many theater companies, finally finding a place in Augustin Daly's company. This took her to New York City where her unique vision of dance clashed with the popular pantomimes of theater companies. While in New York, Duncan also took some classes with Marie Bonfanti but was quickly disappointed by ballet routine.
Feeling unhappy and unappreciated in America, Duncan moved to London in 1898. She performed in the drawing rooms of the wealthy, taking inspiration from the Greek vases and bas-reliefs in the British Museum. The earnings from these engagements enabled her to rent a studio, allowing her to develop her work and create larger performances for the stage. From London, she traveled to Paris, where she was inspired by the Louvre and the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and danced in the salons of Marguerite de Saint-Marceaux and Princesse Edmond de Polignac. In France, as elsewhere, Duncan delighted her audience.
In 1902, Loie Fuller invited Duncan to tour with her. This took Duncan all over Europe as she created new works using her innovative technique, which emphasized natural movement in contrast to the rigidity of traditional ballet. She spent most of the rest of her life touring Europe and the Americas in this fashion. Despite mixed reaction from critics, Duncan became quite popular for her distinctive style and inspired many visual artists, such as Antoine Bourdelle, Dame Laura Knight, Auguste Rodin, Arnold Rönnebeck, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and Abraham Walkowitz, to create works based on her.
In 1910, Duncan met the occultist Aleister Crowley at a party, an episode recounted by Crowley in his Confessions. He refers to Duncan as "Lavinia King", and used the same invented name for her in his 1929 novel Moonchild (written in 1917). Crowley wrote of Duncan that she "has this gift of gesture in a very high degree. Let the reader study her dancing, if possible in private than in public, and learn the superb 'unconsciousness' – which is magical consciousness – with which she suits the action to the melody." Crowley was, in fact, more attracted to Duncan's bohemian companion Mary Dempsey (a.k.a. Mary D'Este or Desti), with whom he had an affair. Desti had come to Paris in 1901 where she soon met Duncan, and the two became inseparable. Desti, who also appeared in Moonchild (as "Lisa la Giuffria") and became a member of Crowley's occult order, later wrote a memoir of her experiences with Duncan.
In 1911, the French fashion designer Paul Poiret rented a mansion – Pavillon du Butard in La Celle-Saint-Cloud – and threw lavish parties, including one of the more famous grandes fêtes, La fête de Bacchus on June 20, 1912, re-creating the Bacchanalia hosted by Louis XIV at Versailles. Isadora Duncan, wearing a Greek evening gown designed by Poiret, danced on tables among 300 guests; 900 bottles of champagne were consumed until the first light of day.
=== Opening schools of dance ===
Duncan disliked the commercial aspects of public performance, such as touring and contracts, because she felt they distracted her from her real mission, namely the creation of beauty and the education of the young. To achieve her mission, she opened schools to teach young girls her philosophy of dance. The first was established in 1904 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany. This institution was in existence for three years and was the birthplace of the "Isadorables" (Anna, Maria-Theresa, Irma, (Gretel), Lisa, and Erika), Duncan optimistically dreamed her school would train “thousands of young dancing maidens” in non-professional community dance. It was a boarding school that in addition to a regular education, also taught dance but the students were not expected or even encouraged to be professional dancers. Duncan did not legally adopt all six girls as is commonly believed. Nevertheless, three of them (Irma, Anna and Lisa) would use the Duncan surname for the rest of their lives. After about a decade in Berlin, Duncan established a school in Paris that soon closed because of the outbreak of World War I.
In 1914, Duncan moved to the United States and transferred her school there. A townhouse on Gramercy Park in New York was provided for its use, and its studio was nearby, on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South). Otto Kahn, the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., gave Duncan use of the very modern Century Theatre at West 60th Street and Central Park West for her performances and productions, which included a staging of Oedipus Rex that involved almost all of Duncan's extended entourage and friends. During her time in New York, Duncan posed for studies by the photographer Arnold Genthe.
Duncan had planned to leave the United States in 1915 aboard the RMS Lusitania on its ill-fated voyage, but historians believe her financial situation at the time drove her to choose a more modest crossing. In 1921, Duncan's leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union, where she founded a school in Moscow. However, the Soviet government's failure to follow through on promises to support her work caused her to return in 1924 to the West and leave the school to her protégée and adopted daughter, German-born Irma Doretta Henrietta Erih-Grimm Duncan (1897—1977). In 1924, Duncan composed a dance routine called Varshavianka to the tune of the Polish revolutionary song known in English as Whirlwinds of Danger.
== Philosophy and technique ==
Breaking with convention, Duncan imagined she had traced dance to its roots as a sacred art. She developed from this notion a style of free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature, and natural forces, as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping, and tossing. Duncan wrote of American dancing: "let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance." Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique.
Duncan also cited the sea as an early inspiration for her movement, and she believed movement originated from the solar plexus. Duncan placed an emphasis on "evolutionary" dance motion, insisting that each movement was born from the one that preceded it, that each movement gave rise to the next, and so on in organic succession. It is this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.
Duncan's philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. She said that in order to restore dance to a high art form instead of merely entertainment, she strove to connect emotions and movement: "I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body's movement." She believed dance was meant to encircle all that life had to offer—joy and sadness. Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with a passion for freedom of movement. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Greek tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Greek forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement that corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not. Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece: she was also inspired by ancient Greek art, and utilized some of its forms in her movement (as shown on photos).
== Personal life ==
=== Children ===
Duncan bore three children, all out of wedlock. Deirdre Beatrice was born September 24, 1906. Her father was theatre designer Gordon Craig. Patrick Augustus was born May 1, 1910, fathered by Paris Singer, one of the many sons of sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. Deirdre and Patrick both died by drowning in 1913; while out on a car ride with their nanny, the automobile accidentally went into the River Seine. Following this tragedy, Duncan spent several months on the Greek island of Corfu with her brother and sister, then several weeks at the Viareggio seaside resort in Italy with actress Eleonora Duse.
In her autobiography, Duncan relates that in her deep despair over the deaths of her children, she begged a young Italian stranger, the sculptor Romano Romanelli, to sleep with her because she was desperate for another child. She gave birth to a son on August 13, 1914, but he died shortly after birth.
=== Relationships ===
When Duncan stayed at the Viareggio seaside resort with Eleonora Duse, Duse had just left a relationship with the rebellious and epicene young feminist Lina Poletti. This fueled speculation as to the nature of Duncan and Duse's relationship, but there has never been any indication that the two were involved romantically.
Duncan was loving by nature and was close to her mother, siblings and all of her male and female friends. Later on, in 1921, after the end of the Russian Revolution, Duncan moved to Moscow, where she met the poet Sergei Yesenin, who was eighteen years her junior. On May 2, 1922, they officially married, and Duncan took Soviet citizenship. After that Yesenin accompanied her on a tour of Europe and the United States. However, the marriage was brief as they grew apart while getting to know each other. In May 1923, Yesenin returned to Moscow. Two years later he was found dead in an apparent suicide.
Duncan also had a relationship with the poet and playwright Mercedes de Acosta, as documented in numerous revealing letters they wrote to each other. In one, Duncan wrote, "Mercedes, lead me with your little strong hands and I will follow you – to the top of a mountain. To the end of the world. Wherever you wish."
However, the claim of a purported relationship made after Duncan’s death by de Acosta (a controversial figure for her alleged relations) is in dispute. Friends and relatives of Duncan believed her claim is false based on forged letters and done for publicity’s sake. In addition, Lily Dikovskaya, one of Duncan’s students from her Moscow School, wrote in In Isadora’s Steps that Duncan “was focused on higher things”.
=== Later years ===
By the late 1920s, Duncan, in her late 40s, was depressed by the deaths of her three young children. She spent her final years financially struggling, moving between Paris and the Mediterranean, running up debts at hotels. Her autobiography My Life was published in 1927 shortly after her death. The Australian composer Percy Grainger called it a "life-enriching masterpiece."
In his book Isadora, An Intimate Portrait, Sewell Stokes, who met Duncan in the last years of her life, described her extravagant waywardness. In a reminiscent sketch, Zelda Fitzgerald wrote how she and her husband, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, sat in a Paris cafe watching a somewhat drunken Duncan. He would speak of how memorable it was, but all that Zelda recalled was that while all eyes were watching Duncan, she was able to steal the salt and pepper shakers from the table.
== Death ==
On September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was a passenger in an Amilcar CGSS automobile owned by Benoît Falchetto, a French-Italian mechanic. She wore a long, flowing, hand-painted silk scarf, created by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American filmmaker Preston Sturges. Desti, who saw Duncan off, had asked her to wear a cape in the open-air vehicle because of the cold weather, but she would agree to wear only the scarf. As they departed, she reportedly said to Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire! " ("Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!"); but according to the American novelist Glenway Wescott, Desti later told him that Duncan's actual parting words were, "Je vais à l'amour" ("I am off to love"). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst.
Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled in the wheel well around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, pulling her from the open car and breaking her neck. Desti said she called out to warn Duncan about the scarf almost immediately after the car left. Desti took Duncan to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
As The New York Times noted in its obituary, Duncan "met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera". "According to dispatches from Nice, Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement." Other sources noted that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's remark that "affectations can be dangerous". At the time of her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to undergo probate in the U.S.
Duncan was cremated, and her ashes were placed next to those of her children in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. On the headstone of her grave is inscribed École du Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris ("Ballet School of the Opera of Paris").
== Works ==
Duncan, Isadora (1927) "My Life" New York City: Boni & Liveright OCLC 738636
Project Gutenberg Canada #941 HTML HTML zipped Text Text zipped EPUB
My Life at Faded Page (Canada) : text, HTML, EPUB, .mobi, PDF, HTML .zip
Duncan, Isadora; Cheney, Sheldon (ed.) The Art of the Dance. New York: Theater Arts, 1928. ISBN 0-87830-005-8
Works by Isadora Duncan at Faded Page (Canada)
Works by Isadora Duncan at Open Library
== Legacy ==
Duncan is known as "The Mother of Dance". While her schools in Europe did not last long, Duncan's work had an impact on the art and her style is still danced based upon the instruction of Maria-Theresa Duncan, Anna Duncan, and Irma Duncan, three of her six pupils. Through her sister, Elizabeth, Duncan's approach was adopted by Jarmila Jeřábková from Prague where her legacy persists. By 1913 she was already being celebrated. When the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was built, Duncan's likeness was carved in its bas-relief over the entrance by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and included in painted murals of the nine muses by Maurice Denis in the auditorium. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.
Anna, Lisa, Theresa and Irma, pupils of Isadora Duncan's first school, carried on the aesthetic and pedagogical principles of Isadora's work in New York and Paris. Choreographer and dancer Julia Levien was also instrumental in furthering Duncan's work through the formation of the Duncan Dance Guild in the 1950s and the establishment of the Duncan Centenary Company in 1977.
Another means by which Duncan's dance techniques were carried forth was in the formation of the Isadora Duncan Heritage Society, by Mignon Garland, who had been taught dance by two of Duncan's key students. Garland was such a fan that she later lived in a building erected at the same site and address as Duncan, attached a commemorative plaque near the entrance, which is still there as of 2016. Garland also succeeded in having San Francisco rename an alley on the same block from Adelaide Place to Isadora Duncan Lane.
In medicine, the Isadora Duncan Syndrome refers to injury or death consequent to entanglement of neckwear with a wheel or other machinery.
== Photo gallery ==
== In popular culture ==
Duncan has attracted literary and artistic attention from the 1920s to the present, in novels, film, ballet, theatre, music, and poetry.
In literature, Duncan is portrayed in:
Aleister Crowley's Moonchild (as 'Lavinia King'), published in 1923.
Upton Sinclair's World's End (1940) and Between Two Worlds (1941), the first two novels in his Pulitzer Prize winning Lanny Budd series.
Amelia Gray's novel Isadora (2017).
A Series of Unfortunate Events, in which two characters are named after her, Isadora Quagmire and Duncan Quagmire.
The poem Fever 103 by Sylvia Plath, in which the speaker alludes to Isadora's scarves.
Among the films and television shows featuring Duncan are:
In 1965, a youthful Isadora Duncan was portrayed by Kathy Garver in the television show Death Valley Days.
The 1966 BBC biopic by Kenneth Russell, Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World, which was introduced by Duncan's biographer, Sewell Stokes, Duncan was played by Vivian Pickles.
The 1968 film Isadora, nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, stars Vanessa Redgrave as Duncan. The film was based in part of Duncan's autobiography. Redgrave was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Duncan.
In 1976, Saturday Night Live parodied Isadora Duncan in a Great Moments in Herstory sketch during Season 1, Episode 15. Hosted by Jill Clayburgh, the skit featured Clayburgh as Duncan and Gilda Radner in a comedic retelling of the dancer’s tragic demise, exaggerating the absurdity of her fatal scarf accident.
Archival footage of Duncan was used in the 1985 popular documentary That's Dancing!.
A 1989 documentary, Isadora Duncan: Movement from the Soul, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival.
In 2016, Lily-Rose Depp portrayed Duncan in The Dancer, a French biographical musical drama of dancer Loie Fuller.
In the 2025 animated dramatic comedy Long Story Short the dog belonging to Shira and Kendra is named the Undeniable Isadora Duncan
Ballets based on Duncan include:
In 1976 Frederick Ashton created a short ballet entitled Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan on Lynn Seymour, in which "Ashton fused Duncan's style with an imprint of his own"; Marie Rambert claimed after seeing it that it was exactly as she remembered Duncan dancing.
In 1981, she was the subject of a ballet, Isadora, written and choreographed by the Royal Ballet's Kenneth MacMillan, and performed at Covent Garden.
On the theatre stage, Duncan is portrayed in:
A 1991 stage play When She Danced by Martin Sherman about Duncan's later years, won the Evening Standard Award for Vanessa Redgrave as Best Actress.
Duncan is featured in music in:
Celia Cruz recorded a track titled Isadora Duncan with the Fania All-Stars for the album Cross Over released in 1979.
Rock musician Vic Chesnutt included a song about Duncan on his debut album Little.
The Magnetic Fields song "Jeremy" on their second album The Wayward Bus refers to Duncan and her "impossibly long white scarves."
Post-hardcore band Burden of a Day's 2009 album Oneonethousand features a track titled "Isadora Duncan". The lyrics include references to a letter Duncan wrote to poet Mercedes de Acosta and her reported last words of "Je vais à l'amour."
== See also ==
Dancer in a Café—Painting by Jean Metzinger
Isidora, sometimes spelled Isadora
List of barefooters
List of dancers
Women in dance
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
De Fina, Pamela. Maria Theresa: Divine Being, Guided by a Higher Order. Pittsburgh: Dorrance, 2003. ISBN 0-8059-4960-7
About Duncan's adopted daughter; Pamela De Fina, student and protégée of Maria Theresa Duncan from 1979 to 1987 in New York City, received original choreography, which is held at the New York Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
Duncan, Anna. Anna Duncan: In the footsteps of Isadora. Stockholm: Dansmuseet, 1995. ISBN 91-630-3782-3
Duncan, Doralee; Pratl, Carol and Splatt, Cynthia (eds.) Life Into Art. Isadora Duncan and Her World. Foreword by Agnes de Mille. Text by Cynthia Splatt. Hardcover. 199 pages. W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. ISBN 0-393-03507-7
Duncan, Irma. The Technique of Isadora Duncan. Illustrated. Photographs by Hans V. Briesex. Posed by Isadora, Irma and the Duncan pupils. Austria: Karl Piller, 1937. ISBN 0-87127-028-5
Kurth, Peter. Isadora: A Sensational Life. Little Brown, 2001. ISBN 0-316-50726-1
Levien, Julia. Duncan Dance: A Guide for Young People Ages Six to Sixteen. Illustrated. Dance Horizons, 1994. ISBN 0-87127-198-2
Peter, Frank-Manuel (ed.) Isadora & Elizabeth Duncan in Germany. Cologne: Wienand Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-87909-645-7
Savinio, Alberto. Isadora Duncan, in Narrate, uomini, la vostra storia. Bompiani,1942, Adelphi, 1984.
Schanke, Robert That Furious Lesbian: The Story of Mercedes de Acosta. Carbondale, Ill: Southern Illinois Press, 2003.
Stokes, Sewell. Isadora, an Intimate Portrait. New York: Brentanno's Ltd, 1928.
Sturges, Preston; Sturges, Sandy (adapt. & ed.) (1991), Preston Sturges on Preston Sturges, Boston: Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-16425-0
== Further reading ==
Daly, Ann. Done into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
"Atlas F1 historical research forum about the Amilcar debate". The AUTOSPORT Forums. 2002-07-21. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2007-07-02.
== External links ==
Media related to Isadora Duncan at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related to Isadora Duncan at Wikiquote
Archival collections
"Images related to Isadora Duncan". NYPL Digital Gallery.
Isadora Duncan Library of Congress image galleries
Finding Aid for the Howard Holtzman Collection on Isadora Duncan ca. 1878–1990 (Collection 1729) UCLA Library Special Collections, Los Angeles, California.
Digitized manuscripts from the Howard Holtzman Collection on Isadora Duncan, ca 1878–1990 (Collection 1729) hosted by the UCLA Digital Library.
Guide to the Isadora Duncan Dance Programs and Ephemera. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Guide to the Mary Desti Collection on Isadora Duncan, 1901–1930. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
Isadora Duncan pandect – by Alkis Raftis, Dora Stratou Dance Theater
Organizations
Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.
Isadora Duncan Archive - by Duncan practitioners.
Isadora Duncan International Symposium Archived 2019-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, Inc.
Isadora Duncan Heritage Society Japan Archived 2012-03-19 at the Wayback Machine
isadoraNOW Foundation
Dances By Isadora, Inc.
Dance Visions NY, Inc.
Other
Isadora Duncan biographer's page, Peter Kurth
1921 passport photo (flickr.com)
Isadora Duncan: Dancing with Russians Archived 2014-02-19 at the Wayback Machine
Isadora Duncan (bio) - Diablo Dance Theatre
"Isadora Duncan's Birthplace". Waymarking.com., 501 Taylor, San Francisco |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemonade_(album)#Commercial_performance | Lemonade (album) | Lemonade is the sixth studio album by American singer and songwriter Beyoncé. It was surprise-released on April 23, 2016, by Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, as a visual album together with a film of the same name. Beyoncé conceived Lemonade as a concept album that explores the historical Black female experience in the United States, allegorized as a personal journey through marital betrayal and healing, and structured as a song cycle based on the Kübler-Ross model. Categorized by critics as an eclectic, genre-blending album with avant-garde and art pop elements, it explores a variety of genres including R&B, rock, country, soul, blues, hip-hop, jazz, reggae, pop, gospel, and funk. It features guest vocals from Jack White, the Weeknd, James Blake and Kendrick Lamar.
Lemonade was hailed as an instant classic upon release and has since been named one of the greatest albums of all time. Critics commended the experimental post-genre production and nuanced vocal performance, with particular praise for the political subject matter reflecting Beyoncé's personal life. It was music critics' top album of 2016 according to the BBC, was named the greatest album of the 2010s decade by publications such as the Associated Press, and topped Rolling Stone's Greatest Albums of the 21st Century list. One of the most Grammy-nominated albums in history, Lemonade won Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video at the 59th Grammy Awards. It also won a Peabody Award in Entertainment at the 76th Annual Peabody Awards and received four nominations at the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Lemonade topped the charts in various countries worldwide, including the US Billboard 200, where it earned 653,000 with additional album-equivalent units, including 485,000 pure sales. It has since been certified four-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album was supported by five singles: "Formation", which was a top-ten hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, "Sorry", "Hold Up", "Freedom", and "All Night". Four days after the release, Beyoncé embarked on the Formation World Tour, the first all-stadium tour by a female artist.
Lemonade is considered a cultural phenomenon, sparking widespread discourse on its personal revelations and socio-political commentary. It had a significant impact on the entertainment industry, inspiring other musicians and visual artists, and ignited trends across music, fashion and pop culture. It has also been the subject of extensive analysis in academic journals, college courses, books, and museum exhibitions. It was the best-selling album worldwide of 2016, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), with 2.5 million copies sold.
== Background ==
Beyoncé's career took a transformative turn with the release of her fifth studio album, eponymously titled Beyoncé (2013). The album received widespread commercial and critical success, and its innovative surprise-release and visual format influenced how music is released in the digital age. This marked a significant shift in her public image, elevating her from a leading pop star to an auteur who defied industry conventions.
The following year, her personal life became a subject of public scrutiny after rumors spread of her husband Jay-Z's infidelity. This was fuelled by a widely publicized incident at the 2014 Met Gala, where leaked elevator footage showed Beyoncé's sister Solange physically attacking Jay-Z. The family released a joint statement assuaging concerns, and while divorce rumours continued throughout Beyoncé and Jay-Z's joint On The Run Tour (2014), the couple presented a unified front.
On February 6, 2016, Beyoncé released the song "Formation" as a free download via music streaming service Tidal, accompanied by an unlisted music video on YouTube. The track, which blended trap and bounce, saw Beyoncé celebrate her culture, identity, and success as a black woman from the Southern United States. The song and video were met with widespread acclaim, with critics praising the release as a personal and political ode to black Southern heritage. Beyoncé performed the song a day after its release as part of a guest appearance during the Super Bowl 50 halftime show. A commercial aired after the performance announcing the Formation World Tour, with pre-sales opening two days later. While the performance received rave reviews from fans and critics, it was met with backlash, boycotts, and protests from some conservative figures and law enforcement organizations over perceived anti-police, anti-American, and anti-white racist messages.
In an interview with Elle, published on April 4, 2016, Beyoncé was asked what she wanted to accomplish with the next phase of her career. She shared her desire to produce work that promoted healing and transformation, saying:"I hope I can create art that helps people heal. Art that makes people feel proud of their struggle. Everyone experiences pain, but sometimes you need to be uncomfortable to transform. Pain is not pretty, but I wasn't able to hold my daughter in my arms until I experienced the pain of childbirth!"
== Recording and production ==
Lemonade was recorded between June 2014 and July 2015 across 11 studios in the United States. Beyoncé had the idea to write each song corresponding to a specific emotion that would form the chapters of the album and film, and posted mood boards around the studio representing each chapter to provide direction to her collaborators. Beyoncé and her collaborators also played music in the studio to inspire each other. The album was written in stages, with Beyoncé retreating to her home to work on the recordings with recording and mixing engineer Stuart White, as well as to take care of her daughter. The process began at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, which the team used for a month. They then took a break, and later went to Paris for 45 days. The team stayed in a hotel and set up two studios in two different hotel rooms, one for Beyoncé and one for Jay-Z. Jay-Z recounted how he and Beyoncé recorded music both separately and together, describing it as "using our art almost like a therapy session" after his infidelity. The music that Beyoncé recorded separately was what became Lemonade and was released first.
Lemonade was produced through Beyoncé's synthesis of the work of many collaborators, including both popular and lesser-known artists. Beyoncé oversaw all aspects of the writing and production process; co-writers MNEK and Jonny Coffer noted that she had a clear vision for how the songs should sound, consistently offering direction and suggestions to guide the creative process. The songs were developed in a piecemeal fashion, with Beyoncé combining material that she had written herself with elements from other writers. Collaborator MeLo-X described Beyoncé's production style as highly distinctive, saying: "She has a way of creating that I've never seen before as an artist. She produces, alters and arranges tracks in ways I wouldn't think of."
== Themes ==
As a multimedia audiovisual artwork, Lemonade relates the emotional journey of Beyoncé after Jay-Z's infidelity in a generational and racial context through its music, lyrics, visuals and poetry. The Lemonade album is a song cycle (referencing the classical compositional genre defined in German Lieder by Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms) that is performed as an elaboration of the Kübler-Ross model, with the tracks (excluding "Formation") corresponding to the eleven chapters of the Lemonade film: "Intuition", "Denial", "Anger", "Apathy", "Emptiness", "Accountability", "Reformation", "Forgiveness", "Resurrection", "Hope", and "Redemption".
Melina Matsoukas, the director of the "Formation" music video, said that Beyoncé explained to her the concept behind Lemonade, stating: "She wanted to show the historical impact of slavery on black love, and what it has done to the black family, and black men and women—how we're almost socialized not to be together." Beyoncé wrote on this in a 2018 Vogue article about the "generational curses" in her family, explaining that she comes "from a lineage of broken male-female relationships, abuse of power, and mistrust", including a slave owner who married a slave. Beyoncé continues, writing "Only when I saw that clearly was I able to resolve those conflicts in my own relationship. Connecting to the past and knowing our history makes us both bruised and beautiful."
This theme is repeated throughout Lemonade, with Beyoncé's grief, trauma and struggle being connected to that of her family's ancestors. The sixth track "Daddy Lessons" acts as a turning point for the album, with Beyoncé linking Jay-Z cheating on her with her father Mathew Knowles cheating on her mother Tina. Towards the end of Lemonade, Beyoncé reveals the meaning behind the title, showing Jay-Z's grandmother Hattie White saying "I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade", and describing her own grandmother, Agnez Deréon, as an "alchemist" who "spun gold out of this hard life" with the instructions to overcome these challenges passed down through generations like a lemonade recipe.
=== Black feminism ===
Miriam Bale for Billboard called Lemonade "a revolutionary work of Black feminism" as "a movie made by a black woman, starring Black women, and for Black women", in which Beyoncé is seen gathering, uniting and leading Black women throughout the film. As well as relating the story of Beyoncé's relationship with her husband, Lemonade also chronicles the relationship between Black women and American society. This includes how the United States betrayed and continually mistreats Black women, with society needing to solve its problems in order to enable reformation and the rehabilitation of Black women. As part of reverting the societal oppression and silencing of Black women, Lemonade centralizes the experiences of Black women in a way that is not often seen in the media, and celebrates their achievements despite the adversity they face.
"Don't Hurt Yourself" contains a quote from Malcolm X in which he said "The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman". The Black female public figures that Beyoncé featured in the film all have successful careers despite experiencing misogynoir and racism in the media. The film also contains clips of everyday Black women from working class communities, bringing visibility to Black women who are often ignored and undermined by society. The film envisions a space where there was never oppression of Black women, whereby Beyoncé and other Black women form a self-sufficient community in which they can heal together. Lemonade also defies and dismantles stereotypical representations of Black women as monolithic and angry Black women, instead attributing them complexity, agency, strength and vulnerability.
To create Lemonade, Beyoncé drew from the work of a wide variety of Black women who are often overlooked or forgotten. The music draws inspiration from Black female blues musicians such as Shug Avery, Bessie Smith and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who also used their personal trauma to empower Black women, as well as samples songs originally recorded by Black women, namely Memphis Minnie and Dionne Warwick, but whose most famous recordings are by male or white artists. These musical references situate Lemonade within the broader tradition of blues women who used their art to voice Black women's emotional experiences and social realities. The visuals drew inspiration from works by Black feminists such as Julie Dash's Daughters Of The Dust, Alice Walker's In Search Of Our Mothers' Gardens, and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Other influences for Lemonade include literary work by Black women focusing on themes including African-American folklore (such as Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God) and Afrofuturism (such as Octavia Butler's Kindred). Beyoncé specifically moves away from her typical music roots to develop a more communal spotlight on artistic hoodoo with other Black female creatives.
=== African-American culture ===
Beyoncé also uses Lemonade as a form of recognition, commemoration and celebration of the culture and history of Black people in the Deep South and in the United States as a whole. The film contains allusions to slavery, such as the House of Slaves' Door of No Return in Senegal and the dungeons of Elmina Castle in Ghana, where slaves were taken before being shipped to the Americas. In "Love Drought", Beyoncé walks with her dancers into the sea, alluding to the Igbo Landing of 1803, where Igbo slaves took control of their slave ship, and rather than submit to slavery, marched into the sea while singing in Igbo, drowning themselves. Beyoncé appears wearing a tignon, in reference to Louisiana's tignon laws implemented in 1786 that limited African-American women's dress in order to maintain the state's racist social hierarchies. The film also contains references to African religion and spirituality, such as Yoruba ori body paint in "Sorry", allusions to the loa Erzulie Red-Eyes in "Don't Hurt Yourself", and Beyoncé's initiation into the Santería religion and embodiment of the Yoruba orisha Oshun in "Hold Up". Allusions to New Orleans culture include "Queen of Creole cuisine" Leah Chase, the Edna Karr Marching Band, jazz funerals, Mardi Gras Indians and the Superdome.
Beyoncé is seen with other Black women on plantations in Lemonade. In the "Formation" video, the walls of the plantation houses are covered with French Renaissance-style portraits of Black subjects; director Melina Matsoukas states that "films about slavery traditionally feature white people in these roles of power and position. I wanted to turn those images on their head." Towards the end of Lemonade, Beyoncé and several Black women are on a plantation, with Chris Kelly for Fact writing "Instead of an antebellum memory, these scenes portray a dream: the fantasy of an all-Black, matriarchal utopia when women dress up, prepare meals, take photographs and perform shows, not for a master but for themselves." Throughout the film, Beyoncé can be seen in Fort Macomb, a Confederate States Army stronghold that was taken over by one of the first all-Black Union Army units – the 1st Louisiana Native Guard – and eventually destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. On the central track "Daddy Lessons", Beyoncé is seen standing in a hideaway in the fort, alluding to the Underground Railroad. However, on the closer "All Night", Beyoncé is seen above ground, walking on top of the ruins of the fort in an antebellum-style dress made in West African material, possibly inspired by artist Yinka Shonibare who is known for reappropriating "European import — the cloth — to remake symbols of European cultural dominance in the spirit of Africa".
On "Don't Hurt Yourself", Beyoncé samples Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks". However, the classic rock song was originally written by black Delta blues artists Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, with the song referring to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which displaced hundreds of thousands of African Americans. With the sample, Beyoncé reappropriates the song that was written by Black people about black history. In general, Beyoncé also reappropriates genres that were influenced by African Americans that are now seen as predominantly white genres on Lemonade, such as rock in "Don't Hurt Yourself" and country in "Daddy Lessons".
== Music and lyrics ==
Lemonade is an eclectic genre-blending album that explores many musical styles. Vox's Alissa Wilkinson described it as an R&B-rock-country-soul album, with its other genres including blues, hip-hop, jazz, reggae, pop, gospel, and funk. The Nation's Erin Vanderhoof characterized the album as avant-garde, while Pitchfork's Marc Hogan called it an art pop album. Kariann Goldschmitt, music lecturer at the University of Cambridge, described the album's experimentation with musical styles as a "recuperative historiography" of African-American contributions to diverse genres of music.
Lemonade features musicians Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, and bassist Marcus Miller, and sampling from folk music collectors John Lomax, Sr. and his son Alan Lomax on "Freedom". Beyoncé and her team reference the musical memories of all those periods, including a brass band, stomping blues rock, ultraslow avant-R&B, preaching, a prison song (both collected by John and Alan Lomax), and the sound of the 1960s fuzz-tone guitar psychedelia (sampling the Puerto Rican band Kaleidoscope). The Washington Post called the album a "surprisingly furious song cycle about infidelity and revenge". The Chicago Tribune described it as not just a mere grab for popular music dominance, rather it is a retrospective that allows the listener to explore Beyoncé's personal circumstances, with musical tones from the southern United States, a harkening back towards her formative years spent in Texas. AllMusic wrote that Beyoncé "delights in her Blackness, femininity, and Southern origin with supreme wordplay." On the album, Isaac Hayes and Andy Williams are among the sampled artists. PopMatters noticed how the album was nuanced in its theme of anger and betrayal with vast swathes of the album bathed in political context; however, it is still a pop album at its essence with darker and praiseworthy tones.
== Title and artwork ==
There are two suggested inspirations for the title. The song "Freedom" includes at its end an audio recording of Hattie White, grandmother of Beyoncé's husband Jay-Z's, telling a crowd at her ninetieth birthday party in December 2015: "I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade", referencing the proverb "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" that encourages turning sourness and difficulty to something positive. Beyoncé also draws a connection to her own grandmother, Agnez Deréon, using her lemonade recipe that was passed down through the generations as a metaphor for the mechanisms for healing passed through generations.
The cover artwork for Lemonade is from the music video shot for "Don't Hurt Yourself" and features Beyoncé wearing cornrows and a fur coat, leaning against a Chevrolet Suburban and covering her face with her arm. The cover image has also been notes for its stark, minimalist style, which reflects the album's raw emotional themes. In 2023, Joe Lynch of Billboard ranked it the 99th best album cover of all time.
== Release and promotion ==
Lemonade was first made available for online streaming via Tidal on April 23, 2016, through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records, and for digital download the following day. It was released for CD and DVD on May 6, 2016. A limited edition box set titled How to Make Lemonade was made available for pre-order on August 18, 2017, containing a six-hundred-page coffee table book, featuring a set of pictures and behind-the-scenes content showcasing the making of the album, and a double vinyl LP of Lemonade. Standalone vinyl was released on September 15, 2017. Lemonade was initially only available to stream on Tidal, but was added to other streaming platforms on April 23, 2019, exactly three years after its release. The version made available on other streaming services contains the original audio part of Lemonade as well as the original demo of "Sorry" as a bonus.
Beyoncé had a goal to perform the entire Lemonade album live. Beyoncé performed "Formation" at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show as part of her guest appearance at the event, with critics lauding the performance and stating that she stole the show from headliners Coldplay. The political symbolism in the performance also inspired many thinkpieces and discussions on their history and significance.
Beyoncé performed "Freedom" with Kendrick Lamar as the surprise opening number at the 2016 BET Awards on June 27. The performance began with an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The performance was met with acclaim by critics. At the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, Beyoncé performed a sixteen-minute medley of "Pray You Catch Me", "Hold Up", "Sorry", "Don't Hurt Yourself", and "Formation", and included interludes of the poetry as heard in the Lemonade film. Critics noted that Beyoncé used political symbolism during "Pray You Catch Me", which included angel-like dancers in historical black hairstyles (such as Bantu knots, braids and dreadlocks) successively falling to the ground as though shot, alluding to police brutality, and a black man in a black hoodie catching, uplifting and pushing Beyoncé forward, alluding to Trayvon Martin, who was killed when wearing a black hoodie.
On October 19, Beyoncé performed "6 Inch" and "All Night" at the TIDAL X benefit concert at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York City. On November 2, Beyoncé performed "Daddy Lessons" with the Dixie Chicks at the 50th Annual Country Music Association Awards (2016). The performance (which was the first featuring the Dixie Chicks in a decade after being blacklisted for their criticism of George W Bush in 2003) was widely praised by critics, but was met with criticism and racism by conservative country fans; this sparked conversations about the identity of country music and black people's place in it. Subsequently, a remix of "Daddy Lessons" featuring the Dixie Chicks was released. At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards on February 12, 2017, Beyoncé performed "Love Drought" and "Sandcastles". Themed around motherhood, the five-months pregnant Beyoncé's performance is recognised by commentators to evoke various female deities and Renaissance European Christian art (such as Tintoretto's Last Supper, Simone Martini's Maestà and depictions of the Virgin of Guadalupe) and various non-European allusions such as Fulani facepainting, Ethiopian icons, Byzantine jewelry and Latin American Baroque painting.
To promote Lemonade, Beyoncé embarked on the Formation World Tour which visited countries in North America and Europe from April to October 2016. The stage featured the Es Devlin-designed 'Monolith', a revolving seven-storey-tall box made with video screen walls that could shoot out fire and fireworks and split open, and which revolved during the show to represent a new chapter in line with the Lemonade film.
The Formation World Tour was met with rave reviews from critics, such as Kat Bein for Rolling Stone who described the show as "a prime example of entertainment and a vision of an artist at her apex" and "a visual feast as well as an emotional tour de force, packed with fireworks, confetti, rearranging stage designs and aerial dancers". The Formation World Tour won Tour of the Year at the 2016 American Music Awards, was included in Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Concerts of the Last 50 Years list in 2017, and was named the best tour of the decade (2010s) by Consequence of Sound in 2019.
The Formation World Tour was ranked at number one and number two on Pollstar's 2016 mid-year Top 100 Tours chart both in North America and worldwide respectively, with a total mid-year worldwide gross of $137.3 million from the first twenty-five shows (including $126.3 million from the first North American leg of the tour). In total, the tour grossed $256 million from forty-nine sold-out shows according to Billboard box score, and ranked at number two on Pollstar's 2016 Year-End Tours chart.
=== Accompanying film ===
Lemonade was accompanied by the release of a sixty-five-minute film of the same title, produced by Good Company and Jonathan Lia, which premiered on HBO on April 23, 2016, logging 787,000 viewers. It is divided into eleven chapters, titled "Intuition", "Denial", "Anger", "Apathy", "Emptiness", "Accountability", "Reformation", "Forgiveness", "Resurrection", "Hope", and "Redemption".
The film uses poetry and prose written by British-Somali poet Warsan Shire; the poems adapted were "The Unbearable Weight of Staying", "Dear Moon", "How to Wear Your Mother's Lipstick", "Nail Technician as Palm Reader", and "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love".
The film's cast features Ibeyi, Laolu Senbanjo, Amandla Stenberg, Quvenzhané Wallis, Chloe x Halle, Zendaya and Serena Williams. In "Forward", the mothers of Trayvon Martin (Sybrina Fulton), Michael Brown (Lesley McFadden), and Eric Garner (Gwen Carr) are featured holding pictures of their deceased sons. Jay-Z and Beyoncé's daughter Blue Ivy appears in home video footage at one point, as does Jay-Z's grandmother Hattie White, and Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles, who is shown with her second husband Richard Lawson on their wedding day in 2015. The film also samples work by Malcolm X, specifically an excerpt from his speech "Who Taught You to Hate Yourself", which is featured on the track "Don't Hurt Yourself".
The Lemonade film appeared on a number of critics' lists. Pitchfork listed Lemonade at number one on their list of best music videos of 2016.
It was also included on Sight & Sound's best films of 2016 list at number twenty-six. David Ehrlich, a film critic for IndieWire, placed Lemonade at number twenty-three on his Best Films of 2016 list. Jen Yamato from The Daily Beast ranked it at number nine on her list of the Top 10 Best Films of 2016. In June 2016, Matthew Fulks sued Beyoncé, Sony Music, Columbia Records and Parkwood Entertainment for allegedly lifting nine visual elements of his short film Palinoia for the trailer for Lemonade. The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed by New York federal judge Jed S. Rakoff, siding with the defendant.
=== Singles ===
Lemonade consisted of five singles, three of which would become major hits. All twelve songs charted on the US Billboard Hot 100. "Formation" was released as the first single exclusively on Tidal on February 6, 2016, along with its accompanying music video. The song was part of the set Beyoncé performed the following day at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show. "Formation" peaked at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100. The music video for the song was uploaded onto Vevo in December 2016.
"Sorry" was released as the second single and serviced to rhythmic adult contemporary radio in the United States on May 3, 2016, and its music video was uploaded onto Vevo on June 22, 2016. The single debuted and peaked at number eleven on the US Billboard Hot 100.
"Hold Up" was the third single and was first released to contemporary hit radio stations in Germany and the United Kingdom on May 12, 2016, and was later serviced to radio in the United States on August 16, 2016. It debuted and peaked at number thirteen on the US Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "Hold Up" was uploaded onto Vevo on September 4, 2016.
The fourth and fifth singles released were "Freedom" and "All Night", respectively. Both became moderate hits with the former (released September 2016) peaking at US number thirty-five, and the latter (released December 2016) peaking at US number thirty-eight.
== Critical reception ==
Lemonade received widespread acclaim upon release, with many describing it an instant classic, a masterpiece, and Beyoncé's magnum opus. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a weighted average score of 92, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
In Spin, Greg Tate calls Lemonade "a triumph of marketing and musicality, spectacle and song, vision and collaboration, Borg-like assimilation, and — as of 2013 — the element of surprise". Lauding both the film and album, Tate writes "Visually, literarily, choreographically, cinematically, this full accessing of her Southern bona fides shows up in the HBO project as ritual evidence that Bey's spent her downtime delving into the avant-garde mysticism of black-feminist poetry, novel writing, dance, gallery art, and film... The album, however, is out to sonorously suck you into its gully gravitational orbit the old fashioned way, placing the burden of conjuration on its steamy witches' brew of beats, melodies, and heavy-hearted-to-merry-pranksterish vocal seductions. In her mastery of carnal and esoteric mysteries, Queen Bey raises the spirits, sizzles the flesh, and rallies her troops." AllMusic writer Andy Kellman called Lemonade "culturally seismic" through its "layers of meaning and references, and experienced en masse through its televised premiere", adding that "the cathartic and wounded moments here resonate in a manner matched by few, if any, of Beyoncé's contemporaries."
In a five-star review for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield calls Lemonade "a welcome reminder that giants still walk among us", describing it as an "album of emotional discord and marital meltdown... from the most respected and creative artist in the pop game". Sheffield writes "Lemonade is her most emotionally extreme music, but also her most sonically adventurous... Yet the most astounding sound is always Bey's voice", which is described as "her wildest, rawest vocals ever". Sheffield also compares Lemonade to Aretha Franklin's Spirit in the Dark and Nina Simone's Silk and Soul in the way that the album "reach[es] out historically, connecting her personal pain to the trauma of American blackness". Ray Rahman for Entertainment Weekly agrees, writing that Lemonade is "a raw and intensely personal plunge into the heart of marital darkness" as well as "a feminist blueprint, a tribute to women, African-Americans, and, especially, African-American women". Rahman further praises the diversity of the album: "[Beyoncé] can do rock, blues, country, avant-garde, whatever. Lemonade stands as Bey's most diverse album to date. Sinister strip-club-in-the-future R&B... sits right next to a slab of Texas twang. Led Zeppelin and Soulja Boy become bedfellows."
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote that the album "feels like a success" and that Beyoncé sounded "genuinely imperious". Petridis praises the musical arc of the album, commenting on how the music "slowly works itself up into a righteous frenzy of anger, shifting from the becalmed misery of opener "Pray You Catch Me" via the sparse simmer of "Hold Up"... before finally boiling over on the fantastic "Don't Hurt Yourself": a ferocious, distorted vocal as commanding as anything she's recorded". The Daily Telegraph writer Jonathan Bernstein felt it was her strongest work to date and "proves there's a thin line between love and hate." Nekesa Moody and Mohamad Soliman from The Washington Post called the album a "deeply personal, yet ... a bold social and political statement as well". Writing for The New York Times, Jon Pareles praised Beyoncé's vocals and her courage to talk about subjects that affect so many people, and noted that "the album is not beholden to radio formats or presold by a single". Greg Kot from the Chicago Tribune felt that "artistic advances" seem "slight" in context towards the record's "more personal, raw and relatable" aspects, where it came out as a "clearly conceived" piece of music, meaning it had a "unifying vision" for what may have lent itself to being "a prettily packaged hodgepodge".
Reviewing the album in The Independent, Everett True wrote that it "is fiery, insurgent, fiercely proud, sprawling and sharply focused in its dissatisfaction", with Beyoncé "pick[ing] up the mantles of both" Prince and Nina Simone. Writing for Slate, Carl Wilson describes Lemonade as "a spectacle to rival Thriller" and "a beautiful and often disturbing kaleidoscope of poetry, feminism, racial politics, history, mythology, emotional upheaval, family, and romance that can be watched again and again and will be for years to come". Kitty Empire of The Observer writes that "female endurance and pragmatism are celebrated with warmth, anger and wit on this astounding visual album" and that "it's unlikely there will be many more albums this year that will unite high art and low in the same way as Beyoncé's jaw-slackening latest". Jillian Mapes of Pitchfork wrote that "The increasingly signature cadence, patois, and all-around attitude on Lemonade speaks to her status as the hip-hop pop star—but this being Bey, she doesn't stop there... Lemonade proves Beyoncé to also be a new kind of post-genre pop star". In The A.V. Club, Annie Zaleski wrote that it was "yet another seismic step forward for Beyoncé as a musician" that "pushes pop music into smarter, deeper places".
Shahzaib Hussain, writing for Clash, stated: "Lemonade is Beyoncé at her most benevolent, and her most unadulterated. Treating her blackness not as an affliction but a celebratory beacon, Lemonade is a long overdue, cathartic retribution." Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine wrote that the album "is her most lyrically and thematically coherent effort to date". Maura Johnston of Time wrote that its tracks were "fresh yet instantly familiar" with an "over-the-top but intimate" sound. Jamie Milton of DIY wrote that "there's so much more than an enthralling story to draw out of this all-slaying work", where "Beyoncé can count herself as a risk-taker breaking new ground, up there with the bravest." Exclaim!'s Erin Lowers wrote that "If you've ever been handed lemons, you need Lemonade", calling it "an album in which millions will find their own struggles reflected back to them, as therapeutic as it is utterly dazzling". Britt Julious of Consequence of Sound describes how "With nods to Voudou and Southern Black gothic storytelling, Lemonade, the visual album, wove chapters of emotional grief into a piece of art about the black woman... Separated from the visual, the album itself acts as dexterously as the film, exposing the rawest elements of Beyoncé's personal life while framing it against the universal — the machinations of internal paranoia, the all-consuming well of fury and anger, and the bottomless depths of sadness." Julious continues by praising the song cycle nature of the album: "Taken as a whole, we hear the threads of this from song to song on the record. If Lemonade is a record about dismantling the cycles of abuse, ripping open the secrets we keep hidden (especially within the closely guarded black community), and finding healing, purpose, and even greatness in the process, then it is personified in the arcs of each track... The songs stand as joined entities, two dichotomous halves of the grief process". PopMatters writer Evan Sawdey felt few albums could ever be considered "as bold, complex, or resolute as Lemonade," and the BBC's Mark Savage, describing Lemonade as "an album with a complex narrative arc... that demands to be heard in one sitting", noted that Beyoncé had become an albums artist with a range extending beyond that of radio play.
== Accolades ==
At the end of 2016, Lemonade appeared on a number of critics' lists ranking the year's top albums. According to the BBC, it was the critics' top album of 2016. According to Metacritic, it was the album that was listed at number one by the most publications (37 publications), including Rolling Stone, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, The Guardian, Digital Spy, The Independent, The Associated Press, The New York Times (Jon Pareles list), Los Angeles Times (Mikael Wood list), Pop Matters, Pretty Much Amazing, Idolator, Stereogum, Complex, Consequence of Sound, Wired, and US Weekly.
Lemonade was named the best album of the decade (2010s) by Consequence of Sound, The Associated Press and Spex. Lemonade was also named the best music video of the decade by The Daily Beast, as well as one of the best movies of the 2010s by Vox. Publications who included Lemonade in their top-five albums of the decade including Rolling Stone The Independent, New York Post, Billboard, Paste, The A.V. Club, WXPN The Key, Refinery29, Tampa Bay Times, Insider, The Young Folks, Genius, Variety, Uproxx, Noisey, The Independent, and The Wild Honey Pie.
In January 2025, Lemonade was named by Rolling Stone as the greatest album of the 21st century. Consequence of Sound named Lemonade the second best album of the last 15 years (2007–2022). BBC Radio 4's named Lemonade the eighth greatest risk in 21st century art, with the judges saying that Beyoncé "resisted the commercial pressure not to be political in order to stand up for what she believed in and let audiences into her personal life as never before". The Guardian listed it at number 25 on their ranking of the 100 best albums of the 21st century.
In 2020, Parade named Lemonade the best music video of all time. In 2017, the album was ranked at number 6 on NPR's list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. The Daily Telegraph named Lemonade the eighth greatest album of all time in 2025, with Neil McCormick describing it as a "bold, shapeshifting masterpiece channelling personal turmoil into visionary genre-hopping pop". On their list of the top 100 albums of the publication's existence, The Quietus named the project at number 9. Apple Music ranked Lemonade at number 10 on their list of the 100 Best Albums ever created. Consequence of Sound named Lemonade the 18th greatest album of all time in 2022. Lemonade is the 29th best album of all time by Metacritic score. On Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, Lemonade was placed at number 32, citing the album's exploration of "the betrayals of American blackness" and "all of the country's music traditions". Paste listed the album at number 55 on their list of the 300 Greatest Albums of All Time.
=== Awards ===
Lemonade was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Variety Special and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special. The album received eleven nominations at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. They included Breakthrough Long Form Video for Lemonade, Video of the Year, Best Pop Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography for "Formation", Best Female Video and Best Art Direction for "Hold Up", and Best Choreography for "Sorry" and "Formation". Beyoncé went on to win eight of her nominations, including Video of the Year and Breakthrough Long Form Video.
At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Lemonade received three nominations: Album of the Year, Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Film. "Formation" received three as well: Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Music Video. "Hold Up" was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance, "Don't Hurt Yourself" for Best Rock Performance and "Freedom" for Best Rap/Sung Performance. Beyoncé went on to win two awards, Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video for "Formation".
Lemonade won a Peabody Award in Entertainment, along with the following description by the board of jurors:Adroitly bringing together stories about betrayal, renewal, and hope, Lemonade draws from the prolific literary, musical, cinematic, and aesthetic sensibilities of black cultural producers to create a rich tapestry of poetic innovation. Defying genre and convention, Lemonade immerses viewers in the sublime worlds of black women, family, and community where we experience poignant and compelling stories about the lives of women of color and the bonds of friendship seldom seen or heard in American popular culture. This innovative and stunningly beautiful masterpiece challenges us to readjust our visual and sonic antennae and invites a reckoning with taken for granted ideas about who we are. For the audacity of its reach and the fierceness of its vision in challenging our cultural imagination about the intimacies and complexities of women of color, we recognize Lemonade as a Peabody Award winner.
—The George Foster Peabody Awards Board of Jurors
== Commercial performance ==
In the United States, Lemonade debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, with 653,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 485,000 were pure album sales. This made the highest opening-week sales for a female act of the year. Subsequently, she broke the record she previously tied with DMX, by becoming the first artist in the chart's history to have their first six studio albums debut at number one. In the same week, Beyoncé became the first female artist to chart twelve or more songs on the US Billboard Hot 100 at the same time, with every song on the album debuting on the chart.
The album slipped from number one to number two in its second week, selling 321,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 196,000 were pure album sales. It remained at number two in its third week selling 201,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 153,000 were pure album sales. Lemonade was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in June 2016. According to Nielsen's 2016 year-end report, it had sold 1,554,000 copies and 2,187,000 album-equivalent units in the United States. Following its April 23, 2019, release on all streaming services, Lemonade returned to the top ten on the Billboard 200 at number nine, while its only added song, the original demo of "Sorry", debuted at number nineteen on the US R&B Songs. On May 20, 2019, the album was certified double platinum for shipments of two million copies, and triple platinum on June 13, 2019, for shipments of three million copies. In Canada, the album debuted at number one with sales of 33,000 copies. By the end of 2016, the album had sold 138,000 album-equivalent units in Canada, out of which 101,000 were pure album sales.
The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart selling 73,000 copies in its first week of release, with 10,000 equivalent sales (14% of the total sales) accounting for streaming, marking the largest ever for a number-one album since the chart began including streaming. The album marked the singer's third number-one album on the chart and was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on September 9, 2016, for shipments of 300,000 copies. All of the album's tracks also debuted within the top hundred of the UK Singles Chart. As in the US, 2020 is the first year since release that the album has not appeared on the UK Chart.
In Australia, Lemonade sold 20,490 digital copies in its first week, debuting atop the Australian Albums Chart and becoming Beyoncé's second consecutive number-one album in the country. It received a double platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) in 2023, for sales of 140,000 equivalent units.
Lemonade also peaked atop the charts in numerous European and Oceanic countries including Ireland and Belgium, where it spent five and seven weeks at the summit, respectively, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden. In Brazil, it debuted at number one and received a platinum certification from Pro-Música Brasil.
== Legacy ==
=== Music industry ===
==== Album format ====
Lemonade has been credited with reviving the concept of an album in an era dominated by singles and streaming, and popularizing releasing albums with accompanying films. Jamieson Cox for The Verge called Lemonade "the endpoint of a slow shift toward cohesive, self-centered pop albums", writing that "it's setting a new standard for pop storytelling at the highest possible scale". Megan Carpentier of The Guardian wrote that Lemonade has "almost revived the album format" as "an immersive, densely textured large-scale work" that can only be listened to in its entirety. Myf Warhurst on Double J's "Lunch With Myf" explained that Beyoncé "changed [the album] to a narrative with an arc and a story and you have to listen to the entire thing to get the concept".
==== Music films ====
The New York Times' Katherine Schulten agreed, asking "How do you talk about the ongoing evolution of the music video and the autobiographical album without holding up Lemonade as an exemplar of both forms?" Joe Coscarelli of The New York Times describes how "some brand-name acts are following Beyoncé's blueprint with high-concept mini-movies that can add artistic heft to projects," with Frank Ocean's Endless and Drake's Please Forgive Me cited as examples of artists' projects inspired by Lemonade. Other projects said to have followed the precedent that Lemonade set include Lonely Island's The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, Thom Yorke's Anima, Sturgill Simpson's Sound & Fury, and Kid Cudi's Entergalactic, which were all albums released with complementary film projects.
==== Genre ====
Beyoncé's use of various genres on Lemonade has been credited with setting the precedent for music to transcend genre, with NPR writing that the album "leads us to this moment where post-genre becomes a thing". The use of various genres has also been credited with kickstarting the reclamation of certain genres by black people. "Daddy Lessons" has been credited as starting a trend of "pop stars toying with American West and Southern aesthetics," as well as setting the precedent for "The Yeehaw Agenda", the trend of reclaiming black cowboy culture through music and fashion. "Don't Hurt Yourself" has been credited with the reclaiming of rock by black women, with Brittany Spanos for Rolling Stone writing that "the re-imagination of what rock can be and who can sing it by Beyoncé and her superstar peers is giving the genre a second life – and may be what can save it."
==== Contemporaries ====
Several musicians were inspired by Lemonade. American rapper Snoop Dogg named his fourteenth studio album Coolaid (2016) after Lemonade. American singer Sabrina Carpenter credited Lemonade with inspiring her to not limit herself, explaining that the album "really transcended every genre" which made her "feel like I didn't have to just stay in a box from there on out". American rapper Cardi B was inspired by Lemonade for Am I the Drama? (2025), which she said is "going to have my Lemonade moments". American singer Fergie said that she was inspired by Lemonade to create a visual counterpart for her album Double Dutchess (2017). British girl group Little Mix cited Lemonade as an inspiration for their album Glory Days (2016). Naming Lemonade one of her favorite albums ever, English singer-songwriter Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice said that it helped her to "put in more thought to what makes a good album flow". American singer The-Dream wrote a response to Lemonade titled "Lemon Lean" in his EP Love You to Death, saying that the album changed the way people think about their relationships. American singer-songwriter Victoria Monét cited Lemonade as an inspiration for her work. American comedian Lahna Turner released a visual album entitled Limeade in homage to Lemonade. American singer Matt Palmer was inspired by Lemonade to create his visual EP Get Lost. American musician Todrick Hall's second studio album Straight Outta Oz was made as a visual album due to Lemonade. British singer-songwriter Arrow Benjamin was also inspired by Lemonade for his 2016 EP W.A.R. (We All Rise), saying: "Every piece on this project was created from a visual, so that's why I was extremely inspired when I saw Lemonade."
Ann Powers for NPR opined that Fiona Apple was influenced by Lemonade when implementing black musical traditions on her 2020 album Fetch the Bolt Cutters, while Jenna Wortham for The New York Times drew a parallel between both albums as "blueprints for how to take in all that emotion and kind of how to push it back out in a way that's cathartic and constructive". Dan Weiss of Billboard wrote that Shania Twain's Now "couldn't have existed without" Lemonade, as an album that "completely changed the course of breakup album history" in which the artist is "someone at their full creative peak pushing herself into new niches, dominating new musical territories". Kadeen Griffiths from Bustle states that Lemonade, as an album that deals with issues related to black women, "paved the way" for Alicia Keys' Here and Solange's A Seat at the Table. Danielle Koku for The Guardian stated that Lemonade aided the return of African mysticism to pop music, writing: "By taking African mysticism to the world stage, Beyoncé stripped it of its ancient pagan labels." Many critics have noted that Jay-Z's thirteenth studio album 4:44 (2017) is a response to Lemonade, with Jay-Z referencing lines from Lemonade, such as the "You better call Becky with the good hair" line on Beyoncé's "Sorry", with Jay-Z retorting: "Let me alone, Becky" in "Family Feud".
At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards (2017), Adele dedicated her Album of the Year award to Beyoncé and said: "The artist of my life is Beyoncé... the Lemonade album, is just so monumental." In a 2021 interview with Vogue, Adele claimed that Beyoncé should have won the said award instead of her. After the show, she went into Beyoncé's dressing room and "said to her, like, the way that the Grammys works, and the people who control it at the very, very top—they don't know what a visual album is. They don't want to support the way that she's moving things forward with her releases and the things that she's talking about." She revealed that the award she received in the mail was broken and that she wedged a lemon into the broken part, and went on to claim that, "[f]or [her] friends who are women of color, [Lemonade] was such a huge acknowledgment for them, of the sort of undermined grief that they go through." American musician Stevie Wonder called Lemonade "a great work, a great art piece". U2's Bono included "Freedom" in his "60 Songs That Saved My Life" project to celebrate his 60th birthday, writing: "In my 60 years, I was served many platters but rarely one like the Queen Bey's album Lemonade."
=== Popular culture ===
==== Art and literature ====
Lemonade has inspired artists in media other than music, including art, literature, film, television, and theatre. Misha Green, creator of the 2020 television series Lovecraft Country, described how Lemonade inspired the direction and flow of the show's score, saying: "What Beyoncé did on Lemonade, with bringing in the poems and taking us on this collage of a journey, that wasn't just music and visuals. [It was] also words and using those words as a score." Bill Condon, director of the film Beauty and the Beast (2017) says the visuals behind Lemonade inspired him for the movie: "You look at Beyoncé's brilliant movie Lemonade, this genre is taking on so many different forms... I do think that this very old-school break-out-into-song traditional musical is something that people understand again and really want.".
The Royal National Theatre's 2018 production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra featured a costume inspired by Lemonade, with costume designer Evie Gurney describing how she wanted to draw a parallel between Cleopatra and Beyoncé, as the latter is "a woman in the public eye who was subject to a lot of scrutiny [and] actually created a platform for herself to take back the narrative of her own story, and it was an extraordinary act of power." The character of Catherine of Aragon in the West End and Broadway musical Six was inspired by "Lemonade-era Beyoncé". Ellie Kendrick's 2018 play Hole at the Royal Court was described by its directors as "a stage version of Beyoncé's Lemonade album", as an artwork about feminism and historical oppression of women that consists of song, dance and spoken word.
Fashion stylist Salvador Camarena paid homage to Lemonade by designing a room dedicated to the album during Modernism Week, saying "That album is such a visually stunning album. There are so many iconic looks from the video, I kind of wanted to implement that world into that room." The young adult anthology A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell, which explores "the Black experience through fantasy, science fiction, and magic", has the aim of "evoking Beyoncé's Lemonade for a teen audience". A 2017 video game titled "Lemonade Rage" was created in homage to Lemonade and the "Hold Up" music video. The cover of Marvel's 2017 America comic book paid homage to the "Formation" music video, with its illustrator saying "America is a comic that is all about representation, feminism and fighting for what's right... I could think of no better parallel than Beyoncé."
Marie Claire named lemonade drop as one of the most influential pop culture moments of the 2010s.
==== Trends ====
Sales for Warsan Shire's chapbook "Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth" increased by 700 to 800% after her poetry was included in the Lemonade film. Beyoncé's mention of Red Lobster in "Formation" increased sales at the restaurant chain by 33%, which made employees rename popular menu items after Beyoncé and call the effect the "Beyoncé Bounce". Designers of the costumes that Beyoncé wore in the Lemonade film spoke with Complex about the impact that this had on their careers; for example, Natalia Fedner, who designed Beyoncé's dress for "Hold Up", stated that because of the dress's inclusion in Lemonade, "I was on 'Entertainment Tonight' being hailed as a 'designer to watch'." The inclusion of imagery from the 1991 film Daughters of the Dust in the visuals for Lemonade helped bring the film back to theatres, with director Julie Dash stating that Lemonade "just took me places that I had not been seeing in a long, long time. It just re-confirmed a lot of things that I know to be true about visual style and visual metaphors. And the use of visual metaphors in creating, redefining, and re-framing a Creole culture within this new world."
The popular "Lemonade braids" hairstyle worn by black women is named after a hairstyle that Beyoncé wore in Lemonade. Georgia Murray for Refinery29 sourced the 2020 fashion trend of wearing yellow to Lemonade, writing that Beyoncé's yellow dress in "Hold Up" "kickstarted an obsession with yellow that we're still seeing the effects of today". The use of the lemon and bee emojis increased due to the release of Lemonade, with a Twitter spokesperson telling Time: "Before Lemonade, the lemon emoji had no meaning. Since the launch of Lemonade, the emoji has taken on a meaning of its own". The MTV Video Music Award for Breakthrough Long Form Video, which Beyoncé ultimately won at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, was reintroduced after 25 years due to the Lemonade film.
==== Parodies and homages ====
Lemonade was parodied and was paid homage to in various media. In an episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt titled "Kimmy's Roommate Lemonades!", character Titus Andromedon parodied the videos for "Hold Up", "Sorry" and "All Night" after he suspects his boyfriend of infidelity, coining the term "Lemonading". This episode was subsequently nominated for two Emmy Awards: Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics for the "Hold Up" parody "Hell No", and Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series for Tituss Burgess. The "Hold Up" music video was also paid homage to in The Simpsons, Making a Scene with James Franco, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show.
SNL produced two sketches on Lemonade: one entitled "The Day Beyoncé Turned Black" after Beyoncé released the "unapologetically black" "Formation", and the other entitled "Melanianade" which parodied the "Sorry" music video featuring impersonations of Donald Trump's female family members and aides. In a Late Night with Seth Meyers sketch titled "Beyoncé Lemonade Late Night Aftermath", females staffers empowered by Lemonade paid homage to the visuals, costumes, songs and poetry featured in the film. The Late Late Show with James Corden produced a parody entitled "Lemonjames: A Visual Monologue", where James Corden gave his monologue by recreating parts of the Lemonade film such as the "Pray You Catch Me", "Don't Hurt Yourself" and "6 Inch" music videos. Actress Goldie Hawn and comedian Amy Schumer produced a parody of "Formation". The Season 2 premiere of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend featured a musical number that was an homage to Lemonade, including parodies of "Formation" and "Pray You Catch Me".
For Beyoncé's 36th birthday, various black female public figures recreated a costume that Beyoncé wore in the "Formation" music video, including Michelle Obama and Serena Williams. The first episode of British comedian James Acaster's 2020 podcast titled Perfect Sounds (in which Acaster discusses why 2016 was the greatest year in music with various comedians) featured Romesh Ranganathan and focused on "the genius of Lemonade".
=== Intellectual response ===
Lemonade has also received notable attention from scholars and authors outside the music industry. In partnership with the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, a talk at Seminole State College "discussed how Beyoncé embodies the conjure woman in her iconic audiovisual work Lemonade as a contemporary revision of Zora Neale Hurston's groundbreaking study of conjure and its place in Black women's spirit work." Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) announced "The Lemonade Project", a twelve-month series of conversations centered around the visual album. The series will explore the themes of race, gender and class addressed by the album.
Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin produced "The Lemonade Reader", described as "an educational tool to support and guide discussions of the visual album at postgraduate and undergraduate levels, [which] critiques Lemonade's multiple Afrodiasporic influences, visual aesthetics, narrative arc of grief and healing, and ethnomusicological reach." University of Texas at Austin professor Omise'eke Tinsley wrote a book entitled Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism that was released in 2018, which "analyzes Beyoncé's visual album, Lemonade, in relation to the sexuality and gender of Black women". University of Albany professor Janell Hobson produced a lesson plan based on her class on Lemonade, saying "Beyoncé's Lemonade stimulates class discussions and assignments as a highly visible pop project striving to create deeper conversations on the meanings of Blackness, womanhood, and feminism." Dissect Podcast have since dedicated their sixth season to "Beyoncé's masterwork Lemonade." The host, Cole Cuchna and cohost Titi Shodiya, "make leaps of interpretative wonder, fusing insights, music theory, instrumentation, and lyric interpretation with social analysis to empower fans to build deeper connections with Beyoncé's artistry."
==== Race and identity ====
In a 2020 New York Times article titled "The African-American Art Shaping the 21st Century", which contained 35 prominent black artists talking about the work that inspires them most, American actress Kerry Washington relayed about Lemonade as a game changer "visually, musically, but also sociopolitically, and anthropologically. The release of "Formation" and the consequent performance at the Super Bowl 50 halftime show caused both conversation and controversy due to its "unapologetic Blackness". Many articles and think pieces were produced discussing the importance and meaning of the song and performance, such as the BBC, who produced an article entitled "Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance: Why was it so significant?", and TheWrap, who produced an article entitled "Why Beyoncé's 'Formation' Matters So Much: A Perfectly Choreographed Political Debut Before 112 Million." Lemonade as a whole also inspired many think pieces, particularly written by black women, that analyze the messages and significance of the album, such as Miriam Bale for Billboard who named Lemonade "a revolutionary work of black feminism".
Megan Carpentier of The Guardian named the album "a pop culture phenomenon" and wrote: "It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no other living musical artist who could ignite such a broad and unavoidable conversation just by releasing a new album – even a visual one." Writing in the same publication, Syreeta McFadden noted that the "Formation" video depicts archetypal southern Black women "in ways that we haven't seen frequently represented in popular art or culture". Melissa Harris-Perry of Time magazine said that "Beyoncé publicly embraced explicitly feminist Blackness at a politically risky moment." Candace McDuffie of Glamour said with Lemonade, the poignant magnum opus about the dynamic beauty of Black womanhood, Beyoncé became the cultural zeitgeist and reinforced the idea that anything she does causes pandemonium on a global scale.
==== Academic study ====
Since its release, the album has spawned a large syllabus of literature and academic studies. The University of Texas at San Antonio offered a class in the Fall of 2016 based on the album. The course, titled "Black Women, Beyoncé and Popular Culture", explored how the visual album "is a meditation on contemporary Black womanhood," before advancing and diving into the "theoretical, historical, and literary frameworks of Black feminism," according to the syllabus.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga hosted a "Lemonade Week" in April 2017, which featured discussions on feminism, theatrical performances, celebrations of African-American women writers and poets, and choreography tutorials. Harvard University hosted "The Lemon Drop": a discussion that explored the nuances of Lemonade. University of Arkansas offered a course that analysed the influence of Black feminism on Beyoncé and Lemonade. University of Pennsylvania ran two courses that explored politics, race and gender through the study of Lemonade.
Michigan State University hosted a discussion on Lemonade as part of their series for "exchanging ideas and exploring the lived experiences of underrepresented and marginalized communities".
Chatham University based a writing class on Lemonade, where "students get to examine how they fit into the power systems around them". Valdosta State University offered a course on Lemonade, "unpacking the many themes found in "Lemonade", including Black identity, feminism, marital infidelity, sisterhood, and faith." The College of Charleston hosted a discussion by Black feminist scholars, exploring "Beyoncé's use of southern landscape, Black women, music, and African-based spirituality". University of North Georgia offered a class entitled "Okay, Ladies, Now Let's Get in Formation: Intersectional Feminism in Beyoncé's Lemonade" that explored the music, lyrics and visuals of Lemonade.
== Track listing ==
Notes
^[a] Visual edition was released on CD/DVD, digital download and Tidal. CD/DVD edition does not include "Sorry" (original demo). Tidal edition additionally includes "Formation" (choreography version) video.
^[b] signifies a co-producer.
^[c] signifies an additional producer.
^[d] signifies an additional director.
=== Sample credits ===
"Hold Up"
contains elements of "Can't Get Used to Losing You", performed by Andy Williams, written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman
embodies portions of "Turn My Swag On", performed by Soulja Boy, written by DeAndre Way, Antonio Randolph and Kelvin McConnell
contains elements of "Maps", performed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, written by Brian Chase, Karen Orzolek and Nick Zinner.
"Don't Hurt Yourself"
features samples from "When the Levee Breaks", performed by Led Zeppelin, written by James Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.
"6 Inch"
embodies portions of "My Girls", performed by Animal Collective, written by Dave Portner, Noah Lennox and Brian Weitz
contains samples from "Walk On By", performed by Isaac Hayes, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
"Freedom"
contains a sample of "Let Me Try", performed by Kaleidoscope, written by Frank Tirado
contains a sample of "Collection Speech/Unidentified Lining Hymn", performed by Reverend R.C. Crenshaw, recorded by Alan Lomax
contains a sample of "Stewball", performed by Prisoner "22" at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, recorded by Alan Lomax and John Lomax, Sr.
"All Night"
contains elements of "SpottieOttieDopaliscious", performed by OutKast, written by André Benjamin, Antwan Patton and Patrick Brown.
"Sorry (original demo)"
interpolates "Young, Wild & Free", as performed by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa featuring Bruno Mars.
Lemonade
contains a sample of "The Court of the Crimson King", performed by King Crimson, written by Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield.
== Personnel ==
Credits from the album's liner notes, Beyoncé's official website, and Spotify
Musicians
Technical
== Charts ==
== Certifications and sales ==
== Release history ==
== See also ==
List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 2016
List of Billboard number-one R&B/hip-hop albums of 2016
List of number-one albums of 2016 (Australia)
List of number-one albums of 2016 (Belgium)
List of number-one albums of 2016 (Canada)
List of number-one albums of the 2010s (Czech Republic)
List of number-one albums of 2016 (Ireland)
List of number-one albums in Norway
List of number-one albums of 2016 (Portugal)
List of number-one singles and albums in Sweden
List of UK Albums Chart number ones of the 2010s
List of UK R&B Albums Chart number ones of 2016
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Lemonade at Discogs (list of releases)
Beyoncé's 'Lemonade' and Information Resources, a Resource Guide from the Maryland Institute College of Art
Soundtrack of Beyoncé: Lemonade at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Arpaci-Dusseau | Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau | Andrea Carol Arpaci-Dusseau (also published as Andrea Dusseau) is an American computer scientist interested in operating systems, file systems, data storage, distributed computing, and computer science education. She is a professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She and Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau have co-written a textbook on operating systems, "Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces" (OSTEP), that is downloaded millions of times yearly and used at hundreds of institutions worldwide.
== Education and career ==
Arpaci-Dusseau majored in computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, graduating in 1991. She completed a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998; her dissertation, Implicit Coscheduling: Coordinated Scheduling with Implicit Information in Distributed Systems, was supervised by David Culler.
After postdoctoral research at Stanford University, she joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty as an assistant professor in 2000, and became a full professor there in 2009. Andrea primarily teaches undergraduate and graduate level Operating Systems courses.
== Personal life ==
Arpaci-Dusseau is married to Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, also a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an expert on data storage; they are frequent collaborators.
== Book ==
With Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, Arpaci-Dusseau is the co-author of the free 2018 book Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces.
== Recognition ==
In 2018, Arpaci-Dusseau and her husband were the winners of the SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award, "for outstanding leadership, innovation, and impact in storage and computer systems research". Arpaci-Dusseau was named a 2020 ACM Fellow "for contributions to storage and computer systems".
== References ==
== External links ==
Home page
Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau publications indexed by Google Scholar |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafoogar | Rafoogar | A rafoogar (Rafu Gar, needle-worker, darner or a cloth mender, رفو گر) is an artisan similar to an embroiderer (who decorates the cloths), but the rafoogar has the skill to repair the damaged or torn clothes. The rafoogar makes the holes, cuts, and manufacturing damages almost invisible. In Kashmir, the term is more associated with shawl making where the weavers were called Sada-baf and the workman for repairing work called rafoogar.
== Rafoogiri ==
Rafoogiri (darning) is a traditional art; it consists of sewing, making the joints, looping, and repairing holes or worn areas in fabric using needles and thread (of base colors). The rafoogar is the person who mends torn clothing by matching the weave, making identical loops, creating rows of stitches, and sometimes by crossing and interweaving rows to compass a gap. There are various areas where this craft has been practiced for decades. For instance, the Bijnor district has been a hub of rafoogari.
=== Rafoogar baithak ===
Rafoogar baithak is an initiative in favor of the dying craft.
== See also ==
Kashmiri handicrafts
Darning
Shawl
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fencing_at_the_1908_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_sabre | Fencing at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's sabre | The men's sabre was one of four fencing events on the Fencing at the 1908 Summer Olympics programme. The top two places were won by Hungarian fencers, who also took the gold medal in the team sabre event. Jenő Fuchs took the gold medal and Béla Zulawszky the silver. Bronze went to Bohemian Vilém Goppold von Lobsdorf. There were 76 competitors from 11 nations. Each nation could enter up to 12 fencers.
== Background ==
This was the fourth appearance of the event, which is the only fencing event to have been held at every Summer Olympics. The 1900 gold medalist, Georges de la Falaise of France, returned after not competing in 1904.
Belgium, Bohemia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and South Africa each made their debut in the men's sabre. Austria made its third appearance in the event, most of any nation, having missed only the 1904 Games in St. Louis.
== Competition format ==
The competition was held over four rounds. In each round, each pool held a round-robin, with bouts to 3 touches. European sabre rules at the time used a target area of the whole body, in contrast to above-the-waist target area provided for by the American rules of the time, used in the 1904 Games, and which became standard after World War I. Barrages were used as necessary to determine the advancing fencers.
First round: 13 pools of between 4 and 8 fencers each. The 3 fencers in each pool with the fewest bouts lost advanced to the second round.
Quarterfinals: 8 pools of 5 fencers each (except one had only 4 by design and one had only 4 due to a non-starter). The 2 fencers in each pool with the fewest bouts lost advanced to the semifinals.
Semifinals: 2 pools of 8 fencers each. The 4 fencers in each pool with the fewest bouts lost advanced to the final.
Final: 1 pool of 8 fencers.
== Schedule ==
== Results ==
=== Round 1 ===
The first round was conducted in round-robin format, to three touches. Pool sizes ranged from 4 to 8 fencers. The three contestants who had lost the fewest bouts advanced.
==== Pool A ====
==== Pool B ====
The three-way tie for the two remaining places resulted in the British fencer being eliminated.
Barrage B
==== Pool C ====
Renaud lost both his playoff matches, eliminating him and allowing Grade and Jack to advance.
Barrage C
==== Pool D ====
The playoff resulted in two losses for Lichtenfels.
Barrage D
==== Pool E ====
The fifth pool was small, with only 4 fencers. This meant only one, Langevin, was eliminated.
==== Pool F ====
Petri defeated van Tomme in the playoff for third place after having lost to the Belgian in the main pool.
Barrage F
==== Pool G ====
Badman defeated van Minden again in the playoff for third place.
Barrage G
==== Pool H ====
==== Pool I ====
==== Pool J ====
The tenth pool was the largest, at fully twice the size of the fifth. Five of the eight fencers were eliminated. The Bohemian fencer, von Lobsdorf, defeated each of his seven opponents for a decisive first place in the pool. There was no match between Sarzano and Stohr.
==== Pool K ====
==== Pool L ====
Chapuis was eliminated in the three-way playoff for second and third.
Barrage L
==== Pool M ====
The final pool was one of the larger pools, with 7 fencers.
=== Quarterfinals ===
There were eight second round pools, ranging in size from 4 to 5.
==== Quarterfinal 1 ====
Notley's pair of victories in the playoff gave him second in the pool, allowing him to advance.
Barrage 1
==== Quarterfinal 2 ====
==== Quarterfinal 3 ====
==== Quarterfinal 4 ====
==== Quarterfinal 5 ====
==== Quarterfinal 6 ====
==== Quarterfinal 7 ====
Doorman, who had lost to Petri in the main pool, defeated the German in the playoff for second place.
Barrage 7
==== Quarterfinal 8 ====
Barrage 8
=== Semifinals ===
There were two semifinals, each of 8 fencers. The top 4 in each advanced to the final.
==== Semifinal 1 ====
==== Semifinal 2 ====
Four fencers tied at 5-2 records, all advancing to the finals. Ceccherini gave up after his first four bouts, giving Tóth, van der Voodt, and Doorman wins by walkover.
=== Final ===
Fuchs and de Lobsdorf did not finish within the time limit, resulting in a loss for both of them. The playoff match for the gold medal was won by Fuchs, with the one-touch bout decided by a parry and riposte to his fellow Hungarian's head.
Barrage
== Notes ==
== Sources ==
Cook, Theodore Andrea (1908). The Fourth Olympiad, Being the Official Report. London: British Olympic Association.
De Wael, Herman. Herman's Full Olympians: "Fencing 1908". Accessed 1 May 2006. Available electronically at [1] Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cullen,_Lord_Pentland#:~:text=Paul%20Benedict%20Cullen%2C%20Lord%20Pentland,of%20the%20Scottish%20Law%20Commission. | Paul Cullen, Lord Pentland | Paul Benedict Cullen, Lord Pentland, (born 11 March 1957) is the current Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General, the most senior judge in Scotland. He is a former Solicitor General for Scotland, Senator of the College of Justice and Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission.
== Early life ==
Born in Gosforth, Northumberland, he was educated at St Augustine's High School, Edinburgh and at the School of Law of the University of Edinburgh.
== Legal career ==
=== Department of Environment ===
Cullen was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1982, devilling for Alan Rodger QC. He tutored part-time at the Faculty of Law at the University of Edinburgh from 1982 to 1986, when he was elected Clerk of the Faculty of Advocates, serving until 1991. He was Standing Junior Counsel to the Department of the Environment in Scotland from 1988 to 1991 and appointed an Advocate Depute in 1992, becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1995. A member of the Conservative Party, he became Solicitor General for Scotland, the junior Law Officer in Scotland, in 1995, when Donald Mackay succeeded Lord Rodger of Earlsferry as Lord Advocate, the senior Law Officer. He held this post until the Labour election victory in 1997, when he was succeeded by Colin Boyd, who later became Lord Advocate.
=== Gilmerton enquiry ===
He was the chairman of the public inquiry into the Gilmerton Limestone Emergency in 2001–2002, and has been Chairman of the Appeal Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and of the Police Appeals Tribunal. In 2003, The Scotsman named him the seventieth highest earner in Scotland, and third highest earner at the Bar, after Richard Keen QC (who was sixty-first with earnings of £600,000 and a former dean of the Faculty) and Michael Jones, Lord Jones (who was fifty-fifth with earnings of £750,000). He was involved in a number of high-profile cases, including the Countryside Alliance challenge to the Scottish fox-hunting ban, judicial review connected to the Stockline Plastics factory explosion, and the first two appeals to the Inner House of the Court of Session under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the first such appeal to the House of Lords.
=== Senator of College of Justice ===
In November 2008, Cullen was appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of the High Court of Justiciary and Court of Session, the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and took the judicial title, Lord Pentland. In 2010 he was appointed as a member of the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber). He has also served as an Intellectual Property judge.
Lord Pentland was appointed as Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission on 1 January 2014 for a period of five years until 31 December 2018. He was appointed to the First Division of the Inner House of the Court of Session in July 2020, and to the Privy Council in September 2020.
=== Lord President of Court of Session ===
On 9 January 2025, it was announced that Lord Pentland had been appointed as the next Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General. He succeeded Lord Carloway on 3 February 2025.
On 17 October 2025, Lord Pentland celebrated the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Sheriff Appeal Court alongside Lord Carloway, Lord Gill and Sheriff Principal Anwar.
== Political career ==
Cullen contested the Eastwood constituency at the 1997 general election for the Conservative Party, but finished in second place to Jim Murphy of the Labour Party. All Conservative Party representation was wiped out from Scottish constituencies at that election. Cullen served as Vice-President of the Edinburgh South Conservative Association from 1997 until he took the bench in 2008. He represented the Scottish Conservative Party on the Consultative Steering Group in 1998-99 which helped prepare procedures for the new Scottish Parliament. He was appointed Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel of the Scottish Conservatives in 2000.
== Personal life ==
Cullen is married to Joyce Nicol, former Chair of Brodies LLP (1983), with whom he has two sons and a daughter. He plays tennis and bridge, and is a member of the New Club.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling_Award#:~:text=Herbert%20C.%20Brown-,1969%20%E2%80%93%20Henry%20Eyring,-1970%20%E2%80%93%20Harold | Linus Pauling Award | The Linus Pauling Award is an award recognizing outstanding achievement in chemistry. It is awarded annually by the Puget Sound, Oregon, and Portland sections of the American Chemical Society, and is named after the US chemist Linus Pauling (1901–1994), to whom it was first awarded in 1966.
Another Linus Pauling Award is given annually by the Chemistry Department at Buffalo State College.
== Oregon Laureates ==
Source: ACS
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References ==
== Sources ==
Linus Pauling Medalists, Portland State University Chemistry Department
Linus Pauling Award, Buffalo State University Chemistry Department
Linus Pauling Award, University Washington
Linus Pauling Medal Award 2010
Linus Pauling Award 2011
Linus Pauling Award 2018 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams | Hank Williams | Hiram "Hank" Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. An early pioneer of country music, he is regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of the 20th century. Williams recorded 55 singles that reached the top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, five of which were released posthumously, and 12 of which reached No.1.
Born and raised in Alabama, Williams learned guitar from African-American blues musician Rufus Payne. Both Payne and Roy Acuff significantly influenced his musical style. After winning an amateur talent contest, Williams began his professional career in Montgomery in the late 1930s playing on local radio stations and at area venues such as school houses, movie theaters, and bars. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. Because his alcoholism made him unreliable, he was fired and rehired several times by radio station WSFA. Williams also had trouble replacing several of his band members who were drafted during World War II.
In 1944, Williams married Audrey Sheppard, who competed with his mother to control his career. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. He released the hit single "Move It On Over" in 1947 and joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. The next year he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", which quickly reached number one on Billboard's Top Country & Western singles chart and propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. Although unable to read or notate music to any significant degree, he wrote such iconic hits as "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". During his final years, he struggled with back pain and substance abuse, exacerbating his relationships with Audrey and the Grand Ole Opry.
Williams died on New Year's Day 1953 at the age of 29, his heart failing in the back seat of a car near Oak Hill, West Virginia, en route to a concert in Canton, Ohio. Despite his relatively brief career, he is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century, especially in country music. Many artists have covered his songs and he has influenced Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, among others. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999, and gained a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2010, he was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life." His life and career were dramatized in the 2015 biopic I Saw the Light.
== Early life ==
Hiram Williams was born on September 17, 1923, in the rural community of Mount Olive in Butler County, Alabama. He was the third child of Jessie Lillybelle "Lillie" (née Skipper; 1898–1955) and Elonzo Huble "Lon" Williams (1891–1970). Williams was of English and Welsh ancestry. Elonzo's family came from south and central Alabama, and his father fought during the American Civil War, first on the Confederate side, and then with the Union after he was captured. Elonzo was a railroad engineer for the W. T. Smith lumber company and was drafted during World War I, serving from July 1918 to June 1919. He suffered severe injuries after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone, and receiving a severe blow to the head.
The Williams' first child, Ernest Huble Williams, died two days after his birth on July 5, 1921. A daughter, Irene, was born a year later. His name was misspelled as "Hiriam" on his birth certificate, which was prepared and signed when he was 10 years old. Williams was born with spina bifida occulta, a birth defect of the spinal column that caused him lifelong pain and became a major factor in his later alcohol and drug abuse. At the age of three, Williams sat with his mother as she played the organ at the Mount Olive Baptist Church. Lillie also joined singing the hymns that influenced the singer's later compositions. Williams received his first musical instrument, a harmonica, at the age of six. As a child, he was nicknamed "Harm" by his family and "Herky" or "Skeets" by his friends.
Williams's father frequently relocated for work, and as a result the family lived in several southern Alabama towns. In 1930, when Williams was seven years old, Elonzo began experiencing facial paralysis. After being evaluated at a Veterans' Administration clinic in Pensacola, Florida, doctors determined that he had a brain aneurysm, and Elonzo was sent to the VA Medical Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. He remained hospitalized for eight years and was mostly absent throughout Williams's childhood. From that point on, Lillie assumed responsibility for the family.
In the fall of 1933, Williams was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Walter and Alice McNeil, in Fountain, Alabama. Their daughter, Opal, went in exchange to live with Lillie to attend school in Georgiana, Alabama. Williams learned to play basic guitar chords from his aunt and listened to music that was played at dances and in area churches. The following year, the Williams family moved to Greenville, Alabama, where Lillie opened a boarding house next to the local cotton gin. The family later returned with Opal McNeil to Georgiana, where Lillie took several side jobs to support the family despite the bleak economic climate of the Great Depression. She worked in a cannery and served as a night-shift nurse in the local hospital. Their first house burned down, and the family lost their possessions. They moved to Rose Street on the other side of town, into a house which Williams's mother soon turned into another boarding house. The house had a small garden in which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana. At a chance meeting in Georgiana, Williams's sister Irene met U.S. Representative J. Lister Hill while Hill was campaigning across Alabama. She told Hill that her mother was interested in talking to him about her problems. With Hill's help, the family began collecting Elonzo's disability pension. Despite his medical condition, the family managed fairly well financially throughout the Great Depression.
There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. While several prominent Georgiana residents later claimed to have bought it for him, his mother said she bought it for him and that she arranged for his first lessons. Williams told Ralph Gleason, who at the time was writing a weekly music column in the San Francisco Chronicle, "When I was about eight years old, I got my first git-tar. A second-hand $3.50 git-tar my mother bought me." Gawky and shy, Williams attached himself to an old black man, Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer whom Williams followed around town. Payne gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for money or meals prepared by Lillie. Payne's basic musical style was blues; he repeatedly stressed the importance of maintaining good rhythm and time, and he added the showmanship of stoops, bows, laughs and cries to his performances. Later on, Williams recorded "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", one of the songs Payne had taught him. Williams was also influenced by country acts such as Roy Acuff. In 1937, Williams got into a fight with his physical education teacher about exercises the coach wanted him to do. His mother subsequently demanded that the school board terminate the coach; when they refused, the family moved to Montgomery, Alabama. Payne and Williams lost touch, though Payne also eventually moved to Montgomery, where he died in poverty in 1939. Williams later credited him as the provider of the only musical training he ever had.
== Career ==
=== 1930s ===
In July 1937, the Williams and McNeils opened a boarding house on South Perry Street in downtown Montgomery. It was at this time that Williams decided to change his name informally from Hiram to Hank. During the same year, he participated in a talent show at the Empire Theater and won the first prize of US$15 (equivalent to $300 in 2024) singing his first original song "WPA Blues". Williams wrote the lyrics and used the tune of Riley Puckett's "Dissatisfied".
He never learned to read music; instead he based his compositions in storytelling and personal experience.
After school and on weekends, Williams sang and played his Silvertone guitar on the sidewalk in front of the WSFA radio studio. His recent win at the Empire Theater and the street performances caught the attention of WSFA producers who occasionally invited him to perform on air with Dad Crysel's band.
In August 1938, Elonzo Williams was temporarily released from the hospital. He showed up unannounced at the family's home in Montgomery. Lillie was unwilling to let him reclaim his position as the head of the household. Elonzo stayed to celebrate his son's birthday in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana.
Williams's successful radio appearances fueled his entry into a music career, and he started his own band for show dates, the Drifting Cowboys. The original members were guitarist Braxton Schuffert, fiddler Freddie Beach, and upright bass player and comedian Smith "Hezzy" Adair. Originally billed as "Hank and Hezzy and the Drifting Cowboys", they frequently appeared as fill-ins at the local dancehall, Thigpen's Log Cabin, just out of Georgiana. The band traveled throughout central and southern Alabama performing in clubs and at private gatherings. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. Williams dropped out of school in October 1939 so that he and the Drifting Cowboys could work full-time. Lillie Williams began booking show dates, negotiating prices and driving them to some of their shows. Now free to travel without deference to Williams's schooling, the band could tour as far away as western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. The band started playing in theaters before the screening of films and later they played in honky-tonks. Williams's alcohol use started to become a problem during the tours; on occasion he spent a large part of the show revenues on alcohol. Meanwhile, between tour schedules, Williams returned to Montgomery to host his radio show.
=== 1940s ===
The American entry into World War II in 1941 marked the beginning of hard times for Williams. While he was medically disqualified from military service after falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas and suffering a back injury, his band members were all drafted to serve. Many of their replacements quit the band due to Williams's worsening alcoholism, and in August 1942 WSFA fired him for "habitual drunkenness". Backstage during one of his concerts, Williams met Roy Acuff, who warned him of the dangers of alcohol, saying, "You've got a million-dollar voice, son, but a ten-cent brain."
He started a job as a shipfitter's helper for the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company at Mobile in 1942, working there off and on for about a year and a half during the war. He also worked briefly at Kaiser Shipyards in Portland, Oregon, apparently lured by the free tickets, free accommodations, free training, and good wages offered by the company. In 1943, Williams met Audrey Sheppard at a medicine show in Banks, Alabama. According to Sheppard, she and Williams lived in a hotel in Mobile while they worked together at the shipyard for a short while. Sheppard told Williams that she wanted to help him regain his radio show, and that they should move to Montgomery and start a band. The couple were married in 1944 at a Texaco gas station in Andalusia, Alabama, by a justice of the peace. The marriage was technically invalid, since Sheppard's divorce from her previous husband did not comply with the legally required 60-day reconciliation period.
In 1945, back in Montgomery, Williams returned to WSFA radio. He attempted to expand his repertoire by writing original songs, and he published his first songbook, Original Songs of Hank Williams, containing "I'm Not Coming Home Anymore" and several more original songs, nine in all, including one not written by him, "A Tramp on the Street". With Williams beginning to be recognized as a songwriter, Sheppard became his manager and occasionally sang and substituted on guitar when a band member did not make the show.
On September 14, 1946, Williams auditioned for Nashville's Grand Ole Opry at the recommendation of Ernest Tubb, but was rejected. After the failure of his audition, Williams and Audrey attempted to interest the recently formed music publishing firm Acuff-Rose Music. They approached Fred Rose, the president of the company, during one of his daily ping-pong games at WSM radio studios. Audrey asked Rose if her husband could sing a song for him at that moment, Rose agreed, and perceived that Williams had much promise as a songwriter. Rose signed Williams to a six-song contract, and leveraged this deal to sign Williams with Sterling Records. On December 11, 1946, in his first recording session, Williams recorded "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul", "Calling You", "Never Again (Will I Knock on Your Door)", and "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels", which was misprinted as "When God Comes and Fathers His Jewels". The Sterling releases of Williams's songs became successful, and Rose decided to find a larger label for future releases. The producer then approached the newly formed recording division of the Loews Corporation, MGM Records.
Williams signed with MGM Records in 1947 and released "Move It on Over", which became a country hit. In 1948, he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and joined the Louisiana Hayride, a radio show broadcast on KWKH that brought him into living rooms all over the Southeastern United States, appearing in weekend shows. As part of the arrangement, Williams got a program on the station and bookings through the Hayride's artist service to perform across western Louisiana and eastern Texas, always returning on Saturdays for the show's weekly broadcast. After a few more moderate hits, in 1949 he released his version of the 1922 Cliff Friend and Irving Mills song "Lovesick Blues", made popular by Rex Griffin. Williams's version was a hit; the song stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for four consecutive months. Following the success of the releases of "Lovesick Blues" and "Wedding Bells", Williams signed a management contract with Oscar Davis. Davis then booked the singer on a Grand Ole Opry package show, and he later negotiated Williams's induction into the musical troupe.
On June 11, 1949, Williams made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, where he received six encores. He brought together Bob McNett (guitar), Hillous Butrum (bass), Jerry Rivers (fiddle) and Don Helms (steel guitar) to form the most famous version of the Drifting Cowboys. That year Audrey Williams gave birth to Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.). During 1949, he joined the Grand Ole Opry's first European tour, performing in military bases in Germany and Austria. Williams had five songs that ranked in the top five Billboard Hot Country Singles that year including: "Wedding Bells", "Mind Your Own Business", "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)", "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", and "Lovesick Blues", which reached No. 1.
=== 1950s ===
By 1950, Williams earned an estimated $1,000 per show (equivalent to $13,100 in 2024). That year, he began recording as "Luke the Drifter" for his moral-themed songs, many of which are recitations rather than singing. Fred Rose had been concerned how it would affect the jukebox operators who serviced the machines at the honky-tonks where William's songs were most commonly played if a customer punched a "Hank Williams" selection on a jukebox and heard a sermon rather than the music expected. It was he who requested that Hank use a pseudonym for these recitations to avoid leading people astray. Although the real identity of Luke the Drifter was supposed to be unknown, Williams often performed part of the recorded material on stage. Most of the material was written by Williams himself, although Fred Rose wrote at least one piece, and others, according to his son Wesley, were collaborations between Williams, Rose, and himself. The songs depicted Luke the Drifter traveling around from place to place, narrating stories of different characters and philosophizing about relationships gone awry, injustice in society, and death. Performances of the compositions included only Williams's voice, an organ, a bass fiddle, and Helms' steel guitar.
Around this time Williams released more hit songs, such as "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy", "Why Should We Try Anymore", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", and "I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'". In 1951, "Dear John" became a hit, but it was the B-side, "Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most recognized songs. A pop cover version by Tony Bennett released the same year stayed on the charts for 27 weeks, peaking at number one.
Williams's career reached a peak in the late summer of 1951 with his Hadacol tour of the U.S. with Bob Hope and other actors. On the weekend after the tour ended, Williams was photographed backstage at the Grand Ole Opry signing a motion picture deal with MGM. In October, Williams recorded a demo, "There's a Tear in My Beer" for a friend, "Big Bill Lister", who had recorded "Beer Drinking Blues", a beer drinking song that sold well, and needed another one. The session was recorded by the head of A&R for Capitol Records, Ken Nelson. Afterwards Lister stored the demo acetate, with no markings, in a box of records kept at his house, and then when he moved, in his yard under a tarp for several years. He eventually gave the acetate to Hank Williams, Jr., who had a hit with it and an accompanying video which depicted the son playing with his father in an overdubbed dream sequence. The following month, MGM Records released Williams's debut album, Hank Williams Sings. On November 14, 1951, Williams drove with Bill Lister and the Drifting Cowboys to New York where he appeared on television for the first time with Perry Como on CBS's Perry Como Show. There he sang "Hey Good Lookin'", and the next week Como opened the show wearing a cowboy hat and singing the same song, with apologies to Williams.
On May 21, 1951, Williams was admitted to North Louisiana Sanitarium in Shreveport for treatment of his alcoholism and his back problem, and was released on May 24. In November of the same year, he fell trying to leap across a gully on a squirrel hunting trip with his fiddler Jerry Rivers in Franklin, Tennessee. The fall aggravated his congenital spinal condition, and on December 13, 1951, he underwent a spinal fusion at Vanderbilt University Hospital. He was discharged against medical advice on Christmas Eve wearing a back brace and consuming more painkillers, to the detriment of his already compromised health.
In the spring of 1952, Williams flew to New York City twice with his band and a Grand Ole Opry troupe to appear on two episodes of the nationally broadcast The Kate Smith Evening Hour. On March 26, he performed "Hey Good Lookin'" and joined the rest of the cast in singing "I Saw the Light". On April 23, he performed "Cold, Cold Heart" and sang a truncated "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" with Anita Carter, and later joined the cast in singing "Glory Bound Train". During the same year, Williams had a brief extramarital affair with dancer Bobbie Jett, resulting in the birth of their daughter, Jett Williams.
In June 1952, he recorded "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "Window Shopping", "Settin' the Woods on Fire", and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive". Audrey Williams divorced him that year; the next day he recorded "You Win Again" and "I Won't Be Home No More". Around this time, he met Billie Jean Jones, a girlfriend of country singer Faron Young, at the Grand Ole Opry. As a girl, Jones had lived down the street from Williams when he was with the Louisiana Hayride, and now Williams began to visit her frequently in Shreveport, causing him to miss many Grand Ole Opry appearances.
On August 11, 1952, Williams was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry for habitual drunkenness and missing shows. He returned to Shreveport to perform on KWKH and WBAM shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again. His performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were poor. In October 1952 he married Billie Jean Jones.
During his last recording session on September 23, 1952, Williams recorded "Kaw-Liga", along with "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Take These Chains from My Heart", and "I Could Never Be Ashamed of You". By the end of 1952, Williams started to have heart problems. He met Horace "Toby" Marshall in Oklahoma City, who said that he was a doctor. Marshall had been previously convicted for forgery, and had been paroled and released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1951. Among other fake titles, he said that he was a Doctor of Science. He purchased the DSC title for $25 from the Chicago School of Applied Science; in the diploma, he requested that the DSC be spelled out as "Doctor of Science and Psychology". Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine, which made his heart problems worse. The final concert of his 1952 tour was held in Austin, Texas, at the Skyline Club on December 19. Williams's last known public performance took place in Montgomery, on December 21, where he sang at a benefit held by the local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians for a radio announcer who had polio.
== Personal life ==
On December 15, 1944, Williams married Audrey Sheppard. It was her second marriage and his first. Their son, Randall Hank Williams (now known as Hank Williams Jr.), was born on May 26, 1949. The marriage was always turbulent and rapidly disintegrated, and Williams developed serious problems with alcohol, morphine, and other painkillers prescribed for him to ease the severe back pain caused by his spina bifida occulta. The couple divorced on May 29, 1952.
In June 1952, Williams moved into a house on the corner of Natchez Trace and Westwood Avenue in Nashville, sharing it with singer Ray Price. Price left soon after due to Williams's alcoholism. Following an unsuccessful tour of California and several stints in a sanitorium, Williams moved to his mother's boardinghouse by September. A relationship with a woman named Bobbie Jett during this period resulted in a daughter, Jett Williams, who was born five days after Williams died.
His mother adopted Jett, who became a ward of the state after her grandmother's death. She was adopted and raised by an unrelated couple and did not learn that she was Williams's daughter until the early 1980s.
On October 18, 1952, Williams and Billie Jean Jones were married by a justice of the peace in Minden, Louisiana. The next day, two public marriage ceremonies were held at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium, where 14,000 seats were sold for each. After Williams's death, a judge ruled that the wedding was not legal because Jones' divorce had not become final until 11 days after she married Williams. His first wife and his mother were the driving forces behind having the marriage declared invalid, and they pursued the matter for years.
A man named Lewis Fitzgerald (born 1943) claimed to be Williams's illegitimate son; he was the son of Marie McNeil, Williams's cousin. Fitzgerald was interviewed, and he suggested that Lillie Williams operated a brothel at her boarding house in Montgomery. A friend of the family denied his claims, but singer Billy Walker claimed that Williams mentioned to him the presence of men in the house who were led upstairs.
== Death ==
Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia, on New Years Eve, December 31, 1952. Advance ticket sales totaled $3,000. That day, Williams could not fly because of a snow storm in the Montgomery area; he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts. On December 30, Williams and Carr stopped at the Redmont Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. The following morning, they continued to Fort Payne, and then to Knoxville, Tennessee. Williams and his driver then took a flight to Charleston, but the plane returned to Knoxville due to bad weather. Back in Knoxville, the two arrived at the Andrew Johnson Hotel, and Carr requested a doctor for Williams, who was affected by the combination of the chloral hydrate and alcohol he had consumed on the way to Knoxville. Dr. P. H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of morphine. Carr and Williams checked out of the hotel, but the porters had to carry Williams to the car. Carr later mentioned that Williams had severe hiccups, while the porters said that he had made a coughing sound twice. Carr spoke with Toby Marshall on the phone, who informed him on behalf of the tour's promoter, A.V. Bamford, that the show in Charleston was cancelled and he ordered him instead to drive Williams to Canton, Ohio, for a New Year's Day concert there.
Around midnight on January 1, 1953, the two crossed the Tennessee state line and arrived in Bristol, Virginia. Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked for a relief driver from a local taxi company, as he felt exhausted after driving for 20 hours. Driver Don Surface left the restaurant with Carr and Williams. They drove on until they stopped for fuel and coffee at a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where they realized that Williams had been dead for so long that rigor mortis had already set in. The station's owner called the local police chief. Dr. Ivan Malinin performed the autopsy at the Tyree Funeral House. He found hemorrhages in the heart and neck and pronounced the cause of death as "acute rt. ventricular dilation". He also wrote that Williams had been severely beaten and kicked in the groin recently (during a fight in a Montgomery bar a few days earlier), and local magistrate Virgil F. Lyons ordered an inquest into Williams's death concerning a welt that was visible on his head. That evening in Canton, when Williams's death was announced to the gathered crowd, a few people started laughing because they thought it was a joke. Akron deejay Cliff Rodgers assured the crowd that it was no joke and that Hank Williams was indeed dead. When Hawkshaw Hawkins and other performers started singing Williams's song "I Saw the Light" as a tribute to him, the crowd began to sing along.
On January 2, Williams's body was transported to Montgomery, Alabama, where it was placed in a silver casket that was displayed at his mother's boarding house for two days. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his casket placed on the flower-covered stage. Mourners came to Montgomery from all over the South, and beyond. An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people were outside the auditorium, and inside were 2,750, with the balcony set aside for about 200 black mourners. Hundreds passed by the casket. Backed by the Drifting Cowboys, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb and Red Foley performed "I Saw the Light", "Beyond the Sunset" and "Peace in the Valley". Williams's remains are interred at the Oakwood Annex in Montgomery.
In late January 1953, MGM Records told Billboard magazine that the label had to reduce their planned releases for the month from 12 records to 6 to satisfy the demand for Williams's music. The label estimated that the amount of back orders of his records, and those by other artists would cover the production of their Bloomfield, New Jersey, pressing plant until April 1953. Meanwhile, MGM Records received 3,000 direct requests for pictures of the singer, that combined with the requests from the distributors made the company outsource their printing and shipment. According to Acuff-Rose Music, the sales from the two Williams song folios jumped from their average of 700 per week to 5,000 in three weeks.
Williams's final single, released in November 1952 while he was still alive, was titled "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive". His song "Your Cheatin' Heart" was written and recorded in September 1952, but released in late January 1953 after his death. The song, backed by "Kaw-Liga", was No. 1 on the country charts for six weeks. "Take These Chains From My Heart" was released in April 1953 and reached No. 1 on the country charts. Released in July, "I Won't Be Home No More" went to No. 4. Meanwhile, "Weary Blues From Waitin'" reached No. 7.
== Legacy ==
The Country Music Hall of Fame stressed that Williams "set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft" and the "standard by which success is measured in country music". Encyclopædia Britannica considers him "country music's first superstar" and an "immensely talented songwriter and an impassioned vocalist". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame praised the "straightforward approach" of Williams's songs, which they deemed "brutally honest" and written in the "language of the everyman". To AllMusic, Williams "established the rules for all the country performers who followed him and, in the process, much of popular music".
Entertainment Weekly's TV critic, Ken Tucker, wrote: "despite being a pop-culture titan and rightly dubbed 'father of country music', Hank Williams was possibly the least likable — least warm and sympathetic — figure in modern music. Reeking of self-pity, he wrote and sang some of the greatest woe-is-me music of the century [...] Brimming with an anger that regularly spilled over into misogyny, Williams was also a master of spite." Hank Williams, Jr. wrote in his autobiography: "To hear the tributes, one would think that the entire city [Nashville] took turns kissing Daddy while he was still alive. [...] While he was alive, he was despised and envied; after he died, he was some kind of saint."
Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day". The first celebration, in 1954, featured the unveiling of a monument at the Cramton Bowl that was later placed at the gravesite of Williams. The ceremony featured Ferlin Husky interpreting "I Saw the Light". Williams had 11 number one country hits in his career ("Lovesick Blues", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", "Cold, Cold Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive", "Kaw-Liga", "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "Take These Chains from My Heart"), as well as many other top 10 hits.
Many artists of the 1950s and 1960s, including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard, Gene Vincent, and Ricky Nelson and Conway Twitty were influenced by Williams.
When Downbeat magazine took a poll the year after Williams's death, he was voted the most popular country and Western performer of all time. On February 8, 1960, Williams's star was placed at 6400 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, and into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985.
In 1964, the biographical film Your Cheatin' Heart starring George Hamilton as Williams was released. The American Truckers Benevolent Association, a national organization of CB truck drivers, voted "Your Cheatin' Heart" as their favorite record of all time in the fourth annual Truck Drivers' Country Music Awards, in 1978. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame under the category "Early Influence", and he was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was ranked second in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only Johnny Cash who recorded the song "The Night Hank Williams Came To Town". His son, Hank Jr., was ranked on the same list. Canadian singer Sneezy Waters performed as Williams in the stage play Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave. A 1980 movie adaptation also starring Waters was produced for television.
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2005, the BBC documentary series Arena featured an episode on Williams.
In 2010, Williams's 1949 MGM number one hit, "Lovesick Blues", was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame. The same year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best Recordings ...Plus! was honored with a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album. In 1999, Williams was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame. On April 12, 2010, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Williams a posthumous special citation that paid tribute to his "craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life".
Several of Williams's descendants became musicians: son Hank Williams Jr., daughter Jett Williams, grandsons Hank Williams III and Sam Williams, and granddaughters Hilary Williams and Holly Williams are also country musicians. In July 2020, his granddaughter Katherine (Hank Jr.'s daughter) died in a car crash at the age of 27. His great-grandson Coleman Finchum, son of Hank Williams III, released his debut single credited to IV and the Strange Band in 2021. Meanwhile, Lewis Fitzgerald's son Ricky billed himself as Hank Williams IV following his father's claim of being Williams's son.
According to reportage in the Los Angeles Times, on his road trips Williams carried a brown leather briefcase containing notebooks in which he wrote musings, lines and verses of song lyrics, as well as jottings on whatever had been handy. After he died, the cache of sixty-six unpublished songs in four notebooks was stored in a fireproof vault at the Nashville offices of his publishing firm, Acuff-Rose Publications. The vault was moved in 2002 to the offices of Sony ATV Music when it acquired Acuff-Rose.
After the 2001 tribute album, "Hank Williams: Timeless" won a Grammy Award for country album of the year, there was heightened interest in similar projects. A&R executive Mary Martin, one of the producers of "Timeless", was consulted about other means of drawing attention to material from the Williams archive. She said that Bob Dylan was given the first opportunity to perform 12 songs for a CD compilation. Dylan approached Williams's granddaughter Holly Williams at a show where he gave her a sheaf of song lyrics he wanted her to read. She later said that although Dylan had said nothing about them at first, she recognized them immediately as her grandfather's work. He then said he had been asked to possibly cut an entire album, or that he might have other artists perform them. She heard nothing more about it for two years until Mary Martin revived the project and she got a phone call from her publishing company saying it was time for her to pick up some samples of the available material.
Consequently, several other musicians got involved in the project, their main task being to create music that suited the lyrics. Dylan chose a song called "The Love That Faded" and fashioned a "honky-tonk waltz through heartache", while Holly Williams combed through the songs and songs fragments and chose one called "Blue Is My Heart", which had only eight lines. She wrote two more and added a bridge. The completed album, named The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, included the contributions of Bob Dylan and Holly Williams, as well as recordings by Alan Jackson, Jack White, Jakob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Levon Helm, Sheryl Crow, and Merle Haggard. The album was released on October 4, 2011.
Material recorded by Williams, originally intended for radio broadcasts to be played when he was on tour or for its distribution to radio stations nationwide, resurfaced over the years. In 1993, a double-disc set of recordings of Williams for the Health & Happiness Show was released. Broadcast in 1949, the shows were recorded for the promotion of Hadacol. The set was re-released on Hank Williams: The Legend Begins in 2011. The album included the unreleased songs "Fan It" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band", recorded by Williams at age 15; the homemade recordings of him singing "Freight Train Blues", "New San Antonio Rose", "St. Louis Blues" and "Greenback Dollar" at age 18; and a recording for the 1951 March of Dimes.
In May 2014, further radio recordings by Williams were released. These were recordings of The Garden Spot Programs, 1950, a series of publicity segments for plant nursery Naughton Farms originally aired in 1950. The recordings were found by collector George Gimarc at radio station KSIB in Creston, Iowa. Gimarc contacted Williams's daughter Jett, and Colin Escott, a music historian and biographer of Williams. The material was restored and remastered by Michael Graves and released by Omnivore Recordings. The release won a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.
Williams was portrayed by English actor Tom Hiddleston in the 2016 biopic I Saw the Light, based on Colin Escott's 1994 book Hank Williams: The Biography. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Williams at No. 30 on their list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. For the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Hank Williams Museum organized a three-day event in Montgomery that consisted of a series of concerts at the Davis Theater at Troy University and a wreath-laying ceremony at Williams's graveside as the closing event. At the ceremony, September 17, 2023, was proclaimed Hank Williams Day. Meanwhile, in Nashville, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum organized a concert featuring artists including Rodney Crowell and Williams's grandchildren Holly, Hillary, and Sam among others. On the anniversary, Billboard commented that Williams was a "breakthrough songwriter" who "remains a mythological figure".
=== Lawsuits over the estate ===
Williams died without leaving a will. In May 1953, Audrey Williams filed a lawsuit in Nashville against MGM Records and Acuff-Rose. The suit demanded that both of the publishing companies continue to pay her half of the royalties from Hank Williams's records. Williams had an agreement giving his first wife half of the royalties, but allegedly there was no clarification that the deal was valid after his death. Because Williams left no will, the disposition of the remaining 50 percent was considered uncertain; those involved included Williams's second wife, Billie Jean Horton and Williams's mother and sister.
At the time of his death, Williams's estate was estimated to be US$13,329.25 (equivalent to $156,700 in 2024) between cash, a cashier's check and his possessions. Lilly Williams considered the legality of Billie Jean's marriage to her son doubtful and she filed for the control of the estate. Billie Jean's lawyer argued that although she married Williams ten days before the finalization of her divorce to Harrison Eshlimar, Louisiana law considered the union legal since she married "in good faith".
Doubtful of the legality of the marriage in Tennessee and Alabama, Lilly Williams and her lawyers made several offers to settle out of court with Billie Jean that reached a final of US$30,000. On August 19, 1953, Billie Jean signed an agreement accepting the money. It required that she stopped making appearances billing herself as "Mrs. Hank Williams", to reveal the location of Williams's Tennessee Walking Horse, and the return of a saddle and three suitcases that belonged to him. With the agreement, Lilly became the legal guardian of the estate on behalf of Hank Williams, Jr.
Soon after giving birth, Bobbie Jett left her and Williams's daughter at Lilly's boardinghouse. Williams's mother expressed to the Montgomery County Department of Public Welfare in January 1953 her intention to adopt the child. While Irene Williams opposed the adoption, Williams's mother was granted the custody over the child she renamed "Cathy". However, upon Lilly's death in 1955, Irene Williams assumed control of the estate. She became thus the legal guardian of Williams's son, while refusing to adopt Cathy. Irene made an attempt to contact the girl's mother, Bobbie Jett, who was at the time married and lived in California. Jett refused to take the child since her husband did not know of the existence of her daughter with Williams. Cathy was then put up for adoption and granted money from the estate of Lilly Williams, to be paid at the age of 21.
In 1963, Wesley Rose contacted Irene regarding the copyright renewals with Acuff-Rose: Rose offered US$25,000 (equivalent to $256,800 in 2024), which Irene accepted to prevent Williams's daughter from making a claim in the future. In 1966, an Alabama judge determined that the guardianship of Williams's estate belonged to Irene Williams, and he confirmed the validity of the copyright renewal deal. Cathy's adoptive parents were contacted by a lawyer, but they refused to contest the ruling of the court. In 1967, Hank Williams, Jr. was declared the only heir to the estate by a second judge. In 1969, the guardianship of the estate was transferred to lawyer Robert Stewart after Irene was arrested and sentenced to a jail term for possession of cocaine by a Texas court. Hank Williams, Jr. reached legal adulthood in 1970.
On October 22, 1975, a federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia, ruled that Billie Jean Horton was Williams's common-law wife, and that part of the copyright renewals of the songs belonged to her. At the age of 21, Cathy learned that Hank Williams was her biological father. In 1981, she found her half-siblings in California, and she learned of a 1952 contract between her biological parents that recognized her as Williams's daughter. She also learned that the court decisions of the 1960s ignored her existence. After a decision by the Supreme Court of Alabama in 1989, she was recognized as an heir of the estate of Williams. She later changed her name to Jett Williams.
==== WSM's Mother's Best Flour ====
In 1951, Williams hosted a 15-minute show for Mother's Best Flour on WSM radio. Due to Williams's tour schedules, some of the shows were previously recorded to be played in his absence. During the mid-1960s, WSM staff photographer Les Leverett rescued acetates that were thrown away by the station. At a later point, the recordings were duplicated. In the 1980s, he shared the acetates with Williams's former band member Jerry Rivers. A decade later, Leverett made a deal with former Drifting Cowboy Hillous Brutum, who did not appear on the recordings, for a commercial release of the copies.
The Legacy Entertainment Group, based in Brentwood, Tennessee, was sued by PolyGram and the heirs of Williams to block the release in 1997. While the original acetates of the shows made their way to the possession of Jett Williams, the lawyer of Legacy Entertainment Group claimed that they belonged to the label and he made an attempt to prevent the heirs of Williams to work on their own release of the recordings. Leverett then told The Tennessean that the original acetates did not belong to Butrum, and that the two of them made a deal to share the profits of the planned Legacy Entertainment Group release. The Universal Music Group, the parent company of Polygram, then claimed ownership of the shows.
In January 2006, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams's heirs—son, Hank Williams Jr, and daughter, Jett Williams—have the sole rights to sell his recordings. In 2008, Time-Life released Unreleased Recordings, a selection of numbers pertaining to the Mother's Best Flour shows. In 2010, the company released a 15-CD box-set containing all of the recordings remastered by sound engineer Joe Palmaccio entitled The Complete Mothers' Best Recordings... Plus!.
=== Tributes ===
== Awards ==
== Discography ==
== Notes ==
== Footnotes ==
=== References ===
== Further reading ==
Flippo, Chet (1997) [1981]. Your Cheatin' Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams. London: Plexus. ISBN 9780859652322.
Williams, Lycrecia; Dale Vinicur (1989). Still in Love with You: Hank and Audrey Williams. Nashville, Tenn.: Rutledge Hill Press. ISBN 978-1-55853-105-5. OCLC 42469829.
Rivers, Jerry (1967). Thurston Moore (ed.). Hank Williams: From Life to Legend. Denver: Heather Enterprises. LCCN 67030642. OCLC 902165.
== External links ==
Hank Williams at AllMusic
Hank Williams at IMDb
Listing of all Hank Williams's songs and alternatives Archived August 5, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
Hank Williams 1923–1953 at Library of Congress, with 127 library catalog records
Gilliland, John (1969). Tennessee Firebird: American country music before and after Elvis. (Part 1) Hank Williams, Everly Brothers |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Tate | Mavis Tate | Mavis Constance Tate (born Maybird Hogg; 17 August 1893 – 5 June 1947) was a British Conservative politician and campaigner for British women's rights.
== Early life ==
Maybird Hogg was daughter of Guy Weir Hogg (1861-1943), a diplomat who served as British consul for Portugal, Sweden, and Norway, was a justice of the peace, and had business interests as managing director of SA Advertising Contractors at Cape Town, South Africa, and as general manager of the Uganda Company. His wife Constance was daughter of Henry Joseph Marsden. Guy Hogg was grandson of Sir James Hogg, 1st Baronet, politician and chairman of the East India Company. Mavis Tate's brother, Kenneth, would succeed as the 6th baronet.
== Political career ==
As a member of the Conservative Party, she was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for what under normal political conditions was generally a safe Labour seat, Willesden West, in 1931. In 1935, she moved to the constituency of Frome, which she held for the Conservatives with a majority of 994. Frome had been a Labour seat during the 1920s prior to her election, and in 1945 she was defeated by the Labour candidate.
Tate was an early member of Archibald Ramsay's Right Club from its founding in May 1939. At the same time, however, she was on record for having publicly protested Germany's mistreatment of Jews after Kristallnacht in 1938. Tate further distanced herself from the far-right after a nervous breakdown in 1940.
== Women's rights campaign ==
In 1932, as MP for Willesden West, she spoke out against a clause in the National Health Insurance and Contributory Pension Bill which would penalise all married women as 'malingerers and cheats until they have definitely proved that they are not', though they had paid fully into the fund. On the Employment Bill of 1933 she argued lucidly for more training of the unemployed: 'it would be better to send a smaller number of people to undertake a really full course of training, and to turn them out as trained men, capable of earning good wages, than to send a larger number there and again flood the market with people who are not fully trained.' This was an issue she returned to again and again in her parliamentary career. In 1934 during discussion of the Employment Assistance Act, she raised the issue of different benefit scales for men and women: 'When you are dealing with the destitute, I suggest that a destitute man and a destitute woman cannot be kept for a different sum of money.' She argued for improvements in midwifery training, given 'terrible figures of maternal mortality' in 1935. She raised the issue of money research into mental disorder and deficiency,
particularly when sterilisation as a solution to mental incapacity was being advocated, also observing what were then solutions: 'Do you mean to tell me that the padded cell is a method of cure?'
She was a passionate advocate of equal pay for men and women: The question really is one of principle. I believe that work should be done by the man or woman best qualified to do it, and that the pay should be commensurate with what the work is worth. But it is just as well to recognise, when we consider the question of women's work, that no one has ever objected to women working. They have always worked extremely hard. They not only ran their homes, but if we go back to the Middle Ages we find that they also spun their cloth, worked hard on the land, brought up their children, and in fact produced or helped to produce most of the consumable products in the country. It is only when women begin to work for gain that the question of her work ever arises. That is a thing which it is just as well to remember when we are talking of women taking men's work. If we look back we find it was when men began to bake bread and sell it for profit, when men began to manage the heavy laundry machinery, when men began to produce by industry the consumable products, that it was first recognised that women had no right to work for gain. Therefore, do not let us talk only of women taking men's work, because obviously not so long ago it was the men who took the women's work.
With regard to the Government's attitude, we can safely say that they have given perhaps the worst possible example, as regards equal pay. We know that with regard to the Civil service, the teaching profession and everywhere where they have employed women, they have systematically employed them at a lower rate of pay than men. In spite of resolutions that have been passed by this House the position is steadily getting worse, with the result that you will inevitably have an increase in the number of women employed and a decrease in the number of men. She supported the equal rights of women within a discussion of the nationality of women: 'in so far as nationality is concerned a married woman should be in the same position as a man, married or unmarried, or any single woman', presenting a petition to that effect from 100 Commonwealth women's groups.
By 1936 she was the MP for Frome. She supported the Marriage Bill in that year, because it attempted to remove abuses of divorce law. She spoke of the effects of illegitimacy upon children whose parents were unable to marry because 'they are legally tied to partners who are in prison or in an asylum'. She challenged the employment of 14 year olds in factories, expressing concern for the deterioration of health in young people once they had left school, especially many firms took little regard of the regulations for limiting long hours and overtime; she argued again for equal pay for men and women. She argued for improvements in pensions for women: 'A woman who has had all her life to earn her own living has usually had to do so at a lower salary than a man in the same position would have earned. She has therefore not been able to save as much money as he probably could have saved.' She objected to clauses in the Marriage Bill which seemed to imply that a desertion by one partner over several years did not constitute a breakdown of a marriage; she quoted a clergyman: "If the bonds are broken, if the happy relationship of love and confidence is destroyed and cannot be re-established, if the home becomes a hell, if one partner repudiates his responsibility and leaves the other to face life alone, the re[ality] is no Christian marriage."
In the World War II, Tate was an advocate of arming women to resist a feared German invasion in 1940. Tate read and quoted the work of the overtly antisemitic writer Douglas Reed, who she used to support her advocacy for the mass internment of refugees in 1940. Tate stated that Jews were capable of acting as spies for Nazism: "I sympathise with the Jews, but Germany has learned to make skilful use of them...It is no good saying that because a person is a refugee, because a man is a Jew and a victim of Nazi aggression, that he may not, nevertheless, be a potential danger to this country".
She chaired the Women's Power Committee of 1941 and the Equal Pay Campaign Committee of 1942 and was vocal on the subject of equal pay for women as part of the war effort.
== Contrary views ==
In two areas she seems to have gone against the considered advice of both colleagues and scientists.
In 1936 she raised the issue of the validity of the kind of smallpox vaccination the government was issuing, challenging the use of a living virus. In 1939 she said that the lymph vaccination method to be used for the inoculation of soldiers
was 'produced partly from rabbits, and is very likely, therefore, to spread encephalitis, and is exceedingly dangerous to use'. Her statement was ignored.
In 1937 she objected to the pasteurisation of milk, citing mothers in her constituency who did not care for it, claiming later 'the nutritive value of the milk negligible and the taste nauseating'. In 1939 she pursued this theme, saying that 'pasteurisation kills not only the vitamins but the hormones in milk', a 'pernicious practice'. A Royal Commission she alone requested on this issue was not approved. In spite of what seems to be general approval of pasteurisation by fellow MPs, she continued to pursue the issue: 'many people loathe pasteurised milk', despite cases of pulmonary tuberculosis 40% of which were related to milk infection (from unpasteurised sources).
== Journalism ==
In April 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, Tate travelled with nine other British parliamentarians to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany to report on the result of the atrocities there. She narrated the newsreel of this visit for British Pathé News, saying "do believe me when I tell you that the reality was indescribably worse than these pictures.". On 25 April Earl Stanhope, a Conservative peer, submitted the group's report to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who then presented it to Parliament on 27 April 1945.
== Personal life ==
She married Captain Gerald Ewart Gott in 1915; they divorced in 1925. In 1925 she married Henry Burton Tate, from whom she was divorced in 1944. She had adopted the first name of "Mavis" in 1930 by deed poll. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1940.
== Death ==
Tate committed suicide by gassing herself. Tate died at 6 Bloomfield Terrace, Westminster, on 5 June 1947, leaving an estate valued for probate at £35,482,978.
At an inquest on her death in 1947 the Coroner for Westminster found that she had committed suicide while her mind was disturbed through ill-health. In a note left for her brother she wrote: "As I have no one dependent on me, it seems to be the wiser thing to end my life. An invalid is only a national liability. Today I cannot endure the extensive, constant pain in my head and I have had practically no sleep at all for week after week." The medical evidence indicated the effects of intense overwork., including intense pain from kidney trouble. Her brother, Col. Kenneth Hogg, said she was always trying to do too much. Her illness dated from the time she visited the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945.
== References ==
== External links ==
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Mavis Tate UK Parliament
Women of the week Fembio |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacen_Solo | Jacen Solo | Jacen Solo is a fictional character in literature based on the Star Wars film series, set in what is now designated as the original-canon Star Wars Legends continuity. The son of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo, as well as the nephew of Luke Skywalker, he is a major character in several novels, particularly the New Jedi Order series. He becomes the antagonist of the Legacy of the Force series under the name Darth Caedus. Jacen's other familial connections of note to his native continuity include being the brother of Jaina Solo and Anakin Solo as well as the cousin of Ben Skywalker.
Jacen has been noted as an influence for Kylo Ren, the canonical son of Han and Leia and villain of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and Jacen Syndulla, the canonical son of Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla from the epilogue series finale of Star Wars Rebels, later portrayed by Evan Whitten in Ahsoka.
== Fictional history ==
=== Childhood ===
Jacen Solo was created for the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn, set about five years after Return of the Jedi. He is introduced as one of an unnamed pair of twins Leia is pregnant with in the first installment of the trilogy, the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire. In the third installment, the 1993 novel The Last Command, he is born five minutes after his sister Jaina on Coruscant. The twins, and eventually their younger brother Anakin, were sent to live at various safe havens, under the protection of Leia's handmaiden, Winter.
In Jedi Search, the twins returned to Coruscant at age three and had many adventures there. Once, they became lost in the underworld of Imperial City with C-3PO, but they were quickly rescued and returned to their mother, the Chief of State of the New Republic.
In The Crystal Star, all three children were abducted, together with many other children with Force abilities, by Hethrir. Hethrir tried to brainwash them into becoming Dark Jedi in order to bring about the rebirth of the Galactic Empire, but the children defeated their captor.
=== Jedi Academy years ===
In the Young Jedi Knights series, Jacen travels to Yavin 4 with his sister to begin his Jedi training. Jacen discovers a strong connection to the Living Force — the concentration on the present moment — and can communicate with and calm many of the jungle creatures near the Academy. He even keeps a small menagerie of animals in his room in the Great Massassi Temple. He and his sister befriend the Wookiee Lowbacca (nicknamed Lowie by his friends) and the warrior princess Tenel Ka.
In Heirs of the Force and Shadow Academy, Jacen and Jaina discover a crashed TIE fighter from the Battle of Yavin. Jaina installs a hyperdrive in the downed starfighter and begins fixing it to fly again. Jacen, Lowbacca, and Tenel Ka help her to practice their Force skills until all are held captive by the TIE's original pilot, Qorl, who had been living in the jungle for two decades. They eventually escape, but so does Qorl, leaving the jungle moon behind and searching for any remnants of the Galactic Empire. Qorl discovers the Shadow Academy, a training ground for Dark Jedi commanded by one of Luke Skywalker's fallen students, Brakiss, along with the remains of the Dathomiri Nightsisters. These elements of the so-called Second Imperium kidnap Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca, but they resist the dark side and are rescued by Luke Skywalker and Tenel Ka.
The friends return to Coruscant for a short vacation, and are reunited with the twins' childhood friend Zekk. They are forced to fight Jacen and Jaina several times, and the twins and their friends finally progress far enough to be tasked with building their first lightsabers. Jacen uses a corusca gem he had gained earlier for his focusing crystal.
Jacen's hard-learned lesson hits home once again in Lightsabers, when Tenel Ka rushes to complete her lightsaber to keep up with her friends. She uses an imperfect crystal and her blade shorts out in a sparring match with Jacen. His lightsaber passes through thin air where her weapon had been seconds before and severs the young woman's arm. Though she bears him no ill will for the accident, Jacen is wracked with guilt.
In Darkest Knight, the twins and Tenel Ka go to Kashyyyk with Lowbacca to witness his sister's adulthood rites. In Jedi Under Siege, the Jedi trainees and the Shadow Academy have their final confrontation on Yavin 4. The twins, with help from Luke and Zekk, bring down the Shadow Academy and the Second Imperium forever.
Throughout the series, Jacen and Jaina continue their training at Yavin 4, meeting new friends like Raynar Thul. They cannot convince Zekk to stay at the Academy with them, but Jacen and Jaina remain friends with him. With his and Raynar's help, they discover a threat to the New Republic: the Diversity Alliance, an alien, anti-human group. The Alliance is building up massive support among peoples that had been oppressed by the Empire. They are led by a Twi'lek Nolaa Tarkona, the sister of Oola, who was murdered by Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi.
In Jedi Bounty, Jacen, Jaina, and their friends are briefly held captive on Ryloth and have to escape to its harsh surface. They have gone there in an attempt to rescue Lowbacca, who had misguidedly joined the anti-human Diversity Alliance. In the following book, The Emperor's Plague, they get to the bottom of a plot they had suspected all along, and catch up with Raynar's father, Bornan Thul, to race the Diversity Alliance fleet to an Imperial storehouse hidden in the deep core. There is hidden a supply of deadly diseases created by General Evir Derricote almost two decades before. Tarkona wishes to unleash a plague against humans and wipe them all out, but the Jedi and Alliance dissidents defeat her. She succumbs to one of the diseases herself on a faraway planet. Bornan Thul dies from one of the plagues right before his son's eyes.
In Return to Ord Mantell, they go on a trip with their father to the titular planet to watch a race. There, they run into Czethros, a bounty hunter who once hunted Han. They are ambushed by Black Sun agents, but are helped by Anja Gallandro, a young woman who wields a lightsaber, though she is not a Jedi. Although attracted to Tenel Ka, Jacen becomes infatuated with the older woman. Anja had blamed Han Solo for killing her father, but Solo reveals that her father died in a trap while finding treasure.
In Trouble on Cloud City, they discover Czethros is a minor leader of Black Sun, and is trying to gather enough power to overcome the New Republic. Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowbacca are ambushed by several Black Sun mercenaries, and Jacen is almost killed.
In Crisis at Crystal Reef, Jaina attempts to help Kessel and capture Czetheros while Jacen rushes to help Anja with her spice addiction and help her with Black Sun. With help, Anja beats her addiction and accepts her father's death. Jacen thinks Anja has Jedi potential, but it turns out she didn't. He gets over his infatuation with Anja when she goes to work for Lando.
=== Yuuzhan Vong War ===
In the New Jedi Order series, Luke takes Jacen as his Jedi apprentice. Jacen learns much from Luke, though they disagree on many philosophical issues. Jacen believes in the Force not only as a tool, but as part of something greater. He tells his brother Anakin that the Force is a guide to find one's place in destiny.
When the Yuuzhan Vong attack the New Republic in Dark Tide: Onslaught, Jacen comes to believe that many Jedi are handling the threat too aggressively. He abandons his powers temporarily to contemplate the Force and butts heads with his father over the morality of 'pirate' attacks on Peace Brigade vessels. Only his love for his mother brings Jacen back into the front lines of the battle. Eventually, Han and Jacen make their peace, the former declaring that while he doesn't always understand his son, he is proud of him.
In Star by Star Jacen joins a daring mission to Myrkr. A Jedi strike force, led by Anakin, is to infiltrate a Yuuzhan Vong cloning facility where the invaders craft deadly Jedi-hunting beasts called Voxyn. The mission is a disaster, ending with Anakin's death, in which Jaina reacts by touching the dark side of the Force. Forced into the leadership position, Jacen uses the Force Meld to bind the team together into a cohesive fighting unit. After destroying the voxyn queen, Jacen is captured by the Yuuzhan Vong army under the command of Vergere and Nom Anor. Jacen disappears, along with his presence in the Force.
In Traitor, Jacen awakes to find himself in the Embrace of Pain, a rack-like torture device favored by the Yuuzhan Vong. The torture nearly breaks Jacen's spirit, until he learns to use the pain he suffers to sustain himself. He remains under the care and tutelage of the avian Vergere, who he learns had once been a Jedi of the Old Republic, and who had even met his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker.
He is put to work on Yuuzhan Vong ship, where he uses a number of herbs to heal slaves and get his captors to trust him. Using the implanted slave seed beneath his flesh as a conduit, Jacen communicates with the living instruments of Yuuzhan Vong technology. He uses this connection to stage a daring escape from captivity, commanding Yuuzhan Vong amphistaffs to surround him like living armor.
Jacen and Vergere flee to Coruscant. The planet's entire surface is undergoing a radical transformation. Yuuzhan Vong organic growths cover the once gleaming metropolis, remaking the planet into a Yuuzhan Vong paradise. The world is to be their new capital, a recreation of the planet that had spawned them, Yuuzhan'tar.
Vergere removes the slave seed from Jacen, but he can still sense the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen is later surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong warriors whom Vergere had led to him. Wanting revenge, Jacen channels his hatred for Vergere into Force lightning; he is frightened by this connection to the dark side, however, and runs away. Vergere finds him in his destroyed home and gives him back full use of the Force. He is once again surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong captors; left with no choice, he surrenders and agrees to join their cause. He becomes the "khattazz al'Yun," or Avatar of God. Nom Anor intends to use Jacen to sacrifice Jaina, thus fulfilling an ancient Yuuzhan Vong prophecy.
Jacen's true allegiance is his own, however. During a test of Jacen's faith, the Yuuzhan Vong orders him to sacrifice captured Jedi Ganner Rhysode. Instead, the two Jedi turn against their captors. As Ganner holds off the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen confronts the World Brain. The malevolent entity remembers the bond that Jacen had forged earlier, and Jacen suggests to it to work against the Yuuzhan Vong.
Ganner dies that day, though Jacen escapes with Vergere. He returns to the dwindling New Republic territories a different man: haggard, thin and hardened. He goes on a much needed vacation, but returns to frontline combat aboard the cruiser Ralroost. His ability to start the Jedi Meld is a large asset to Admiral Kre'fey, and Jacen joined the Alliance Fleet with elements of Garm Bel Iblis's forces in a large-scale deception at Ebaq 9. The battle ends in a victory, but results in Vergere's death. Her spectral form appears to him soon after.
As the newly formed Galactic Alliance emerged, Jacen accompanied his uncle Luke Skywalker into the Unknown Regions to seek a solution to the Yuuzhan Vong menace. Jacen would be instrumental in the search for Zonama Sekot and in the efforts to convince the living planet to join the fight against the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen kills Supreme Overlord Onimi, who had been using Supreme Overlord Shimrra as a puppet, in a spectacular confrontation where the Force uses Jacen as a conduit to defeat Onimi, considering that Jacen was almost killed with just one hit by Shimrra himself, and in that moment Jacen started believing that he is beyond good and evil, marking the beginning of his fall. After the grueling final confrontation and the war's end, Jacen tells Luke that he had decided to travel the galaxy to learn more about the Force.
While on his five-year journey Jacen enters a realm of the Force known as beyond shadows, thanks to his training with a sect called the Mind Walkers.
In this realm Jacen gazes into the Pool of Knowledge that holds the Throne of Balance, (where in all future events are shown)
Jacen sees a dark man ruling the Galaxy and becomes determined to prevent this evil future.
Following this experience, Jacen begins his descent to the dark side of the Force.
=== Dark Nest Crisis ===
In Dark Nest, Jacen feels an urge through the Force and follows his sister to the Unknown Regions to help the insectoid Killik against an invading Chiss force. He returns to Galactic Alliance space after his parents, resulting in his uncle and aunt to come for him, Jaina, and the other Jedi. He then travels to the Hapes Cluster to ask Tenel Ka to assist with the Chiss/Killik conflict, believing that the fleet could act as a buffer between the two armies. She obliges and sends a fleet of Hapan Battle Dragons to protect the Killiks.
In The Unseen Queen, Tenel Ka gives birth to his daughter, Allana, who is then attacked by the Gorog. Jacen successfully repels the attack and keeps his daughter safe. Possessed with a strong fear of his daughter or Tenel Ka being harmed, Jacen uses the Force to send Tenel Ka's grandmother (the person behind the attack) into a coma. Immediately afterward, he sees a vision of a neverending war that will destroy the galaxy, with the Killiks at the heart of it. Determined to save his daughter and the galaxy from his vision, he sets out to provoke the Chiss into destroying the Killiks. Jacen later reveals that he never knew who started the war in his vision.
In The Swarm War, Luke Skywalker takes his nephew's advice so many times that he even listens when Jacen tells him that he is not ready to face Lomi Plo, the Dark Queen of the Gorog. Jacen, Mara and Luke know that doubt and fear would make Lomi Plo invisible to her enemy. Jacen, along with R2-D2, helps Luke conquer some of his fears about Mara's involvement with the death of his mother, and then accompanies him to face Plo.
During the fight with Plo, Luke falters for a moment when Mara is injured, and doubt enters his mind. Plo then holds him in place, unable to move. In that instant, Jacen is critically wounded by Plo while saving Mara Skywalker's life. A well-placed shot from Mara injures Plo, after which Mara tends to Jacen's wounds. While he and Mara recover, Jacen beseeches Luke to embrace his darker emotions. Luke refuses and goes back to the true Jedi way, defeating the Dark Queen and Raynar Thul without using the dark side.
In the latter novel, Jacen joins his uncle in watching holovideos of his grandparents, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala; in particular, he sees Anakin fall to the dark side and Padmé die in childbirth partly as a result of Anakin's treachery. (These scenes are first portrayed in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith). Jacen actually sympathizes with Anakin's desire to protect his wife, and reminds Luke that Anakin was a fallible human being.
=== Legacy of the Force ===
In Betrayal, Jacen starts training his young cousin Ben in the ways of the Force. After a successful mission to Adumar that ends in a life-threatening attack, they return for a dinner party at his parents' new home. There, Han voices his concern over Corellia trying to gain independence. Luke orders Jacen and Ben to disable the Centerpoint Station, an ancient artifact that Corellian leader (and Han's cousin) Thrackan Sal-Solo is trying to use to his advantage. Ben disables the station while Jacen keeps Thrackan busy, ensuring the Galactic Alliance's partial victory as another fleet built in secret spoils the main attack.
While travelling to a subterranean base, Ben and Nelani, a Jedi Knight, are forced out of a mining car. Their guide, Brisha Syo creates a dark side phantom of Luke Skywalker, who attacks and very nearly kills Jacen. Eventually, Brisha stops the projections and takes Jacen to an office, where Darth Vectivus, the supposed Sith Lord they are hunting, lives. After fighting Force projections with Ben, Nelani catches up with them. Brisha is revealed to be Lumiya, the Dark Lady of the Sith. She reveals that Vergere is a Sith apprentice, and that Jacen has already received Sith training. Lumiya says that Jacen is going to become the next Sith Lord. Unsure of his next move, Jacen uses the Force to create visions of the future. In each vision in which Lumiya is arrested, the galaxy is consumed in an endless war that eventually places Jacen against Luke. In the vision, Jacen kills his uncle.
Horrified, Jacen spares Lumiya. Nelani then tries to arrest the Sith, but Jacen intervenes. Jacen realizes that Nelani will, if allowed to survive, possibly fulfill the dark vision he had seen. He then fights and kills her, asking her forgiveness before striking the fatal blow. He agrees to consider what Lumiya had said and leaves the asteroid with an unconscious Ben. Jacen then erases Ben's memories of Lumiya and tells him that both she and Nelani had been killed by dark side phantoms. They return to Coruscant; however, after Jacen departs, Lumiya says that she had won.
In Bloodlines, fully pledged to Lumiya, Jacen becomes head of the GFFA's newly formed secret police, the Galactic Alliance Guard. With Ben at his side, he begins rounding up Corellians for internment and deportation. During an interrogation of a suspected assassin (who turns out to be Ailyn Vel, Boba Fett's daughter), Jacen tries to use the Force to extract information from her and kills her accidentally in the process.
In Tempest, Jacen also takes command of Rogue Squadron while it participates in the blockade of Corellia. He shoots down a civilian freighter that was attempting to run the blockade, and had fired on him, then relieves his sister from duty because she had refused to do it. He also uses the Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon, while both his sister and his parents are on board. He believes his parents to have been involved in a failed attempt to assassinate Tenel Ka; the Solos had in fact been set up by Dur Gejjen, Prime Minister of Corellia.
In Sacrifice, Lumiya says she is pleased by his progress, but instructs him that to truly become a Sith he would have to undergo the Trial of Sacrifice: to kill that which he loves most. Doing this, he believes, would allow him to use the powers of the Sith without becoming evil and would "immortalize his love" for his sacrifice. Jacen decides there is only one way to fulfill this last obstacle: he would have to kill Tenel Ka and their daughter Allana. Nevertheless, after Ben tells Mara that he overheard Jacen communicating with Lumiya, Mara tracks Jacen down in the Hapes Consortium. After a long and heated battle, Jacen kills Mara Jade; the sacrifice necessary to becoming a Sith Lord is not Jacen's love, but Ben's. Ben suspects Jacen almost immediately, upon meeting Jacen at his mother's body. Eventually, Jacen chooses the Sith name Darth Caedus.
By Fury, Darth Caedus is the principal antagonist of the series, and the declared enemy of nearly every other major character: His parents and sister have disowned him, Luke is sworn to redeem him, and Ben is driven to seek justice for his mother. In the novel, Caedus kidnaps Allana so Tenel Ka and the Hapans won't decide to leave the government, but Han, Leia, Luke, Jaina, Ben, and their allies save Allana. After saving Allana, Leia tells Caedus to become a Jedi again, but he refuses. Han and Leia later find out Allana is Caedus and Tenel Ka's child. At the end, Jaina plans to have training from Boba Fett to help her face off against Caedus, despite her parents once being foes with Fett.
In Revelation, Caedus takes on a new apprentice, Tahiri Veila to replace Ben and turns to the task of ending the war. He entices the Imperial Remnant to join him in an attack on the planet Fondor. Although Admiral Niathal wants to offer the planet the chance to surrender, Caedus is determined to make an example of Fondor by crippling the shipyards and its planetary government. After previously sharing military secrets, which leads to hundreds of deaths and compromises the battle plan at Fondor, Niathal arranges a cease-fire without consulting Caedus. Enraged at this treason, Caedus orders the fleet to ignore Niathal's orders and bombard the major cities. Niathal orders all ships loyal to her to attack the Anakin Solo. Two-thirds of the fleet side with Caedus, while the rest ally themselves with Niathal. When the Imperial Remnant refuses to assist Caedus, his new apprentice assassinates Imperial Head of State Gilad Pellaeon and turns control over to the Moffs who then come to aid Jacen. A mysterious fleet led by Admiral Daala, loyal to Pellaeon, appears, accompanied by one hundred Mandalorian mercenaries and together, owing to Daala's experimental weapons, they send the Galactic Alliance Fleet into retreat.
Caedus then takes control of Coruscant and claims sole control of the Galactic Alliance.
In Invincible, Jaina takes it upon herself to defeat her brother. Caedus's meditations are disrupted by Luke Skywalker, in an attempt to hide Jaina's attack. Jaina, accompanied by several Mandalorian commandos, confronts Caedus, who quickly dispatches the Mandalorians, while Jaina acts as a sniper. When she finally runs out of ammunition, she seizes a Mandalorian saber and severs Caedus' arm. Jaina withdraws, however, due to her own injuries. After escaping an attack led by Luke Skywalker on the bridge of the Anakin Solo, Caedus sees a vision of his daughter Allana on a white throne in a time of peace. This vision convinces Caedus that he has won — he would bring peace to the galaxy, and prevent his visions of war and suffering from coming true.
At the book's climax, Caedus and Jaina face off in a final lightsaber duel aboard Caedus' flagship, the Anakin Solo. In the midst of the duel, Caedus comes back to the light and attempts to persuade Jaina of his intentions to protect Tenel Ka and Allana. Jaina refuses to listen, however, and attacks him after he deactivates and holsters his lightsaber. She later slams the door shut in his face when he tries to leave the fight. After a grueling battle in which both are seriously injured, Jacen is defeated when Jaina severs his Achilles tendon and stabs him in the heart. As he dies, Jacen reaches out to both his former lover and his child through the Force, warning them to flee from an approaching bio-warfare attack designed by the Imperial Remnant to kill them. In this act of selflessness, Jaina sees the remnants of the good man her brother had once been. Following Caedus's death and the war's end, the Galactic Alliance emerges victorious over the Confederation and peace is restored to the galaxy, just as Jacen had foreseen through a vision in the Force.
=== Fate of the Jedi ===
Though Jacen makes few true appearances in the Fate of the Jedi, which follows the Legacy of the Force series, his legacy is felt throughout the series, as Luke Skywalker is arrested for negligence of duty and is sentenced to a ten-year exile, in which alongside his son Ben, he tries to ascertain the circumstances of how and why Jacen turned to the dark side.
Jacen's spirit makes its first appearance in Abyss, wherein he warns Luke and Ben about Abeloth, the main antagonist of the series.
Then, in the final novel Apocalypse, Jacen's spirit (along with Mara's) provides aid to Luke as he partners with Darth Krayt in the final battle against Abeloth. Following Abeloth's destruction, Jacen reveals that Krayt was the dark figure he saw in his vision of the future and the source of his downfall; he saw his daughter Allana standing next to Krayt. In response, Krayt insists that while Caedus's actions simply delayed the Sith, and they are eventually going to succeed in their planned takeover of the galaxy.
In aiding the Jedi against Abeloth, Jacen posthumously redeems himself; however, he still refers to his fate as damnation. While Luke does not forgive his nephew for his complicity in Mara's death, he does receive an understanding of what led Jacen to that point.
=== Star Wars: Legacy ===
The second volume of the Legacy comic series, set about 140 years after Return of the Jedi, features Jacen's descendant Ania Solo as the protagonist. In general, the descendants of Jacen, Jaina and Ben are main characters in this era, set when and after Darth Krayt takes over the galaxy. Although they themselves do not appear in person as spirits, older characters like Luke and Mara do.
== Reception ==
IGN listed Jacen as #17 on their list of the top 100 Star Wars heroes, saying that he had a more "profound effect" than any of the other Solo children on the Star Wars setting. Jesse Schedeen, writing for IGN, also listed Darth Caedus as #5 in a reader-inspired list of top Star Wars villains, and called his "defining moment of villainy" his murder of Mara Jade. UGO.com listed Jacen as their top Star Wars expanded universe character, calling him "one of the most fearsome - and most tragic - villains in the Star Wars universe".
== Legacy ==
With the sequel film Star Wars: The Force Awakens in production, in April 2014 most of the licensed Star Wars novels and comics produced since the 1977 film Star Wars were declared non-canon to the franchise. The epilogue of "Family Reunion – and Farewell", the series finale of Star Wars Rebels, introduced a character named Jacen Syndulla by series creator Dave Filoni in honor of Jacen Solo.
== See also ==
Solo family
Kylo Ren
== References ==
== External links ==
Darth Caedus on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Hell | Rudolf Hell | Rudolf Hell (19 December 1901 – 11 March 2002) was a German inventor and engineer.
== Career ==
Hell was born in Eggmühl. From 1919 to 1923, he studied electrical engineering in Munich. He worked there from 1923 to 1929 as assistant of Prof. Max Dieckmann, with whom he operated a television station at the Verkehrsausstellung (lit.: "traffic exhibition") in Munich in 1925. In the same year Hell invented an apparatus called the Hellschreiber, an early forerunner to impact dot matrix printers and faxes. Hell received a patent for the Hellschreiber in 1929.
In the year 1929 he founded his own company in Babelsberg. After World War II he re-founded his company in Kiel. He kept on working as an engineer and invented machines for electronically controlled engraving of printing plates and an electronic photo typesetting system called digiset marketed in the US as VideoComp by RCA and later by III.
He has received numerous awards such as the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz, the Werner von Siemens Ring and the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation (1992).
His company was taken over by Siemens in 1981 and merged with Linotype in 1990, becoming Linotype-Hell AG.
Hellschreiber is still in use today by amateur radio (ham) operators around the world. Hellverein Kiel collects Hell devices and keeps them functional. In addition, the website contains numerous documents and patents relating to the Hell devices: https://www.hell-kiel.de/en/
== Death ==
Rudolf Hell died in Kiel on 11 March 2002.
== See also ==
German inventors and discoverers
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_San_Francisco | Mayor of San Francisco | The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch. The mayor serves a four-year term and is limited to two successive terms. Because of San Francisco's status as a consolidated city-county, the mayor also serves as the head of government of the county; both entities have been governed together by a combined set of governing bodies since 1856.
There have been 45 individuals who have served as mayor in San Francisco since 1850, when California became a state following the American Conquest of California. Prior to the conquest, Californios served as Mayor of San Francisco during the Spanish and Mexican eras since 1779.
The current mayor is Democrat Daniel Lurie.
== Elections ==
The mayor of San Francisco is elected every four years; until 2019 elections took place one year before United States presidential elections on election day in November. Candidates must live and be registered to vote in San Francisco at the time of the election. The mayor is usually sworn in on the January 8 following the election.
The most recent election for a full mayoral term occurred in 2024. In 2022, San Francisco voters passed Proposition H, which changed mayoral elections to the same cycle as presidential elections. This gave London Breed an additional year to her one full term. This change was proposed because of the low turnout in off-year elections. For example, 2019 saw a turnout of only 42%, while 2020 saw 86% turnout.
Under the California constitution, all city elections in the state are conducted on a non-partisan basis. As a result, candidates' party affiliations are not listed on the ballot, and multiple candidates from a single party can run in the election.
Mayoral elections were originally run under a two-round system. If no candidate received a simple majority of votes in the general election, the two candidates who received the most votes competed in a second runoff election held several weeks later. In 2002, the election system for city officials was overhauled as a result of a citywide referendum. The new system, known as instant-runoff voting, allows voters to select and rank three candidates based on their preferences. If no one wins more than half of the first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and second-choice votes (and third-choice votes, if necessary) are counted until a candidate captures the majority. This eliminates the need to hold a separate runoff election and saves money. This was first implemented in the 2004 Board of Supervisors election after two years of preparation. In 2007, the new system was implemented in the mayoral election for the first time.
== Salary and benefits ==
As of 2024, the mayor is paid an annual salary of $364,582, the highest mayoral salary in the United States. Nine city public employees earned higher salaries than the mayor, including the chief investment officer and the managing director of the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System, who oversee the city's pension plan. Current mayor Daniel Lurie decided to return all but $1 of his annual salary back to San Francisco.
Unlike a few other American cities, the San Francisco mayor does not have an official residence; in the 1990s, Mayor Willie Brown unsuccessfully pushed to acquire the Yerba Buena Island mansion formerly used by U.S. Navy admirals as a ceremonial residence for the mayor.
== Duties and powers ==
The mayor has the responsibility to enforce all city laws, administer and coordinate city departments and intergovernmental activities, set forth policies and agendas to the Board of Supervisors, and prepare and submit the city budget at the end of each fiscal year. The mayor has the powers to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, participate in meetings of the Board of Supervisors and its committees, appoint a replacement to fill vacancies in all city elected offices until elections, appoint a member of the Board to serve as acting mayor in the absence of the mayor, and to direct personnel in the case of emergency.
== Succession ==
When mayors die in office, resign, or are unable to carry out their duties, and did not designate an acting mayor, the president of the Board of Supervisors becomes acting mayor until the full Board selects a person to fill the vacancy and finish the previous mayoral term. (In the case that both the president of the Board of Supervisors and the mayor are incapacitated, the order of succession is followed.) This has happened seven times: James Otis died in office and was succeeded by George Hewston,[a] Eugene Schmitz was removed and succeeded by Charles Boxton,[b] Charles Boxton resigned and was succeeded by Edward Robeson Taylor,[b] James Rolph resigned and was succeeded by Angelo Rossi,[c] George Moscone was assassinated and was succeeded by Dianne Feinstein,[d] Gavin Newsom resigned and was succeeded by Ed Lee,[e] and Lee died in office and was succeeded by London Breed before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors selected Mark Farrell as interim mayor.[f]
== List of mayors ==
To date, 45 individuals have served as San Francisco mayor. There have been 46 mayoralties due to Charles James Brenham's serving two non-consecutive terms: he is counted chronologically as both the second and fourth mayor. The longest term was that of James Rolph, who served over 18 years until his resignation to become the California governor. The length of his tenure as mayor was largely due to his popularity. During his term, San Francisco saw the expansion of its transit system, the construction of the Civic Center and the hosting of the World's Fair. The shortest term was that of Charles Boxton, who served only eight days before resigning from office. Three mayors have died in office: Otis died from illness, Moscone was assassinated in 1978, and Lee died from cardiac arrest. Dianne Feinstein and London Breed are the only women who have served as mayor, both of them by succession and by election; Willie Brown and London Breed are the only African Americans to serve to date; Ed Lee is the only Asian American to serve as mayor. Four mayors have Jewish ancestry: Washington Bartlett (Sephardi), Adolph Sutro (Ashkenazi), Dianne Feinstein (Ashkenazi), and Daniel Lurie. Fourteen mayors are native San Franciscans: Levi Richard Ellert, James D. Phelan, Eugene Schmitz, James Rolph, Elmer Robinson, John F. Shelley, Joseph Alioto, George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein, Frank Jordan, Gavin Newsom, Mark Farrell, London Breed, and Daniel Lurie. Four mayors are foreign-born: Frank McCoppin and P.H. McCarthy (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, both born in what is now the Republic of Ireland), Adolph Sutro (Prussia, part of Germany since 1871) and George Christopher (Greece).
Willie Brown is the first black mayor of San Francisco. London Breed is the first black female mayor. Breed was a District 5 supervisor and president of the Board of Supervisors, who won a special election following the death of Mayor Ed Lee on December 12, 2017. Breed served out the remainder of Lee's uncompleted term (until January 8, 2020), after which she was eligible to run for two full terms of her own. She won the 2019 San Francisco mayoral election but lost the 2024 San Francisco mayoral election.
This list does not include acting mayors who are typically appointed whenever the mayor will be out of the city.
== Notes ==
== References ==
General
Specific |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szentes | Szentes | Szentes (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈsɛntɛʃ]) is a town in south-eastern Hungary, Csongrád county, near the Tisza river. The town is a cultural and educational center of the region. It is the third most populous town in Csongrad county after Szeged and Hódmezővásárhely.
== History ==
The area around Szentes has been inhabited since the Neolithic. The Szegvár-tűzkövesi idol, one of the Neolithic period's only depictions of a male deity, was discovered in the area. During the barbarian invasions, many ethnic groups moved through the region, and there is archeological evidence of hundreds of graves belonging to Iazyges, Sarmatians, Gepids, Huns, and Avars. According to certain accounts, the legendary camp of Atilla the Hun was found in this area, at the confluence of the Tisza and the Körös rivers. The town was first documented about the land-division in 1332 and called "Scenthus". It was said to be inhabited by descendants of the tribe of Ond, one of the seven tribes of Hungary, and it was also documented as containing a stone church dedicated to Andrew the Apostle. According to local tradition, Csongrad castle stood on the town's boundaries until the time of the first Mongol invasion.
Following the Hungary's defeat by Ottoman forces at the battle of Mohács, taxes were levied from Szentes by three different powers, meaning those who were able to leave the area, fled. The region suffered immensely under Ottoman rule, and entire towns were wiped off the map. The region further suffered during the Long Turkish War, with more towns going extinct, and many of Szentes' inhabitants seeking refuge by dwelling in the nearby wetlands. In 1647, Ferdinand III was defeated by Ottoman forces outside Szentes, but the Ottoman forces had to withdraw from the region. In 1693, Szentes and the surrounding region was scorched and pillaged by Crimean Tatars looking for food following their failed attempt to capture Gyula. In 1709, the town suffered an outbreak of the Plague, killing over 1000 of its inhabitants.
The townsfolk played an active role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and it was visited by Kossuth Lajos himself to recruit troops. After the Habsburgs crushed the revolution, many young men were forcibly enlisted in the Imperial Army as punishment, and the mayor was sentenced to hard labour.
== Notable people ==
Árpád Balázs (born 1937), classical music composer
János Bácskai 1954. november 27, actor
János Berkes (born 1946 May 24) opera singer (tenor)
István Bugyi (1898–1981) surgeon - The local hospital named after him
Dóra Dúró (born 1987), politician
Jozsef Gera (born 1937) aircraft engineer, former chief of the Dynamics and Controls Branch at NASA
László Gyimesi (born 1948), pianist
Mihály Horváth (1809–1878), Roman Catholic bishop
Tamás Kecskés (born 1986), footballer
Zsolt Koncz (born 1977), footballer
László Márkus (1881–1948), drama author, director, member of the Hungarian Opera
András Mészáros (born 1941), former cyclist
Ibolya Nagy (1864–1946), actress
Lajos Őze (1935–1984), actor
László Papp (1905–1989), wrestler
István Szelei (born 1960), fencer
Lajos Szilassi (born 1942), mathematician
Konrád Verebélyi (born 1995), footballer
Zséda (born 1974), singer
László Terney (1947–1998) architect
László Ujréti (born 1942) actor, voice actor
Péter Szalay (born 1962), quantum chemist, theoretical chemist
== Twin towns – sister cities ==
Szentes is twinned with:
== Gallery ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website in Hungarian, English, German, and Serbian
Városi Visszhang - Szentes
Local Radio Station - Radio 451 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Meat_Inspection_Act#Amendments_to_1907_Act | Federal Meat Inspection Act | The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA) is an American law that makes it illegal to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under strictly regulated sanitary conditions. These requirements also apply to imported meat products, which must be inspected under equivalent foreign standards. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection of poultry was added by the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 (PPIA). The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act authorizes the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to provide inspection services for all livestock and poultry species not listed in the FMIA or PPIA, including venison and buffalo. The Agricultural Marketing Act authorizes the USDA to offer voluntary, fee-for-service inspection services for these same species.
== Historical motivation for enactment ==
The original 1906 Act authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to inspect and condemn any meat product found unfit for human consumption. Unlike previous laws ordering meat inspections, which were enforced to assure European nations from banning pork trade, this law was strongly motivated to protect the American diet. All labels on any type of food had to be accurate (although not all ingredients were provided on the label). Even though all harmful food was banned, many warnings were still provided on the container. The production date for canned meats was a requirement in the legislation that Senator Albert Beveridge introduced but it was later removed in the House bill that was passed and became law. The law was partly a response to the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, an exposé of the Chicago meat packing industry, as well as to other Progressive Era muckraking publications of the day. While Sinclair's dramatized account was intended to bring attention to the terrible working conditions in Chicago, the public was more horrified by the prospect of bad meat.
The book's assertions were confirmed in the Neill-Reynolds report, commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Roosevelt was suspicious of Sinclair's socialist attitude and conclusions in The Jungle, so he sent labor commissioner Charles P. Neill and social worker James Bronson Reynolds, men whose honesty and reliability he trusted, to Chicago to make surprise visits to meat packing facilities.
Despite betrayal of the secret to the meat packers, who worked three shifts a day for three weeks to thwart the inspection, Neill and Reynolds were still revolted by the conditions at the factories and at the lack of concern by plant managers (though neither had much experience in the field). Following their report, Roosevelt became a supporter of regulation of the meat packing industry, and, on June 30, signed the Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
The FMIA mandated the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection of meat processing plants that conducted business across state lines. The Pure Food and Drug Act, enacted on the same day (June 30, 1906), also gave the government broad jurisdiction over food in interstate commerce.
The four primary requirements of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 were:
Mandatory inspection of livestock before slaughter (cattle, sheep, goats, equines, and swine);
Mandatory postmortem inspection of every carcass;
Sanitary standards established for slaughterhouses and meat processing plants; and
Authorized U.S. Department of Agriculture ongoing monitoring and inspection of slaughter and processing operations.
After 1906, many additional laws that further standardized the meat industry and its inspection were passed.
== Preemption of state law ==
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in National Meat Assn. v. Harris, that the FMIA preempts a California law regulating the treatment of non-ambulatory livestock.
== Amendments to 1907 Act ==
Chronological legislation relative to U.S. Congressional revisions concerning the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
== See also ==
Humane Slaughter Act
Packers and Stockyards Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Coppin, Clayton and Jack High. The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy (University of Michigan Press, 1999).
Goodwin, Lorine S. The Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders, 1879–1914 (McFarland, 1999).
Law, Marc. "History of Food and Drug Regulation in the United States". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. 2004. online
Law, Marc T. "The Origins of State Pure Food Regulation." Journal of Economic History 63#4 (2003): 1103–1130.
Libecap, Gary D. "The rise of the Chicago packers and the origins of meat inspection and antitrust." Economic Inquiry 30.2 (1992): 242–262. Emphasizes the role of the big packers and passage of the law that protected them against unsanitary local packing houses.
Young, James H. Pure Food: Securing the Federal Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (Princeton University Press. 1986).
Young, James Harvey. "The Pig that Fell into the Privy: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and the meat inspection amendments of 1906." Bulletin of the History of Medicine Vol. 59, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 467–480.
== External links ==
Federal Meat Inspection Act, U.S. Food and Drug Administration |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson-Fawcett_Award#:~:text=nanostructures%5B2%5D-,2020,Cinzia%20Casiraghi,-University%20of%20Manchester | Gibson-Fawcett Award | The Gibson–Fawcett Award is awarded by the Royal Society of Chemistry every two years to recognise outstanding work in the field of materials chemistry. In particular, the emphasis is on the originality and independence of the work carried out. The prize was established in 2008 and is awarded by the Materials Chemistry Division Awards Committee. It can only be given to researchers under age 40. The award was discontinued in 2020.
== History ==
The award is named after Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett, eminent chemists who worked together with Anton Michels on the study of the role of high pressure in chemical reactions. This led to the discovery of polyethylene.
== Winners ==
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama#Works_and_publications | Yayoi Kusama | Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi; born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation. She is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, art brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
Kusama was raised in Matsumoto, and trained at the Kyoto City University of Arts for a year in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga. She was inspired by American Abstract Impressionism. She moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. She experienced a period in the 1970s during which her work was largely overlooked, but a revival of interest in the 1980s brought her art back into public view. Kusama has continued to create art in various museums around the world, from the 1950s onwards.
Kusama has been open about her mental health and has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility. She says that art has become her way to express her mental problems. "I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art", she told an interviewer in 2012. "I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live."
== Biography ==
=== Early life: 1929–1949 ===
Yayoi Kusama was born on 22 March 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano. Born into a family of merchants who owned a plant nursery and seed farm, Kusama began drawing pictures of pumpkins in elementary school and created artwork she saw from hallucinations, works of which would later define her career. Her mother was not supportive of her creative endeavors; Kusama would rush to finish her art because her mother would take it away to discourage her. Her mother was physically abusive, and she remembers her father as "the type who would play around, who would womanize a lot". She said her mother would often send her to spy on her father's extramarital affairs, which instilled within her a lifelong contempt for sexuality, particularly the male's lower body and the phallus: "I don't like sex. I had an obsession with sex. When I was a child, my father had lovers and I experienced seeing him. My mother sent me to spy on him. I didn't want to have sex with anyone for years ... The sexual obsession and fear of sex sit side by side in me." Her traumatic childhood, including her fantastic visions, can be said to be the origin of her artistic style.
When Kusama was ten years old, she began to experience vivid hallucinations which she has described as "flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots". These hallucinations included flowers that spoke to Kusama, and patterns in fabric that she stared at coming to life, multiplying, and engulfing or expunging her, a process which she has carried into her artistic career and which she calls "self-obliteration". Kusama's art became her escape from her family and her own mind when she began to have hallucinations. She was reportedly fascinated by the smooth white stones covering the bed of the river near her family home, which she cites as another of the seminal influences behind her lasting fixation on dots.
When Kusama was 13, she was sent to work in a military factory where she was tasked with sewing and fabricating parachutes for the Japanese army, then embroiled in World War II. Discussing her time in the factory, she says that she spent her adolescence "in closed darkness" although she could always hear the air-raid alerts going off and see American B-29s flying overhead in broad daylight. Her childhood was greatly influenced by the events of the war, and she claims that it was during this period that she began to value notions of personal and creative freedom. She attended Arigasaki High School.
She went on to study Nihonga painting at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in 1948. Frustrated with this distinctly Japanese style, she became interested in the European and American avant-garde, staging several solo exhibitions of her paintings in Matsumoto and Tokyo in the 1950s.
=== Early success in Japan: 1950–1956 ===
By 1950, she was depicting abstract natural forms in watercolor, gouache, and oil paint, primarily on paper. She began covering surfaces—walls, floors, canvases, and later, household objects, and naked assistants—with the polka dots that became a trademark of her work.
The vast fields of polka dots, or "infinity nets", as she called them, were taken directly from her hallucinations. The earliest recorded work in which she incorporated these dots was a drawing in 1939 at age 10, in which the image of a Japanese woman in a kimono, presumed to be the artist's mother, is covered and obliterated by spots. Her first series of large-scale, sometimes more than 30 ft-long canvas paintings, Infinity Nets, were entirely covered in a sequence of nets and dots that alluded to hallucinatory visions.
On her 1954 painting Flower (D.S.P.S), Kusama has said:
One day I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows, and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe. I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness. As I realised it was actually happening and not just in my imagination, I was frightened. I knew I had to run away lest I should be deprived of my life by the spell of the red flowers. I ran desperately up the stairs. The steps below me began to fall apart and I fell down the stairs spraining my ankle.
=== New York City: 1957–1972 ===
After living in Tokyo and France, Kusama left Japan at the age of 27 for the United States. She has stated that she began to consider Japanese society "too small, too servile, too feudalistic, and too scornful of women". Before leaving Japan for the United States, she destroyed many of her early works. In 1957, she moved to Seattle, where she had an exhibition of paintings at the Zoe Dusanne Gallery. She stayed there for a year before moving on to New York City, following correspondence with Georgia O'Keeffe in which she professed an interest in joining the limelight of the city, and sought O'Keeffe's advice. During her time in the US, she quickly established her reputation as a leader in the avant-garde movement and received praise for her work from the anarchist art critic Herbert Read.
In 1961, she moved her studio into the same building as Donald Judd and sculptor Eva Hesse; Hesse became a close friend. In the early 1960s, Kusama began to create so-called soft sculptures by covering items such as ladders, shoes and chairs with white phallic protrusions. Despite the micromanaged intricacy of the drawings, she turned them out fast and in bulk, establishing a rhythm of productivity which she still maintains. She established other habits too, like having herself routinely photographed with new work and regularly appearing in public wearing her signature bob wigs and colorful, avant-garde fashions.
In June 1963, one of Kusama's soft sculpture pieces, a couch covered with phallus-like protrusions she had sewn, was exhibited at the Green Gallery. Included in the same exhibition was a papier-mache sculpture by Claes Oldenburg, who had not worked in soft sculpture. Kusama's piece received the most attention from attendees and critics, and by September Oldenburg was exhibiting sewn soft sculpture, some pieces of which were very similar to Kusama's; Oldenburg's wife apologized to Kusama at the exhibit. According to Fordham professor of art Midori Yamamura, Oldenburg likely was inspired by Kusama's work to use sewn pieces himself, pieces which made him an "international star". Kusama became depressed over the incident. A similar incident occurred soon after when Kusama exhibited a boat she had covered in soft sculpture, with photographs of the boat completely covering the walls of the exhibit space, which was very innovative. Andy Warhol remarked on the exhibit, and not long after covered the walls of an exhibit space with photos of a cow, for which he drew significant attention. Kusama became very secretive about her studio work. Helaine Posner, of the Neuberger Museum of Art, said it was likely some combination of sexism and racism that kept Kusama, who was creating work of equal importance to men who were using her ideas and taking the credit for them, from getting the same kinds of backing.
Since 1963, Kusama has continued her series of Mirror/Infinity rooms. In these complex infinity mirror installations, purpose-built rooms lined with mirrored glass contain scores of neon-colored balls, hanging at various heights above the viewer. Standing inside on a small platform, an observer sees light repeatedly reflected off the mirrored surfaces to create the illusion of a never-ending space.
During the following years, Kusama was enormously productive, and by 1966, she was experimenting with room-size, freestanding installations that incorporated mirrors, lights, and piped-in music. She counted Judd and Joseph Cornell among her friends and supporters. However, she did not profit financially from her work. Around this time, Kusama was hospitalized regularly from overwork, and O'Keeffe persuaded her own dealer Edith Herbert to purchase several works to help Kusama stave off financial hardship. She was not able to make the money she believed she deserved, and her frustration became so extreme that she attempted suicide.
In the 1960s, Kusama organized outlandish happenings in conspicuous spots like Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, often involving nudity and designed to protest the Vietnam War. In one, she wrote an open letter to Richard Nixon offering to have sex with him if he would stop the Vietnam war. Between 1967 and 1969, she concentrated on performances held with the maximum publicity, usually involving Kusama painting polka dots on her nude performers, as in the Grand Orgy to Awaken the Dead at the MoMA (1969), in which performers were instructed to embrace each other while engaging the sculptures around them at the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art. During the unannounced event, eight performers under Kusama's direction removed their clothing, stepped nude into a fountain, and assumed poses mimicking the nearby sculptures by Picasso, Giacometti, and Maillol.
In 1968, Kusama presided over the happening Homosexual Wedding at the Church of Self-obliteration at 33 Walker Street in New York and performed alongside Fleetwood Mac and Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore East in New York City. She opened naked painting studios and a gay social club called the Kusama 'Omophile Kompany (kok). The nudity present in Kusama's art and art protests was severely shameful for her family; her high school removed her name from its list of alumni. This made her feel alone, and she attempted suicide again.
In 1966, Kusama first participated in the Venice Biennale for its 33rd edition. Her Narcissus Garden comprised hundreds of mirrored spheres outdoors in what she called a "kinetic carpet". As soon as the piece was installed on a lawn outside the Italian pavilion, Kusama, dressed in a golden kimono, began selling each individual sphere for 1,200 lire (US$2), until the Biennale organizers put an end to her enterprise. Narcissus Garden was as much about the promotion of the artist through the media as it was an opportunity to offer a critique of the mechanization and commodification of the art market.
During her time in New York, Kusama had a brief relationship with artist Donald Judd. She then began a passionate, platonic relationship with the surrealist artist Joseph Cornell. She was 26 years his junior – they called each other daily, sketched each other, and he would send personalized collages to her. Their lengthy association lasted until his death in 1972.
=== Return to Japan: 1973–1977 ===
In 1973, Kusama returned to Japan. Her reception from the Japanese art world and press was unsympathetic; one art collector recalled considering her a "scandal queen". She was in ill health, but continued to work, writing shockingly visceral and surrealistic novels, short stories, and poetry.
She became so depressed she was unable to work and made another suicide attempt, then in 1977, found a doctor who was using art therapy to treat mental illness in a hospital setting. She checked herself in and eventually took up permanent residence in the hospital. She has been living at the hospital ever since, by choice. Her studio, where she has continued to produce work since the mid-1970s, is a short distance from the hospital in Tokyo. Kusama is often quoted as saying: "If it were not for art, I would have killed myself a long time ago."
From this base, she has continued to produce artworks in a variety of media, as well as launching a literary career by publishing several novels, a poetry collection, and an autobiography. Her painting style shifted to high-colored acrylics on canvas, on an amped-up scale.
=== Revival: 1980s–present ===
Kusama's move to Japan meant she had to build a new career from scratch.
Her organically abstract paintings of one or two colors (the Infinity Nets series), which she began upon arriving in New York, garnered comparisons to the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman. When she left New York she was practically forgotten as an artist until the late 1980s and 1990s, when a number of retrospectives revived international interest. Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective was the first critical survey of Yayoi Kusama presented at the Center for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York in 1989, and was organized by Alexandra Munroe.
Following the success of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, a dazzling mirrored room filled with small pumpkin sculptures in which she resided in color-coordinated magician's attire, Kusama went on to produce a huge, yellow pumpkin sculpture covered with an optical pattern of black spots. The pumpkin came to represent for her a kind of alter-ego or self-portrait. The 2.5-meter-wide "Pumpkin", made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was installed in 1994 on a pier on Naoshima, Kagawa, becoming iconic as her profile grew in the following decades; it was reinstalled in 2022 after being destroyed by a typhoon a year earlier. Kusama's later installation I'm Here, but Nothing (2000–2008) is a simply furnished room consisting of table and chairs, place settings and bottles, armchairs and rugs, however its walls are tattooed with hundreds of fluorescent polka dots glowing in the UV light. The result is an endless infinite space where the self and everything in the room is obliterated.
The multi-part floating work Guidepost to the New Space, a series of rounded "humps" in fire-engine red with white polka dots, was displayed in Pandanus Lake. Perhaps one of Kusama's most notorious works, various versions of Narcissus Garden have been presented worldwide venues including Le Consortium, Dijon, 2000; Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2003; as part of the Whitney Biennial at Central Park, New York in 2004; and at the Jardin de Tuileries in Paris, 2010.
Kusama continued to work as an artist in her ninth decade. She has harkened back to earlier work by returning to drawing and painting; her work remained innovative and multi-disciplinary, and a 2012 exhibition displayed multiple acrylic-on-canvas works. Also featured was an exploration of infinite space in her Infinity Mirror rooms. These typically involve a cube-shaped room lined in mirrors, with water on the floor and flickering lights; these features suggest a pattern of life and death.
In 2015–2016, the first retrospective exhibition in Scandinavia, curated by Marie Laurberg, travelled to four major museums in the region, opening at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and continuing to Henie Onstad Kunstsenter Museum, Norway; Moderna Museet in Sweden, and Helsinki Art Museum in Finland. This major show contained more than 100 objects and large-scale mirror room installations. It presented several early works that had not been shown to the public since they were first created, including a presentation of Kusama's experimental fashion design from the 1960s.
In 2017, a 50-year retrospective of her work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit featured six Infinity Mirror rooms, and was scheduled to travel to five museums in the US and Canada.
On 25 February 2017, Kusama's All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins exhibit, one of the six components to her Infinity Mirror rooms at the Hirshhorn Museum, was temporarily closed for three days following damage to one of the exhibit's glowing pumpkin sculptures. The room, which measures 13 square feet (1.2 m2) and was filled with over 60 pumpkin sculptures, was one of the museum's most popular attractions ever. Allison Peck, a spokeswoman for the Hirshhorn, said in an interview that the museum "has never had a show with that kind of visitor demand", with the room totalling more than 8,000 visitors between its opening and its temporary closure. While there were conflicting media reports about the cost of the damaged sculpture and how exactly it was broken, Allison Peck stated that "there is no intrinsic value to the individual piece. It is a manufactured component to a larger piece." The exhibit was reconfigured to make up for the missing sculpture, and a new one was to be produced for the exhibit by Kusama. The Infinity Mirrors exhibit became a sensation among art critics as well as on social media. Museum visitors shared 34,000 images of the exhibition to their Instagram accounts, and social media posts using the hashtag #InfiniteKusama garnered 330 million impressions, as reported by the Smithsonian the day after the exhibit's closing. The works provided the perfect setting for Instagram-able selfies which inadvertently added to the performative nature of the works.
Later in 2017, the Yayoi Kusama Museum opened in Tokyo, featuring her works.
On 9 November 2019, Kusama's Everyday I Pray For Love exhibition was shown at David Zwirner Gallery until 14 December 2019. The exhibition incorporated sculptures and paintings, and included the debut of her Infinity Mirrored Room – Dancing Lights That Flew Up To The Universe. The catalogue, published by David Zwirner books, contained texts and poems.
In January 2020, the Hirshhorn announced it would debut new Kusama acquisitions, including two Infinity Mirror Rooms, at a forthcoming exhibition called One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection. The name of the exhibit is derived from an open letter Kusama wrote to then-President-elect Richard Nixon in 1968, writing: "let's forget ourselves, dearest Richard, and become one with the absolute, all together in the altogether."
In November 2021, a monumental exhibition offering an overview of Kusama's main creative periods over the past 70 years, with some 200 works and four Infinity Rooms (unique mirror installations) debuted in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The retrospective spanned almost 3,000 m2 across the museum's two buildings, in six galleries and included two new works from 2021: A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe, and Light of the Universe Illuminating the Quest for Truth.
From late December 2022, the Hong Kong's M+ museum held a retrospective on Kusama's career entitled Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now. The exhibition, which showed until May 2023, was the largest retrospective of her art in Asia, not including her home country.
The Pérez Art Museum Miami held a showing of Kusama's work. Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING was on view and accessible to the public throughout 2024.
In 2024, Kusama unveiled a new Infinity Mirror Room titled Infinity Mirrored Room – Beauty Described by a Spherical Heart as part of her solo exhibition Every Day I Pray for Love at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. The installation featured mirrored spheres suspended within a darkened space, continuing Kusama’s exploration of repetition, reflection, and the dissolution of the self through immersive environments.
== Meaning and origins of her work ==
Curator Mika Yoshitake has stated that Kusama's works on display are meant to immerse the whole person into her accumulations, obsessions, and repetitions. These infinite, repetitive works were originally a way for Kusama to eliminate her intrusive thoughts. Claire Voon has described one of Kusama's mirror exhibits as being able to "transport you to quiet cosmos, to a lonely labyrinth of pulsing light, or to what could be the enveloping innards of a leviathan with the measles".
Creating these feelings amongst audiences was intentional. These experiences seem to be unique to her work because Kusama wanted others to sympathise with her in her troubled life. Bedatri D. Choudhury has described how Kusama not feeling in control throughout her life made her, either consciously or subconsciously, want to control how others perceive time and space when entering her exhibits. Art had become a coping mechanism for Kusama.
In 1962, Kusama created her work Accumulation of Stamps, 63. The medium used are pasted labels and ink on paper with dimensions of 23 3/4 x 29" (60.3 x 73.6 cm). The art was donated by Phillip Johnson to the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art. Kusama experienced hallucinations of flowers, dots, and nets during her childhood. These visions engulfed her surroundings, covering everything from ceilings to windows and walls. She saw the same pattern expand to encompass her body and the entire universe. Kusama's struggle with these hallucinations, which were linked to her mental illness, influenced her artistic style. To cope with her condition, Kusama adopted repeated forms in her art, using store-bought labels and stickers. She does not view her art as an end in itself but rather as a means to address her disability that originated in her childhood. The process of repetition, evident in her collages, reflects her artistic approach. Consequently, many of her artworks bear titles that include words like "accumulation" and "infinity".
Art critic for The Australian newspaper, Christopher Allen, called Kusama "one of the world's most determinedly vacuous artists".
== Works and publications ==
=== Performance ===
In Kusama's Walking Piece (1966), a performance that was documented in a series of eighteen color slides, Kusama walked along the streets of New York City in a traditional Japanese kimono while holding a parasol. The kimono suggested traditional roles for women in Japanese custom. The parasol, however, was made to look inauthentic, as it was actually a black umbrella, painted white on the exterior and decorated with fake flowers. Kusama walked down unoccupied streets in an unknown quest. She then turned and cried without reason, and eventually walked away and vanished from view.
This performance, through the association of the kimono, involved the stereotypes that Asian-American women continued to face. However, as an avant-garde artist living in New York, her situation altered the context of the dress, creating a cross-cultural amalgamation. Kusama was able to highlight the stereotype in which her white American audience categorized her, by showing the absurdity of culturally categorizing people in the world's largest melting pot.
=== Film ===
In 1968, Kusama and Jud Yalkut's collaborative work Kusama's Self-Obliteration won a prize at the Fourth International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium and the Second Maryland Film Festival and the second prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The 1967 experimental film, which Kusama produced and starred in, depicted Kusama painting polka dots on everything around her, including bodies.
In 1991, Kusama starred in the film Tokyo Decadence, written and directed by Ryū Murakami, and in 1993, she collaborated with British musician Peter Gabriel on an installation in Yokohama.
=== Fashion ===
In 1968, Kusama established Kusama Fashion Company Ltd, and began selling avant-garde fashion in the "Kusama Corner" at Bloomingdale's. In 2009, Kusama designed a handbag-shaped cell phone entitled Handbag for Space Travel, My Doggie Ring-Ring, a pink dotted phone in accompanying dog-shaped holder, and a red and white dotted phone inside a mirrored, dotted box dubbed Dots Obsession, Full Happiness With Dots, for Japanese mobile communication giant KDDI Corporation's "iida" brand. Each phone was limited to 1,000 pieces.
In 2011, Kusama created artwork for six limited-edition lipglosses from Lancôme. That same year, she worked with Marc Jacobs (who visited her studio in Japan in 2006) on a line of Louis Vuitton products, including leather goods, ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, watches, and jewelry. The products became available in 2012 at a SoHo pop-up shop, which was decorated with Kusama's trademark tentacle-like protrusions and polka-dots. Eventually, six other pop-up shops were opened around the world. When asked about her collaboration with Marc Jacobs, Kusama replied that "his sincere attitude toward art" is the same as her own. Louis Vuitton created a second set of products in 2023.
=== Writing ===
In 1977, Kusama published a book of poems and paintings entitled 7. One year later, her first novel Manhattan Suicide Addict appeared. Between 1983 and 1990, she finished the novels The Hustler's Grotto of Christopher Street (1983), The Burning of St Mark's Church (1985), Between Heaven and Earth (1988), Woodstock Phallus Cutter (1988), Aching Chandelier (1989), Double Suicide at Sakuragazuka (1989), and Angels in Cape Cod (1990), alongside several issues of the magazine S&M Sniper in collaboration with photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Her most recent writing endeavor includes her autobiography Infinity Net published in 2003 that depicts her life from growing up in Japan, her departure to the United States, and her return to her home country, where she now resides. Infinity Net includes her poetry and photographs of her exhibitions. In October 2023, Kusama apologized for a number of racist comments against Black people in her writing.
=== Commissions ===
To date, Kusama has completed several major outdoor sculptural commissions, mostly in the form of brightly hued monstrous plants and flowers, for both public and private institutions, including Pumpkin (1994) for the Fukuoka Municipal Museum of Art; The Visionary Flowers (2002) for the Matsumoto City Museum of Art; Tsumari in Bloom (2003) for Matsudai Station, Niigata; Tulipes de Shangri-La (2003) for Euralille in Lille, France; Red Pumpkin (2006) for Naoshima Town, Kagawa; Hello, Anyang with Love (2007) for Pyeonghwa Park (now referred as World Cup Park), Anyang; and The Hymn of Life: Tulips (2007) for the Beverly Gardens Park in Los Angeles. In 1998, she realized a mural for the hallway of the Gare do Oriente subway station in Lisbon. Alongside these monumental works, she has produced smaller-scale outdoor pieces, including Key-Chan and Ryu-Chan, a pair of dotted dogs. All the outdoor works are cast in highly durable fiberglass-reinforced plastic, then painted in urethane to glossy perfection.
In 2010, Kusama designed a Town Sneaker styled bus, which she titled Mizutama Ranbu (Wild Polka Dot Dance) and whose route travels through her hometown of Matsumoto. In 2011, she was commissioned to design the front cover of millions of pocket London Underground maps; the result is entitled Polka Dots Festival in London (2011). Coinciding with an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012, a 120-foot (37 m) reproduction of Kusama's painting Yellow Trees (1994) covered a condominium building under construction in New York's Meatpacking District. That same year, Kusama conceived her floor installation Thousands of Eyes as a commission for the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.
=== Select exhibitions ===
Rodenbeck, J. F. "Yayoi Kusama: Surface, Stitch, Skin". Zegher, M. Catherine de. Inside the Visible: An Elliptical Traverse of 20th Century Art in, of, and from the Feminine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-262-54081-0 OCLC 33863951
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 30 January – 12 May 1996.
Kusama, Yayoi, and Damien Hirst. Yayoi Kusama Now. New York: Robert Miller Gallery, 1998. ISBN 978-0-944-68058-2 OCLC 42448762
Robert Miller Gallery, New York, 11 June – 7 August 1998.
Kusama, Yayoi, and Lynn Zelevansky. Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1998. ISBN 978-0-875-87181-3 OCLC 39030076
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 8 March – 8 June 1998; three other locations through 4 July 1999.
Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Vienna: Kunsthalle Wien, 2002. ISBN 978-3-852-47034-4 OCLC 602369060
Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Paris: Les Presses du Reel, 2002. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 50628150
Seven European exhibitions in France, Germany, Denmark, etc.; 2001–2003.
Kusama, Yayoi. Kusamatorikkusu = Kusamatrix. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2004. ISBN 978-4-048-53741-4 OCLC 169879689
Mori Art Museum, 7 February – 9 May 2004; Mori Geijutsu Bijutsukan, Sapporo, 5 June – 22 August 2004.
Kusama, Yayoi, and Tōru Matsumoto. Kusama Yayoi eien no genzai = Yayoi Kusama: eternity-modernity. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2005. ISBN 978-4-568-10353-3 OCLC 63197423
Tokyo Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 26 October – 19 December 2004; Kyoto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan, 6 January – 13 February 2005; Hiroshima-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, 22 February – 17 April 2005; Kumamoto-shi Gendai Bijutsukan, 29 April – 3 July 2005; at Matsumoto-shi Bijutsukan, 30 July – 10 October 2005.
Applin, Jo, and Yayoi Kusama. Yayoi Kusama. London: Victoria Miro Gallery, 10 October – 17 November 2007. ISBN 978-0-955-45644-2 OCLC 501970783
Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama. Gagosian Gallery, New York, 16 April – 27 June 2009; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, 30 May – 17 July 2009. ISBN 978-1-932-59894-0 OCLC 320277816
Morris, Frances, and Jo Applin. Yayoi Kusama. London: Tate Publishing, 2012. ISBN 978-1-854-37939-9 OCLC 781163109
Reina Sofia, Madrid, 10 May – 12 September 2011; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 10 October 2011 – 9 January 2012; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 12 July – 30 September 2012; Tate Modern (London), 9 February – 5 June 2012.
Kusama, Yayoi, and Akira Tatehata. Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived in Heaven. New York: David Zwirner, 2014. ISBN 978-0-989-98093-7 OCLC 879584489
David Zwirner Gallery, New York, 8 November – 21 December 2013.
Laurberg, Marie: Yayoi Kusama – In Infinity, Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015, Heine Onstadt, Oslo, 2016, Moderna Museum, Stockholm, 2016, and Helsinki Art Museum, 2016
David Zwirner Gallery, New York, 9 November – 14 December 2019.
Pérez Art Museum Miami. Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, 9 March 2023 – 11 February 2024.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Yayoi Kusama, 15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025
=== Illustration work ===
Carroll, Lewis and Yayoi Kusama. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Penguin Classics, 2012. ISBN 978-0-141-19730-2 OCLC 54167867
=== Chapters ===
Nakajima, Izumi. "Yayoi Kusama between abstraction and pathology". Pollock, Griselda, ed. Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Pub, 2006. pp. 127–160. ISBN 978-1-405-13460-6 OCLC 62755557
Klaus Podoll, "Die Künstlerin Yayoi Kusama als pathographischer Fall". Schulz R, Bonanni G, Bormuth M, eds. Wahrheit ist, was uns verbindet: Karl Jaspers' Kunst zu philosophieren. Göttingen, Wallstein, 2009. p. 119. ISBN 978-3-835-30423-9 OCLC 429664716
Cutler, Jody B. "Narcissus, Narcosis, Neurosis: The Visions of Yayoi Kusama". Wallace, Isabelle Loring, and Jennie Hirsh. Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. pp. 87–109. ISBN 978-0-754-66974-6 OCLC 640515432
Gipson, Ferren. "Yayoi Kusama" in Women's Work, pp. 75–79, Frances Lincoln, 2022 ISBN 9-780711 264 656
=== Autobiography, writing ===
Kusama, Yayoi. A Book of Poems and Paintings. Tokyo: Japan Edition Art, 1977.
Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi: Driving Image = Yayoi Kusama. Tokyo: PARCO shuppan, 1986. ISBN 978-4-891-94130-7 OCLC 54943729
Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy, Hisako Ifshin. Violet Obsession: Poems. Berkeley: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33043-5 OCLC 82910478
Kusama, Yayoi, Ralph F. McCarthy. Hustlers Grotto: Three Novellas. Berkeley, California: Wandering Mind Books, 1998. ISBN 978-0-965-33042-8 OCLC 45665616
Kusama, Yayoi. Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-226-46498-5 OCLC 711050927
Kusama, Yayoï, and Isabelle Charrier. Manhattan Suicide Addict. Dijon: Presses du Réel, 2005. ISBN 978-2-840-66115-3 OCLC 420073474
=== Catalogue raisonné, etc. ===
Kusama, Yayoi. Yayoi Kusama: Print Works. Tokyo: Abe Corp, 1992. ISBN 978-4-872-42023-4 OCLC 45198668
Hoptman, Laura, Akira Tatehata, and Udo Kultermann. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-714-83920-2 OCLC 749417124
Kusama, Yayoi, and Hideki Yasuda. Yayoi Kusama Furniture by Graf: Decorative Mode No. 3. Tokyo: Seigensha Art Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-4-916-09470-4 OCLC 71424904
Kusama, Yayoi. Kusama Yayoi zen hangashū, 1979–2004 = All Prints of Kusama Yayoi, 1979–2004. Tokyo: Abe Shuppan, 2006. ISBN 978-4-872-42174-3 OCLC 173274568
Kusama, Yayoi, Laura Hoptman, Akira Tatehata, Udo Kultermann, Catherine Taft. Yayoi Kusama. London: Phaidon Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-714-87345-9 OCLC 749417124
Yoshitake, Mika, Chiu, Melissa, Dumbadze, Alexander Blair, Jones, Alex, Sutton, Gloria, Tezuka, Miwako. Yayoi Kusama : Infinity Mirrors. Washington, DC. ISBN 978-3-7913-5594-8. OCLC 954134388
== Exhibitions ==
In 1959, Kusama had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Brata Gallery, an artist's co-op. She showed a series of white net paintings which were enthusiastically reviewed by Donald Judd (both Judd and Frank Stella then acquired paintings from the show). Kusama has since exhibited work with Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, among others. Exhibiting alongside European artists including Lucio Fontana, Pol Bury, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker, in 1962, she was the only female artist to take part in the widely acclaimed Nul (Zero) international group exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
=== Exhibition list ===
1976: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art
1983: Yayoi Kusama's Self-Obliteration (Performance) at Video Gallery SCAN, Tokyo
1993: Represented Japan at the Venice Biennale
1998: Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969, LACMA
1998 – 1999: Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama,1958–1969 - exhibit traveled to Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo)
2001 – 2003: Le Consortium – exhibit traveled to Japanese Culture House of Paris (French: Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris), Paris; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; and Artsonje Center, Seoul
2004: KUSAMATRIX, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
2004 – 2005: KUSAMATRIX traveled to Art Park Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido); Eternity – Modernity, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (touring Japan)
2007: FINA Festival 2007. Kusama created Guidepost to the New Space, an outdoor installation for Birrarung Marr beside the Yarra River in Melbourne. In 2009, the Guideposts were re-installed at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, this time displayed as floating "humps" on a lake
2009: The Mirrored Years traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and City Gallery Wellington
2010: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen purchased the work Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli's Field. As of 13 September of that year the mirror room is permanently exhibited in the entrance area of the museum
July 2011: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid
2012: Tate Modern, London. Described as "akin to being suspended in a beautiful cosmos gazing at infinite worlds, or like a tiny dot of fluoresecent plankton in an ocean of glowing microscopic life", the exhibition features a retrospective spanning Kusama's entire career
30 June 2013 – 16 September 2013: MALBA, the Latinamerican Art Museum of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires
22 May 2014 – 27 June 2014: Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo
17 September 2015 – 24 January 2016: In Infinity, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk
12 June 2015 – 9 August 2015: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory, The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow. This was Kusama's first solo exhibition in Russia
19 February 2016 – 15 May 2016: Yayoi Kusama – I uendeligheten, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo
20 September 2015 – September 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room, The Broad, Los Angeles, California
12 June 2016 – 18 September 2016: Kusama: At the End of the Universe, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
1 May 2016 – 30 November 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden, The Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut
25 May 2016 – 30 July 2016: Yayoi Kusama: Sculptures, Paintings & Mirror Rooms, Victoria Miro Gallery, London
7 October 2016 – 22 January 2017: Yayoi Kusama: In Infinity, organised by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in cooperation with Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Moderna Museet/ArkDes and Helsinki Art Museum HAM in Helsinki
5 November 2016 – 17 April 2017: Dot Obsessions – Tasmania, MONA: Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart
23 February 2017 – 14 May 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, a traveling museum show originating at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
30 June 2017 – 10 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition traveled to Seattle Art Museum
9 June 2017 – 3 September 2017: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, National Gallery Singapore
October 2017 – January 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition traveled to The Broad, Los Angeles, California
October 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
November 2017 – February 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow and Obliteration Room, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Brisbane
December 2017 – April 2018: Flower Obsession, Triennial, NGV, Melbourne
March 2018 – February 2019 Pumpkin Forever (Forever Museum of Contemporary Art), Gion-Kyoto
March 2018 – May 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition traveled to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
May 2018 – September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta
July 2018 – September 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors, exhibition traveled to Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
July 2018 – November 2018: Yayoi Kusama: Where The Lights In My Heart Go, exhibition traveled to DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts
26 July 2018 – Spring 2019: Yayoi Kusama: With All My Love for the Tulips, I Pray Forever (2011)
March 2019 – September 2019: Yayoi Kusama, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar
9 November 2019 – 14 December 2019: Yayoi Kusama: Everyday I Pray For Love, David Zwirner Gallery, New York
4 January 2020 – 18 March 2020: Brilliance of the Souls, Maraya, AlUla
4 April 2020 – 19 September 2020: Yayoi Kusama: One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection, Washington, DC
31 July 2020 – 3 January 2021: STARS: Six Contemporary Artists from Japan to the World, Tokyo
10 April 2021 – 31 October 2021: Kusama: Cosmic Nature, New York Botanical Garden, New York
18 May 2021 – 28 April 2024: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Tate Modern, London
15 November 2021 – 23 April 2022: Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
9 March 2023 – 11 February 2024: Yayoi Kusama: LOVE IS CALLING, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida
11 May 2023 – 21 July 2023: Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner Gallery, New York
14 September 2023 – 5 May 2024: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrored Room – Let's Survive Together, 2017, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York
15 December 2024 – 21 April 2025: Yayoi Kusama, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2 October 2025 – 2 March 2026: One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York
12 October 2025 – 25 January 2026: Yayoi Kusama, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen; 14 March 2026 – 2 August 2026, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; 11 September 2026 – 17 January 2027, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
=== Permanent Infinity Room installations ===
Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (1996), Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Infinity Mirror Room fireflies on Water (2000), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy
You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies (2005), Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
Gleaming Lights of the Souls (2008), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlbaek, Fredensborg Municipality
The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), The Broad, Los Angeles, California
Infinity Dots Mirrored Room (2014), Bonte Museum, Jeju Island
The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens (2015), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Hymn of Life (2015), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo
Phalli's Field (1965/2016), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Love is Calling (2013/2019), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts
Light of Life (2018), North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina
Brilliance of the Souls (2019), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN), Jakarta
Infinity Mirror Room – Let's Survive Forever (2019), Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity (2009), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
== Peer review ==
Applin, Jo. Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room – Phallis Field. Afterall, 2012. ISBN 9781846380914
Hoptman, Laura J., et al. Yayoi Kusama. Phaidon Press Limited, 2000. ISBN 978-0714839202
== Collections ==
Kusama's work is in the collections of museums throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and in the City Museum of Art in her home town of Matsumoto entitled The Place for My Soul.[1]
== Recognition ==
Kusama's image is included in the iconic 1972 poster Some Living American Women Artists by Mary Beth Edelson.
In 2017, a fifty-year retrospective of Kusama's work opened at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. That same year, the Yayoi Kusama Museum was inaugurated in Tokyo. Other major retrospectives of her work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art (1998), the Whitney Museum (2012), and the Tate Modern (2012). In 2015, the website Artsy named Kusama one of its top 10 living artists of the year.
Kusama has received many awards, including the Asahi Prize (2001); Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2003); the National Lifetime Achievement Award from the Order of the Rising Sun (2006); and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art. In October 2006, Kusama became the first Japanese woman to receive the Praemium Imperiale, one of Japan's highest honors for internationally recognized artists. She received the Person of Cultural Merit (2009) and Ango awards (2014). In 2014, Kusama was ranked the most popular artist of the year after a record-breaking number of visitors flooded her Latin American tour, Yayoi Kusama: Infinite Obsession. Venues from Buenos Aires to Mexico City received more than 8,500 visitors each day.
Kusama gained media attention for partnering with the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to make her 2017 Infinity Mirror rooms accessible to visitors with disabilities or mobility issues; in a new initiative among art museums, the venue mapped out the six individual rooms and provided disabled individuals visiting the exhibition access to a complete 360-degree virtual reality headset that allowed them to experience every aspect of the rooms, as if they were actually walking through them.
According to Hanna Schouwink of David Zwirner Gallery speaking in 2018, Kusama is "officially the world's most successful living artist". Kusama was recognized as one of the Asia Game Changer awardees in 2023 by Asia Society for her actions that strengthened the bounds between Asia and the world.
== Art market ==
Kusama's work has performed strongly at auction: top prices for her work are for paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 2012, her work has the highest turnover of any living woman artist. In November 2008, Christie's New York sold a 1959 white Infinity Net painting formerly owned by Donald Judd, No. 2, for US$5.1 million, then a record for a living female artist. In comparison, the highest price for a sculpture from her New York years is £72,500 (US$147,687), fetched by the 1965 wool, pasta, paint and hanger assemblage Golden Macaroni Jacket at Sotheby's London in October 2007. A 2006 acrylic on fiberglass-reinforced plastic pumpkin earned $264,000, the top price for one of her sculptures, also at Sotheby's in 2007. Her Flame of Life – Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu) sold for US$960,000 at Art Basel/Hong Kong in May 2013, the highest price paid at the show. Kusama became the most expensive living female artist at auction when White No. 28 (1960) from her signature Infinity Nets series sold for $7.1 million at a 2014 Christie's auction.
== In popular culture ==
Superchunk, an American indie band, included a song called "Art Class (Song for Yayoi Kusama)" on its Here's to Shutting Up album.
In 1967, Jud Yalkut made a film of Kusama titled Kusama's Self-Obliteration.
In 2013, the British indie pop duo The Boy Least Likely To made song tribute to Kusama, writing a song specially about her. They wrote on their blog that they admire Kusama's work because she puts her fears into it, something that they themselves often do.
Magnolia Pictures released the biographical documentary by Heather Lenz, Kusama: Infinity, in 2018 and a DVD version in 2019.
Veuve Clicquot and Kusama created a limited-edition bottle and sculpture in September 2020.
Cyndi Lauper's 2024 Farewell Tour featured art by Kusama, including white sculptures and walls covered in Kusama's signature red polka dots. Lauper and background performers also dressed in matching white clothes with large red polka dots.
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Yayoi Kusama Museum (English)
Yayoi Kusama at David Zwirner
Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama, 1958–1968, Museum of Modern Art
Yayoi Kusama and Georgia O'Keeffe, artnet, May 10, 2025
Smith, Roberta (3 November 2017). "Yayoi Kusama and the Amazing Polka dotted selfie made journey to greatness". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
How to Paint Like Yayoi Kusama on YouTube
Yayoi Kusama at the Museum of Modern Art
Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction | HOW TO SEE the art movement with Corey D'Augustine on YouTube (MoMA)
Phoenix Art Museum online Archived 28 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Earth is a polka dot. An interview with Yayoi Kusama Video by Louisiana Channel
"Yayoi Kusama" on YouTube, BBC Newsnight, 26 September 2012
Why Yayoi Kusama matters now more than ever on YouTube
"An Artist for the Instagram Age" by Sarah Boxer, The Atlantic, July/August 2017
Yayoi Kusama/artnet |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_judges_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_India#List_of_Judges_in_chronology | List of women judges of the Supreme Court of India | This is a list of women judges of the Supreme Court of India, the highest court in the Republic of India. The list is arranged in chronological order.
The first woman to become a judge of the Supreme Court was Fathima Beevi, appointed on 6 October 1989. There have been 11 women justices in the court since then. Currently, there is just one sitting woman judge out of the total 34 – Justice B. V. Nagarathna.
Justice Nagarathna is also set to be the first female Chief Justice of India in September 2027, with a tenure of just 36 days, the third shortest in history.
== List of Judges in chronology ==
Key
Incumbent
First female to enter in collegium
== See also ==
List of female governors in India
List of female lieutenant governors and administrators in India
List of female chief ministers in India
List of female deputy chief ministers in India
List of female legislative speakers and chairpersons in India
List of female opposition leaders in India
List of female chief justices in India
List of chief justices of India
List of sitting judges of the Supreme Court of India
List of former judges of the Supreme Court of India
List of first women lawyers and judges in Asia
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector-Louis_Langevin | Hector-Louis Langevin | Sir Hector-Louis Langevin (August 25, 1826 – June 11, 1906) was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and one of the Fathers of Confederation.
Education
Langevin was born in Quebec City in 1826. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1850.
== Political career ==
In 1856, he was elected to the municipal council of Quebec City and served as mayor from 1858 to 1861. In 1857, he was elected Member of Parliament for Dorchester in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada as a member of the Conservative Party. He held various positions in Cabinet, including Solicitor General (1864–66), Postmaster General (1866–67), Secretary of State for Canada (1867–69), Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs (1868–69), Minister of Public Works (1869–73) and acting Minister of Militia and Defence (1873). Langevin also attended all three conferences leading to Confederation. He left politics in 1873 due to his role in the Pacific Scandal.
In 1871, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec in the provincial electoral district of Québec-Centre. At the time, dual mandates were still allowed. He served one term, until 1874.
In 1876, he was re-elected in the riding of Charlevoix. His opponent contested the election and it was declared invalid, but he won the subsequent by-election in 1877. He was defeated in Rimouski in 1878 but elected by acclamation in the riding of Trois-Rivières in the same year. Langevin became Minister of Public Works again in 1879. He lobbied behind the scenes against the hanging of Louis Riel in 1885 and was one of the few Conservative Members of Parliament to survive the resulting backlash in the province of Quebec in 1887.
He was promised the post of Lieutenant Governor of Quebec by the new Conservative Prime Minister John Abbott if he resigned as Minister of Public Works. Langevin stepped down in 1891 but Abbott appointed Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau instead. That year, Langevin was implicated with Thomas McGreevy in what became known as the "McGreevy-Langevin scandal" over kickbacks to McGreevy associated with federal contracts granted to him by the Department of Public Works overseen by Langevin. He retired to the backbenches and then left politics in 1896.
Outside politics, he was previously a newspaper editor.
== View on Indigenous Canadians ==
In 1883, he stated in Parliament "In order to educate the (‘Indian’) children properly we must separate them from their families. Some people may say that this is hard but if we want to civilize them we must do that." "The fact is that if you wish to educate the children you must separate them from their parents during the time they are being taught. If you leave them in the family they may know how to read and write, but they will remain savages, whereas by separating them in the way proposed, they acquire the habits and tastes…of civilized people."
== Posthumous recognition ==
The Langevin Block office building on Parliament Hill and the Langevin Bridge in Calgary were named in his honour. Langevin's group of honours insignia was sold at auction in Ottawa on May 18, 2010, for $8,000.00
On January 23, 2017, Calgary City Council voted to rename the Langevin Bridge to the Reconciliation Bridge. In June 2017 it was announced the Langevin Block would be renamed to the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council building due to Langevin's involvement in the Canadian Indian residential school system. In June 2021, a Calgary Board of Education public school was renamed Riverside School, after being Langevin school from 1936 until 2021.
== Personal life ==
Langevin's brother, Jean Langevin, was a Roman Catholic bishop.
== Archives ==
There is a Hector-Louis Langevin fonds at Library and Archives Canada and a family Hector Langevin fonds at Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
== Electoral history ==
== References ==
== External links ==
National Library of Canada biography
"Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
"Hector-Louis Langevin". Dictionary of Canadian Biography (online ed.). University of Toronto Press. 1979–2016.
Hector-Louis Langevin – Parliament of Canada biography |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxycodone | Oxycodone | Oxycodone, sold under the brand name Roxicodone and OxyContin (which is the extended-release form) among others, is a semi-synthetic opioid used medically for the treatment of moderate to severe pain. It is highly addictive and is a commonly abused drug. It is usually taken by mouth, and is available in immediate-release and controlled-release formulations. Onset of pain relief typically begins within fifteen minutes and lasts for up to six hours with the immediate-release formulation. In the United Kingdom, it is available by injection. Combination products are also available with paracetamol (acetaminophen), ibuprofen, naloxone, naltrexone, and aspirin.
Common side effects include euphoria, constipation, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, drowsiness, dizziness, itching, dry mouth, and sweating. Side effects may also include addiction and dependence, substance abuse, irritability, depression or mania, delirium, hallucinations, hypoventilation, gastroparesis, bradycardia, and hypotension. Those allergic to codeine may also be allergic to oxycodone. Use of oxycodone in early pregnancy appears relatively safe. Opioid withdrawal may occur if rapidly stopped. Oxycodone acts by activating the μ-opioid receptor. When taken by mouth, it has roughly 1.5 times the effect of the equivalent amount of morphine.
Oxycodone was originally produced from the opium poppy opiate alkaloid thebaine in 1916 in Germany. One year later, it was used medically for the first time in Germany. Oxycodone is a therapeutic alternative on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication. In 2023, it was the 49th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 13 million prescriptions. A number of abuse-deterrent formulations are available, such as in combination with naloxone or naltrexone.
== Medical uses ==
Oxycodone is used for managing moderate to severe acute or chronic pain when other treatments are not sufficient. Oxycodone improves quality of life in certain types of pain. Numerous studies have been completed, and the appropriate use of this compound does improve the quality of life of patients with long term chronic pain syndromes.
Oxycodone can be taken in an immediate-release form (4 times daily for example with the brand name Shortec) or twice daily with extended-release forms (such as with e.g. the brand name "Oxypro") and both forms are Extended-release forms of oxycodone (OxyContin) and are used for around-the-clock treatment of pain worldwide, are not to be used on an "as needed" basis, while other forms such as the immediate-release forms are indicated as to be used as rescue medications in the treatment of pain (for example for in severe cancer pain or pain after surgery). There are many forms of the drug that are recognized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Health Service (NHS) and NHS Scotland (NHS Scot) to be used for various indications.
Oxycodone is available as a controlled-release tablet. A 2006 review found that controlled-release oxycodone is comparable to immediate-release oxycodone, morphine, and hydromorphone in management of moderate to severe cancer pain, with fewer side effects than morphine. The author concluded that the controlled-release form is a valid alternative to morphine and a first-line treatment for cancer pain. In 2014, the European Association for Palliative Care recommended oxycodone by mouth as a second-line alternative to morphine by mouth for cancer pain.
In children between 11 and 16, the extended-release formulation is FDA-approved for the relief of cancer pain, trauma pain, or pain due to major surgery (for those already treated with opioids, who can tolerate at least 20 mg per day of oxycodone) – this provides an alternative to Duragesic (fentanyl), the only other extended-release opioid analgesic approved for children.
Oxycodone, in its extended-release form or in combination with naloxone, is sometimes used off-label in the treatment of severe and refractory restless legs syndrome.
=== Available forms ===
Oxycodone is available in a variety of formulations for by mouth or under the tongue:
Immediate-release oxycodone (OxyFast, OxyIR, OxyNorm, Roxicodone, Shortec)
Controlled-release oxycodone (OxyContin, Xtampza ER, Oxypro) – 10–12 hour duration
Oxycodone tamper-resistant (OxyContin OTR)
Immediate-release oxycodone with paracetamol (acetaminophen) (Percocet, Endocet, Roxicet, Tylox)
Immediate-release oxycodone with aspirin (Endodan, Oxycodan, Percodan, Roxiprin)
Immediate-release oxycodone with ibuprofen (Combunox)
Controlled-release oxycodone with naloxone (Targin, Targiniq, Targinact) – 10–12 hour duration
Controlled-release oxycodone with naltrexone (Troxyca) – 10–12 hour duration
In the US, oxycodone is only approved for use by mouth, available as tablets and oral solutions. Parenteral formulations of oxycodone (brand name OxyNorm) are also available in other parts of the world, however, and are widely used in the European Union. In Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, oxycodone is approved for intravenous (IV) and intramuscular (IM) use. When first introduced in Germany during World War I, both IV and IM administrations of oxycodone were commonly used for postoperative pain management of Central Powers soldiers.
== Side effects ==
The most common side effects of oxycodone include delayed gastric emptying, euphoria, anxiolysis (a reduction in anxiety), feelings of relaxation, and respiratory depression. Common side effects of oxycodone include constipation (23%), nausea (23%), vomiting (12%), somnolence (23%), dizziness (13%), itching (13%), dry mouth (6%), and sweating (5%). Less common side effects (experienced by less than 5% of patients) include loss of appetite, nervousness, abdominal pain, diarrhea, urinary retention, dyspnea, and hiccups.
Most side effects generally become less intense over time, although issues related to constipation are likely to continue for the duration of use. Chronic use of this compound and associated constipation issues can become very serious, and have been implicated in life-threatening bowel perforations. A number of specific medications including naloxegol have been developed to address opioid induced constipation.
Oxycodone in combination with naloxone in managed-release tablets has been formulated to both deter abuse and reduce opioid-induced constipation.
=== Dependence and withdrawal ===
The risk of experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms is high if a patient has become physically dependent and discontinues oxycodone abruptly. Medically, when the drug has been taken regularly over an extended period, it is withdrawn gradually rather than abruptly. People who regularly use oxycodone recreationally or at higher than prescribed doses are at even higher risk of severe withdrawal symptoms. The symptoms of oxycodone withdrawal, as with other opioids, may include "anxiety, panic attack, nausea, insomnia, muscle pain, muscle weakness, fevers, and other flu-like symptoms".
Withdrawal symptoms have also been reported in newborns whose mothers had been either injecting or orally taking oxycodone during pregnancy.
=== Hormone levels ===
As with other opioids, chronic use of oxycodone (particularly with higher doses) can often cause concurrent hypogonadism (low sex hormone levels).
== Overdose ==
In high doses, overdoses, or in some persons not tolerant to opioids, oxycodone can cause shallow breathing, slowed heart rate, cold/clammy skin, pauses in breathing, low blood pressure, constricted pupils, circulatory collapse, respiratory arrest, and death.
In 2011, it was the leading cause of drug-related deaths in the U.S. However, from 2012 onwards, heroin and fentanyl have become more common causes of drug-related deaths.
== Interactions ==
Oxycodone is metabolized by the enzymes CYP3A4 and CYP2D6. Therefore, its clearance can be altered by inhibitors and inducers of these enzymes, increasing and decreasing half-life, respectively. (For lists of CYP3A4 and CYP2D6 inhibitors and inducers, see here and here, respectively.) Natural genetic variation in these enzymes can also influence the clearance of oxycodone, which may be related to the wide inter-individual variability in its half-life and potency.
Ritonavir or lopinavir/ritonavir greatly increase plasma concentrations of oxycodone in healthy human volunteers due to inhibition of CYP3A4 and CYP2D6. Rifampicin greatly reduces plasma concentrations of oxycodone due to strong induction of CYP3A4. There is also a case report of fosphenytoin, a CYP3A4 inducer, dramatically reducing the analgesic effects of oxycodone in a chronic pain patient. Dosage or medication adjustments may be necessary in each case.
== Pharmacology ==
=== Pharmacodynamics ===
Oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid, is a highly selective full agonist of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR). This is the main biological target of the endogenous opioid neuropeptide β-endorphin. Oxycodone has low affinity for the δ-opioid receptor (DOR) and the κ-opioid receptor (KOR), where it is an agonist similarly. After oxycodone binds to the MOR, a G protein-complex is released, which inhibits the release of neurotransmitters by the cell by decreasing the amount of cAMP produced, closing calcium channels, and opening potassium channels. Opioids like oxycodone are thought to produce their analgesic effects via activation of the MOR in the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) and rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM). Conversely, they are thought to produce reward and addiction via activation of the MOR in the mesolimbic reward pathway, including in the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens, and ventral pallidum. Tolerance to the analgesic and rewarding effects of opioids is complex and occurs due to receptor-level tolerance (e.g., MOR downregulation), cellular-level tolerance (e.g., cAMP upregulation), and system-level tolerance (e.g., neural adaptation due to induction of ΔFosB expression).
Taken orally, 20 mg of immediate-release oxycodone is considered to be equivalent in analgesic effect to 30 mg of morphine, while extended release oxycodone is considered to be twice as potent as oral morphine.
Similarly to most other opioids, oxycodone increases prolactin secretion, but its influence on testosterone levels is unknown. Unlike morphine, oxycodone lacks immunosuppressive activity (measured by natural killer cell activity and interleukin 2 production in vitro); the clinical relevance of this has not been clarified.
==== Active metabolites ====
A few of the metabolites of oxycodone have also been found to be active as MOR agonists, some of which notably have much higher affinity for (as well as higher efficacy at) the MOR in comparison. Oxymorphone possesses 3- to 5-fold higher affinity for the MOR than does oxycodone, while noroxycodone and noroxymorphone possess one-third of and 3-fold higher affinity for the MOR, respectively, and MOR activation is 5- to 10-fold less with noroxycodone but 2-fold higher with noroxymorphone relative to oxycodone. Noroxycodone, noroxymorphone, and oxymorphone also have longer biological half-lives than oxycodone.
However, despite the greater in vitro activity of some of its metabolites, it has been determined that oxycodone itself is responsible for 83.0% and 94.8% of its analgesic effect following oral and intravenous administration, respectively. Oxymorphone plays only a minor role, being responsible for 15.8% and 4.5% of the analgesic effect of oxycodone after oral and intravenous administration, respectively. Although the CYP2D6 genotype and the route of administration result in differential rates of oxymorphone formation, the unchanged parent compound remains the major contributor to the overall analgesic effect of oxycodone. In contrast to oxycodone and oxymorphone, noroxycodone and noroxymorphone, while also potent MOR agonists, poorly cross the blood–brain barrier into the central nervous system, and for this reason are only minimally analgesic in comparison.
==== κ-opioid receptor ====
In 1997, a group of Australian researchers proposed (based on a study in rats) that oxycodone acts on KORs, unlike morphine, which acts upon MORs. Further research by this group indicated the drug appears to be a high-affinity κ2b-opioid receptor agonist. However, this conclusion has been disputed, primarily on the basis that oxycodone produces effects that are typical of MOR agonists. In 2006, research by a Japanese group suggested the effect of oxycodone is mediated by different receptors in different situations. Specifically in diabetic mice, the KOR appears to be involved in the antinociceptive effects of oxycodone, while in nondiabetic mice, the μ1-opioid receptor seems to be primarily responsible for these effects.
=== Pharmacokinetics ===
==== Instant-release absorption profiles and Tmax ====
Oxycodone can be administered orally, intravenously, via intravenous, intramuscular, or subcutaneous injection. Along with rectal, sublingual, buccal or intranasal drug delivery. The bioavailability of oral administration of oxycodone averages within a range of 60 to 87%, with rectal administration yielding the same results; Intranasal administration of oxycodone has a bioavailability of ~77%, the same half life as oral oxycodone, along with faster Tmax previously reported as 47% for nasal spray administration due to the solution in the study exceeding the 0.3- to 0.4-mL nasal mucosa limit. Buccal bioavailability ~55%, Tmax ~60 min. Sublingual bioavailability 20% (non alkalized) ~55% (alkalized) Tmax ~60 minutes.
After a dose of conventional (immediate-release) oral oxycodone, the onset of action is 10 to 30 minutes, and peak plasma levels of the drug are attained within roughly 30 to 60 minutes; in contrast, after a dose of OxyContin (an oral controlled-release formulation), peak plasma levels of oxycodone occur in about three hours. Mean serum concentration of controlled-release oxycodone peaks at 78 ng/ml at 1 hour and drops to 20 ng/ml at 8 hours and under 10 ng/ml at 12 hours. The duration of instant-release oxycodone is 3 to 6 hours, although this can be variable depending on the individual.
==== Distribution ====
Oxycodone has a volume of distribution of 2.6L/kg, in the blood it is distributed to skeletal muscle, liver, intestinal tract, lungs, spleen, and brain. At equilibrium the unbound concentration in the brain is threefold higher than the unbound concentration in blood. Conventional oral preparations start to reduce pain within 10 to 15 minutes on an empty stomach; in contrast, OxyContin starts to reduce pain within one hour.
==== Metabolism ====
The metabolism of oxycodone in humans occurs in the liver mainly via the cytochrome P450 system and is extensive (about 95%) and complex, with many minor pathways and resulting metabolites. Around 10% (range 8–14%) of a dose of oxycodone is excreted essentially unchanged (unconjugated or conjugated) in the urine. The major metabolites of oxycodone are noroxycodone (70%), noroxymorphone ("relatively high concentrations"), and oxymorphone (5%). The immediate metabolism of oxycodone in humans is as follows:
N-Demethylation to noroxycodone predominantly via CYP3A4
O-Demethylation to oxymorphone predominantly via CYP2D6
6-Ketoreduction to 6α- and 6β-oxycodol
N-Oxidation to oxycodone-N-oxide
In humans, N-demethylation of oxycodone to noroxycodone by CYP3A4 is the major metabolic pathway, accounting for 45% ± 21% of a dose of oxycodone, while O-demethylation of oxycodone into oxymorphone by CYP2D6 and 6-ketoreduction of oxycodone into 6-oxycodols represent relatively minor metabolic pathways, accounting for 11% ± 6% and 8% ± 6% of a dose of oxycodone, respectively.
Several of the immediate metabolites of oxycodone are subsequently conjugated with glucuronic acid and excreted in the urine. 6α-Oxycodol and 6β-oxycodol are further metabolized by N-demethylation to nor-6α-oxycodol and nor-6β-oxycodol, respectively, and by N-oxidation to 6α-oxycodol-N-oxide and 6β-oxycodol-N-oxide (which can subsequently be glucuronidated as well). Oxymorphone is also further metabolized, as follows:
3-Glucuronidation to oxymorphone-3-glucuronide predominantly via UGT2B7
6-Ketoreduction to 6α-oxymorphol and 6β-oxymorphol
N-Demethylation to noroxymorphone
The first pathway of the above three accounts for 40% of the metabolism of oxymorphone, making oxymorphone-3-glucuronide the main metabolite of oxymorphone, while the latter two pathways account for less than 10% of the metabolism of oxymorphone. After N-demethylation of oxymorphone, noroxymorphone is further glucuronidated to noroxymorphone-3-glucuronide.
Because oxycodone is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 system in the liver, its pharmacokinetics can be influenced by genetic polymorphisms and drug interactions concerning this system, as well as by liver function. Some people are fast metabolizers of oxycodone, while others are slow metabolizers, resulting in polymorphism-dependent alterations in relative analgesia and toxicity. While higher CYP2D6 activity increases the effects of oxycodone (owing to increased conversion into oxymorphone), higher CYP3A4 activity has the opposite effect and decreases the effects of oxycodone (owing to increased metabolism into noroxycodone and noroxymorphone). The dose of oxycodone must be reduced in patients with reduced liver function.
==== Elimination ====
The clearance of oxycodone is 0.8 L/min. Oxycodone and its metabolites are mainly excreted in urine. Therefore, oxycodone accumulates in patients with kidney impairment. Oxycodone is eliminated in the urine 10% as unchanged oxycodone, 45% ± 21% as N-demethylated metabolites (noroxycodone, noroxymorphone, noroxycodols), 11 ± 6% as O-demethylated metabolites (oxymorphone, oxymorphols), and 8% ± 6% as 6-keto-reduced metabolites (oxycodols).
==== Duration of action ====
Oral oxycodone has a half-life of 4.5 hours. The manufacturer of OxyContin (a controlled-release preparation of oxycodone), Purdue Pharma, claimed in its 1992 patent application that the duration of action of OxyContin is 12 hours in "90% of patients". Purdue has never performed any clinical studies in which OxyContin was given at more frequent intervals. In a separate filing, Purdue claimed that controlled-release oxycodone "provides pain relief in said patient for at least 12 hours after administration". However, in 2016, an investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that "the drug wears off hours early in many people", inducing symptoms of opiate withdrawal and intense cravings for OxyContin. One doctor, Lawrence Robbins, told journalists that over 70% of his patients would report that OxyContin would only provide 4–7 hours of relief. Doctors in the 1990s often would switch their patients to a dosing schedule of once every eight hours when patients complained that the duration of action for OxyContin was too short to be taken only twice a day.
Purdue strongly discouraged the practice: Purdue's medical director Robert Reder wrote to one doctor in 1995 that "OxyContin has been developed for [12-hour] dosing...I request that you not use a [8-hourly] dosing regimen." Purdue repeatedly released memos to its sales representatives ordering them to remind doctors not to deviate from a 12-hour dosing schedule. One such memo read, "There is no Q8 dosing with OxyContin... [8-hour dosing] needs to be nipped in the bud. NOW!!" The journalists who covered the investigation argued that Purdue Pharma has insisted on a 12-hour duration of action for nearly all patients, despite evidence to the contrary, to protect the reputation of OxyContin as a 12-hour drug and the willingness of health insurance and managed care companies to cover OxyContin despite its high cost relative to generic opiates such as morphine.
Purdue sales representatives were instructed to encourage doctors to write prescriptions for larger 12-hour doses instead of more frequent dosing. An August 1996 memo to Purdue sales representatives in Tennessee entitled "$$$$$$$$$$$$$ It's Bonus Time in the Neighborhood!" reminded the representatives that their commissions would dramatically increase if they were successful in convincing doctors to prescribe larger doses. Los Angeles Times journalists argue using interviews from opioid addiction experts that such high doses of OxyContin spaced 12 hours apart create a combination of agony during opiate withdrawal (lower lows) and a schedule of reinforcement that relieves this agony fostering addiction.
As of 2024, the prescribing information for OxyContin still specifies a controversial 12-hour dosing schedule - which experts say promotes addiction - as the only option; it also still states, "there are no well-controlled clinical studies evaluating the safety and efficacy with dosing more frequently than every 12 hours."
== Chemistry ==
Oxycodone's chemical name is derived from codeine. The chemical structures are very similar, differing only in that
Oxycodone has a hydroxy group at carbon-14 (codeine has just a hydrogen in its place)
Oxycodone has a 7,8-dihydro feature. Codeine has a double bond between those two carbons; and
Oxycodone has a carbonyl group (as in ketones) in place of the hydroxyl group of codeine.
It is also similar to hydrocodone, differing only in that it has a hydroxyl group at carbon-14.
=== Biosynthesis ===
In terms of biosynthesis, oxycodone has been found naturally in nectar extracts from the orchid family Epipactis helleborine; together along with another opioid: 3-{2-{3-{3-benzyloxypropyl}-3-indol, 7,8-didehydro- 4,5-epoxy-3,6-d-morphinan.
Thodey et al., 2014 introduce a microbial compound manufacturing system for compounds including oxycodone. The Thodey platform produces both natural and semisynthetic opioids including this one. This system uses Saccharomyces cerevisiae with transgenes from Papaver somniferum (the opium poppy) and Pseudomonas putida to turn a thebaine input into other opiates and opioids.
=== Detection in biological fluids ===
Oxycodone or its major metabolites may be measured in blood or urine to monitor for clearance, non-medical use, confirm a diagnosis of poisoning, or assist in a medicolegal death investigation. Many commercial opiate screening tests cross-react appreciably with oxycodone and its metabolites, but chromatographic techniques can easily distinguish oxycodone from other opiates.
== History ==
Martin Freund and (Jakob) Edmund Speyer of the University of Frankfurt in Germany published the first synthesis of oxycodone from thebaine in 1916. When Freund died, in 1920, Speyer wrote his obituary for the German Chemical Society. Speyer, born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main in 1878, became a victim of the Holocaust. He died on 5 May 1942, the second day of deportations from the Lodz Ghetto; his death was noted in the ghetto's chronicle.
The first clinical use of the drug was documented in 1917, the year after it was first developed. It was first introduced to the U.S. market in May 1939. In early 1928, Merck introduced a combination product containing scopolamine, oxycodone, and ephedrine under the German initials for the ingredients SEE, which was later renamed Scophedal (SCOpolamine, ePHEDrine, and eukodAL) in 1942. It was last manufactured in 1987 but can be compounded. This combination is essentially an oxycodone analogue of the morphine-based "twilight sleep", with ephedrine added to reduce circulatory and respiratory effects. The drug became known as the "Miracle Drug of the 1930s" in Continental Europe and elsewhere and it was the Wehrmacht's choice for a battlefield analgesic for a time. The drug was expressly designed to provide what the patent application and package insert referred to as "very deep analgesia and profound and intense euphoria" as well as tranquillisation and anterograde amnesia useful for surgery and battlefield wounding cases. Oxycodone was allegedly chosen over other common opiates for this product because it had been shown to produce less sedation at equianalgesic doses compared to morphine, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), and hydrocodone (Dicodid).
During Operation Himmler, Skophedal was also reportedly injected in massive overdose into the prisoners dressed in Polish Army uniforms in the staged incident on 1 September 1939 which opened the Second World War.
The personal notes of Adolf Hitler's physician, Theodor Morell, indicate Hitler received repeated injections of "Eukodal" (oxycodone; produced by Merck) and Scophedal, as well as Dolantin (pethidine), codeine, and morphine less frequently; oxycodone could not be obtained after late January 1945.
In the United States, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on 27 October 1970. The passing of the CSA resulted in all products containing oxycodone being classified as a Schedule II controlled substance.
In the early 1990s, Purdue Pharma, a privately held company based in Stamford, Connecticut, developed a controlled-release version of oxycodone: the prescription painkiller OxyContin ("contin" being short for "continuous", reflecting a longer duration of pain relief). It was approved by the FDA in 1995 after no long-term studies and no assessment of its addictive capabilities. David Kessler, the FDA commissioner at the time, later said of the approval of OxyContin: "No doubt it was a mistake. It was certainly one of the worst medical mistakes, a major mistake." Upon its release in 1995, OxyContin was hailed as a medical breakthrough, a long-lasting narcotic that could help patients with moderate to severe pain. The drug became a blockbuster and has reportedly generated some US$35 billion in revenue for Purdue.
== Society and culture ==
=== Opioid epidemic ===
Oxycodone, like other opioid analgesics, tends to induce feelings of euphoria, relaxation, and reduced anxiety in those who are occasional users. The abuse of Oxycodone, as well as related opioids more broadly, is not unique to the United States and it is a common drug of abuse globally.
==== United States ====
Oxycodone is the most widely recreationally used opioid in America. In the United States, more than 12 million people use opioid drugs recreationally. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that about 11 million people in the U.S. consume oxycodone in a non-medical way annually.
Opioids were responsible for 49,000 of the 72,000 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017. In 2007, about 42,800 emergency room visits occurred due to "episodes" involving oxycodone. In 2008, recreational use of oxycodone and hydrocodone was involved in 14,800 deaths. Some of the cases were due to overdoses of the acetaminophen component, resulting in fatal liver damage.
In September 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released updated labeling guidelines for long-acting and extended-release opioids requiring manufacturers to remove moderate pain as an indication for use, instead stating the drug is for "pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long term opioid treatment". The updated labeling does not restrict physicians from prescribing opioids for moderate pain, as needed.
Reformulated OxyContin is causing some recreational users to change to heroin, which is cheaper and easier to obtain.
===== Lawsuits =====
In October 2017, The New Yorker published a story on Mortimer Sackler and Purdue Pharma regarding their ties to the production and manipulation of the oxycodone markets. The article links Raymond and Arthur Sackler's business practices with the rise of direct pharmaceutical marketing and eventually to the rise of addiction to oxycodone in the United States. The article implies that the Sackler family bears some responsibility for the opioid epidemic in the United States. In 2019, The New York Times ran a piece confirming that Richard Sackler, the son of Raymond Sackler, told company officials in 2008 to "measure our performance by Rx's by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths". This was verified with documents tied to a lawsuit – which was filed by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey – claiming that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that high doses of OxyContin over long periods would increase the risk of serious side effects, including addiction. Despite Purdue Pharma's proposal for a US$12 billion settlement of the lawsuit, the attorneys general of 23 states, including Massachusetts, rejected the settlement offer in September 2019.
==== Australia ====
The non-medical use of oxycodone existed since the early 1970s, but by 2015, 91% of a national sample of injecting drug users in Australia had reported using oxycodone, and 27% had injected it in the last six months.
==== Canada ====
Opioid-related deaths in Ontario had increased by 242% from 1969 to 2014. By 2009 in Ontario there were more deaths from oxycodone overdoses than from cocaine overdoses. Deaths from opioid pain relievers had increased from 13.7 deaths per million residents in 1991 to 27.2 deaths per million residents in 2004. The non-medical use of oxycodone in Canada became a problem. Areas where oxycodone is most problematic are Atlantic Canada and Ontario, where its non-medical use is prevalent in rural towns and in many smaller to medium-sized cities. Oxycodone is also widely available across Western Canada, but methamphetamine and heroin are more serious problems in larger cities, while oxycodone is more common in rural towns. Oxycodone is diverted through doctor shopping, prescription forgery, pharmacy theft, and overprescription.
The recent formulations of oxycodone, particularly Purdue Pharma's crush-, chew-, injection- and dissolve-resistant OxyNEO which replaced the banned OxyContin product in Canada in early 2012, have led to a decline in the recreational use of this opiate but have increased the recreational use of the more potent drug fentanyl. According to a Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse study quoted in Maclean's magazine, there were at least 655 fentanyl-related deaths in Canada in five years.
In Alberta, the Blood Tribe police claimed that from the fall of 2014 through January 2015, oxycodone pills or a lethal fake variation referred to as Oxy 80s containing fentanyl made in illegal labs by members of organized crime were responsible for ten deaths on the Blood Reserve, which is located southwest of Lethbridge, Alberta. Province-wide, approximately 120 Albertans died from fentanyl-related overdoses in 2014.
==== United Kingdom ====
Prescriptions of Oxycodone rose in Scotland by 430% between 2002 and 2008, prompting fears of usage problems that would mirror those of the United States. The first known death due to overdose in the UK occurred in 2002.
==== Preventive measures ====
In August 2010, Purdue Pharma reformulated their long-acting oxycodone line, marketed as OxyContin, using a polymer, Intac, to make the pills more difficult to crush or dissolve in water to reduce non-medical use of OxyContin. Inactive ingredients/excipients are butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), hypromellose, polyethylene glycol 400, polyethylene oxide, magnesium stearate, and titanium dioxide. The FDA approved relabeling the reformulated version as abuse-resistant in April 2013.
Pfizer manufactures a preparation of short-acting oxycodone, marketed as Oxecta, which contains inactive ingredients, referred to as tamper-resistant Aversion Technology. Approved by the FDA in the U.S. in June 2011, the new formulation, while not being able to deter oral recreational use, makes crushing, chewing, snorting, or injecting the opioid impractical because of a change in its chemical properties.
=== Legal status ===
Oxycodone is subject to international conventions on narcotic drugs. In addition, oxycodone is subject to national laws that differ by country. The 1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs of the League of Nations included oxycodone. The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations, which replaced the 1931 convention, categorized oxycodone in Schedule I. Global restrictions on Schedule I drugs include "limit[ing] exclusively to medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of" these drugs; "requir[ing] medical prescriptions for the supply or dispensation of [these] drugs to individuals"; and "prevent[ing] the accumulation" of quantities of these drugs "in excess of those required for the normal conduct of business".
==== Australia ====
Oxycodone is in Schedule I (derived from the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) of the Commonwealth's Narcotic Drugs Act 1967. In addition, it is in Schedule 8 of the Australian Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons ("Poisons Standard"), meaning it is a "controlled drug... which should be available for use but require[s] restriction of manufacture, supply, distribution, possession and use to reduce abuse, misuse and physical or psychological dependence".
==== Canada ====
Oxycodone is a controlled substance under Schedule I of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA).
In February 2012, Ontario passed legislation to allow the expansion of an already existing drug-tracking system for publicly funded drugs to include those that are privately insured. This database will function to identify and monitor patient's attempts to seek prescriptions from multiple doctors or retrieve them from multiple pharmacies. Other provinces have proposed similar legislation, while some, such as Nova Scotia, have legislation already in effect for monitoring prescription drug use. These changes have coincided with other changes in Ontario's legislation to target the misuse of painkillers and high addiction rates to drugs such as oxycodone. As of 29 February 2012, Ontario passed legislation delisting oxycodone from the province's public drug benefit program. This was a first for any province to delist a drug based on addictive properties. The new law prohibits prescriptions for OxyNeo except to certain patients under the Exceptional Access Program including palliative care and in other extenuating circumstances. Patients already prescribed oxycodone will receive coverage for an additional year for OxyNeo, and after that, it will be disallowed unless designated under the exceptional access program.
Much of the legislative activity has stemmed from Purdue Pharma's decision in 2011 to begin a modification of OxyContin's composition to make it more difficult to crush for snorting or injecting. The new formulation, OxyNeo, is intended to be preventive in this regard and retain its effectiveness as a painkiller. Since introducing its Narcotics Safety and Awareness Act, Ontario has committed to focusing on drug addiction, particularly in the monitoring and identification of problem opioid prescriptions, as well as the education of patients, doctors, and pharmacists. This Act, introduced in 2010, commits to the establishment of a unified database to fulfil this intention. Both the public and medical community have received the legislation positively, though concerns about the ramifications of legal changes have been expressed. Because laws are largely provincially regulated, many speculate a national strategy is needed to prevent smuggling across provincial borders from jurisdictions with looser restrictions.
In 2015, Purdue Pharma's abuse-resistant OxyNEO and six generic versions of OxyContin had been on the Canada-wide approved list for prescriptions since 2012. In June 2015, then-federal Minister of Health Rona Ambrose announced that within three years, all oxycodone products sold in Canada would need to be tamper-resistant. Some experts warned that the generic product manufacturers may not have the technology to achieve that goal, possibly giving Purdue Pharma a monopoly on this opiate.
Several class-action suits across Canada have been launched against the Purdue group of companies and affiliates. Claimants argue the pharmaceutical manufacturers did not meet a standard of care and were negligent in doing so. These lawsuits reference earlier judgments in the United States, which held that Purdue was liable for wrongful marketing practices and misbranding. Since 2007, the Purdue companies have paid over CAN$650 million in settling litigation or facing criminal fines.
==== Germany ====
The drug is in Appendix III of the Narcotics Act (Betäubungsmittelgesetz or BtMG). The law allows only physicians, dentists, and veterinarians to prescribe oxycodone and the federal government to regulate the prescriptions (e.g., by requiring reporting).
==== Hong Kong ====
Oxycodone is regulated under Part I of Schedule 1 of Hong Kong's Chapter 134 Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.
==== Japan ====
Oxycodone is a restricted drug in Japan. Its import and export are strictly restricted to specially designated organizations having a prior permit to import it. In a high-profile case an American who was a top Toyota executive living in Tokyo, who claimed to be unaware of the law, was arrested for importing oxycodone into Japan.
==== Singapore ====
Oxycodone is listed as a Class A drug in the Misuse of Drugs Act of Singapore, which means offences concerning the drug attract the most severe level of punishment. A conviction for unauthorized manufacture of the drug attracts a minimum sentence of 10 years of imprisonment and corporal punishment of 5 strokes of the cane, and a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or 30 years of imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane. The minimum and maximum penalties for unauthorized trafficking in the drug are respectively 5 years of imprisonment and 5 strokes of the cane, and 20 years of imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane.
==== United Kingdom ====
Oxycodone is a Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. For Class A drugs, which are "considered to be the most likely to cause harm", possession without a prescription is punishable by up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both. Dealing of the drug illegally is punishable by up to life imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both. Oxycodone is a Schedule 2 drug under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001 which "provide certain exemptions from the provisions of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971".
==== United States ====
Under the Controlled Substances Act, oxycodone is a Schedule II controlled substance whether by itself or part of a multi-ingredient medication. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lists oxycodone both for sale and for use in manufacturing other opioids as ACSCN 9143 and in 2013 approved the following annual aggregate manufacturing quotas: 131.5 metric tons for sale, down from 153.75 in 2012, and 10.25 metric tons for conversion, unchanged from the previous year. In 2020, oxycodone possession was decriminalized in the U.S. state of Oregon.
=== Economics ===
The International Narcotics Control Board estimated 11.5 short tons (10.4 t) of oxycodone were manufactured worldwide in 1998; by 2007 this figure had grown to 75.2 short tons (68.2 t). United States accounted for 82% of consumption in 2007 at 51.6 short tons (46.8 t). Canada, Germany, Australia, and France combined accounted for 13% of consumption in 2007. In 2010, 1.3 short tons (1.2 t) of oxycodone were illegally manufactured using a fake pill imprint. This accounted for 0.8% of consumption. These illicit tablets were later seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. The board also reported 122.5 short tons (111.1 t) manufactured in 2010. This number had decreased from a record high of 135.9 short tons (123.3 t) in 2009.
=== Names ===
Expanded expressions for the compound oxycodone in the academic literature include "dihydrohydroxycodeinone", "Eucodal", "Eukodal", "14-hydroxydihydrocodeinone", and "Nucodan". In a UNESCO convention, the translations of "oxycodone" are oxycodon (Dutch), oxycodone (French), oxicodona (Spanish), الأوكسيكودون (Arabic), 羟考酮 (Chinese), and оксикодон (Russian).
The word "oxycodone" should not be confused with "oxandrolone", "oxazepam", "oxybutynin", "oxytocin", or "Roxanol".
Other brand names include Longtec and Shortec.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Coluzzi F, Mattia C (July–August 2005). "Oxycodone. Pharmacological profile and clinical data in chronic pain management" (PDF). Minerva Anestesiologica. 71 (7–8): 451–460. PMID 16012419. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2006.
== External links ==
"Oxycodone". Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crombie#Mayor_of_Toronto | David Crombie | David Edward Crombie (born April 24, 1936) is a former Canadian academic and politician who served as the 56th mayor of Toronto from 1972 to 1978. Crombie was elected to Parliament following his tenure as mayor. A member of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party, he served as minister of national health and welfare from 1979 to 1980, minister of Indian affairs and northern development from 1984 to 1986, and secretary of state for Canada from 1986 to 1988.
== Early life ==
Crombie was born in Swansea, then a village west of Toronto, the son of Vera Edith (Beamish) and Norman Davis Crombie. He was a lecturer in politics and urban affairs at Ryerson in the 1960s when he became involved in Toronto's urban reform movement. At the time, the city had a very pro-development city council that allowed a great deal of demolition of older buildings, including houses, to make way for the construction of apartment blocks, office towers, and highways (see Spadina Expressway). Crombie, along with John Sewell and other urban reformers, became a leader in a grassroots movement that favoured curtailing development in favour of improving social services and prioritizing community interests.
== Municipal politics ==
Crombie was elected to Toronto's city council in 1970, and became Mayor of Toronto in 1972, ushering in an era of socially responsible urban development inspired by thinkers such as Jane Jacobs. Crombie was the first mayor who represented the reform movement of Toronto politics, and his policies differed sharply from those of the Old Guard who preceded him.
=== Mayor of Toronto ===
Much of Crombie's time as mayor was spent trying to rein in the development industry. He initially imposed a 45-foot (13.7 m) limit on all new constructions, but this was overturned by the Ontario Municipal Board. Crombie then put forward a new official plan that imposed varying height restrictions across the city, and this was upheld by the board.
The Spadina Expressway had been halted by premier Bill Davis in 1971, but Davis continued to support the construction of the Allen Expressway in the north. Crombie attempted but failed to have it halted. He was more successful in countering plans for the Scarborough Expressway; all work was halted during Crombie's term, leading to its eventual cancellation.
Crombie also opposed the traditional pattern of demolishing poorer neighbourhoods and replacing them with housing projects. The plans to redevelop areas such as Trefann Court, Kensington Market, and Cabbagetown ended under Crombie. Instead, he oversaw the creation of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, an area of mid-rise, mixed-use, mixed-income buildings that followed Jane Jacobs's vision of urban planning.
Crombie was re-elected in 1974 and 1976 with large majorities. Because of his great public appeal and his height of only 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m), he was repeatedly described in the media as the city's "tiny, perfect mayor".
== Federal politics ==
He left City Hall in 1978 to move to federal politics, contesting a by-election held for the Rosedale electoral district as a Progressive Conservative candidate. The seat was vacated by liberal finance minister Donald Macdonald. Crombie won the by-election by a large margin against Liberal star candidate John Evans, then president of University of Toronto. Evans' candidacy was weighted down by the Liberals' unpopularity at the time and damaged by the unexpectedly competitive nomination challenge launch by Anne Cools. Crombie defeated Cools in the general elections held in 1979 and 1980, and future foreign minister Bill Graham in 1984.
=== First Nations and Inuit health reform ===
Crombie served as Minister of Health and Welfare in the short-lived minority government of Prime Minister Joe Clark which was elected in 1979 but lost power the next year.
In September 1979, Crombie, a liberal-minded reformer, as Minister of Health and Welfare under the Conservative government Prime Minister Joe Clark, issued a statement representing "current Federal Government practice and policy in the field of Indian health." Crombie declared that the "Federal Government is committed to joining with Indian representatives in a fundamental review of issues involved in Indian health when Indian representatives have developed their position, and the policy emerging from that review could supersede this policy". In the previous year, Indian bands and organizations such as the Union of B.C. Chiefs, the Native Brotherhood, and the United Native Nations engaged in intense lobbying for Indians to control delivery of health services in their own communities and for the repeal of restrictive service "guidelines introduced in September 1978, to correct abuses in health delivery, and to deal with the environmental health hazards of mercury and fluoride pollution affecting particular communities." Crombie appointed Gary Goldthorpe, as commissioner of the federal inquiry (known as the Goldthorpe Inquiry) into "alleged abuses in medical care delivery at Alert Bay, British Columbia." In 1979 Justice Thomas Berger, who headed the royal commission dealing with Indian and Inuit healthcare, recommended to Crombie that there be greater consultation with Indians and Inuit regarding the delivery of healthcare programs and that an "annual sum of $950,000 was allocated for distribution by the National Indian Brotherhood to develop health consultation structures within the national Indian community." Crombie's successor as Liberal Minister of Health and Welfare, Monique Begin, adopted Berger's recommendations, ushering in the beginning of a change in health delivery.
=== Leadership Contestant & Minister in Mulroney Ministry ===
Crombie stood as a candidate at the 1983 Progressive Conservative leadership convention. He was the only candidate campaigned as a "Red Tory", drawing support mainly from moderates who opposed Clark's leadership. He finished fifth, out of eight candidates, on first ballot with only 3.9% of the delegate votes, and would have been eliminated after first ballot if not for the withdrawal of fellow Toronto candidate Michael Wilson, who was in fourth place with 4.8%. He was eliminated on second ballot, having came in last with only 2.3%. Despite being ideologically in tune with Clark, Crombie endorsed third place candidate John Crosbie.
After Mulroney led Conservatives to power in the 1984 election, Crombie became Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, and later Secretary of State for Canada and Minister of Multiculturalism.
== Later career ==
=== Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront ===
Frustrated in Ottawa, as a Red Tory in an increasingly conservative government, Crombie decided not to run in the 1988 election and returned to urban affairs as head of the royal commission on the Future of Toronto's waterfront (1988–92). He authored ground-breaking reports including Watershed' and Regeneration, which described new integrated approaches to sustainable planning. The Provincial Government appointed Crombie as head of a provincial agency, the Waterfront Regeneration Trust Agency (1992-1999) to implement the 83 recommendations made in the final report, Regeneration. Among these recommendations was the creation of a waterfront trail. Today the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail extends from Quebec to Sault Ste Marie along Canada's Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. In 1999, Crombie founded the Waterfront Regeneration Trust, as a charity, to continue the work of the provincial agency, and serves on the Board. In addition to leading work on the creation of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, the charity manages a fund for the protection and restoration of the Rouge Valley, now part of the Rouge National Urban Park. Crombie tried to find an alternative to Red Hill Creek Expressway but the Hamilton city council dismissed his compromise proposal out of hand as being insufficient.
=== Recent Public Services ===
Crombie was appointed Ryerson's first chancellor in 1994 when the polytechnic was granted university status. He served in that role until 1999.
Throughout the 1990s, he served in various advisory capacities to city and provincial governments relating to urban issues in the Toronto area. In 2007 he retired as CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute. In April 2008, the Toronto District School Board selected Crombie to negotiate a solution to keep unfunded school swimming pools open to the public. In 2014 he publicly opposed plans by the federally run Toronto Port Authority to lengthen runways at Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands to enable Porter Airlines to expand with jet planes.
On May 13, 2004, Crombie was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2012, he was made a member of the Order of Ontario. In 2013, he was inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame. Crombie serves on the Governors' Council of the Toronto Public Library Foundation, the Honorary Council for the Loran Scholars Foundation, and the boards of CivicAction and the Planet in Focus Foundation. In addition, Crombie is a member of the Patron's Council at Dying with Dignity Canada. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Ryerson Image Centre and CARP Canada.
Crombie continues to be a visible participant of public discourse. In recent years, with his Red Tory views increasingly out of sync with conservatives politics, Crombie on numerous occasions joined ex-mayoral peers further to his left (Art Eggleton, Barbara Hall, David Miller and John Sewell) in issuing open letters on various issues being debated.
A park named after Crombie runs from Jarvis Street to Berkeley Street, in a formerly industrial area, that was converted to housing.
== Personal life ==
Crombie is the father of two daughters, Robin and Carrie, and actor Jonathan Crombie, who starred in three Anne of Green Gables TV series. Jonathan died in New York on April 15, 2015, of a brain hemorrhage at age 48. His organs were donated, he was cremated and his ashes returned to Canada.
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
Castellano, Marlene Brant (1981), Indian participation in health policy development: implications for adult education (PDF), Peterborough, Ontario: Trent University
Franezyk, Walter (March 5, 1980), Indian health inquiry open in Bay, Alert Bay, Vancouver Island, BC: North Island Gazette
Berger, Thomas R. (2002), One Man's Justice: A Life in the Law, Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre
== External links ==
Order of Canada citation (archived)
David Crombie – Parliament of Canada biography |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Johnson_(sprinter) | Michael Johnson (sprinter) | Michael Duane Johnson (born September 13, 1967) is an American sprinter who became Olympic Champion four times, and World Champion eight times in the span of his career. He held the world and Olympic records in the 200 m and 400 m, as well as the world record in the indoor 400 m. He also once held the world's best time in the 300 m. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field.
Johnson is the only male athlete to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events at the same Olympics, a feat he accomplished at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Johnson is also the only man to successfully defend his Olympic title in the 400 m, having done so at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Aside from his Olympic success, Johnson accumulated eight gold medals at the World Championships and is tied with Carl Lewis for the fourth most gold medals won by a runner.
Johnson's distinctive stiff upright running position and very short steps defied the conventional wisdom that a high knee lift was necessary for maximum speed. As of July 2024, Johnson holds three of the top 100 times for the 200 meters (having broken 20 seconds 23 times) and 22 of the top 100 times for the 400 meters. Of those, he holds nine of the top 25 times for the 400 meters. He broke 44 seconds for the 400 meters 22 times, more than twice as many times as any other athlete.
Johnson held the US national records for the 200, 300, and 400 meters. The 4 × 400 meters relay world record was anchored by Johnson.
Since 2001, Johnson has worked for the BBC, appearing as a pundit at multiple events. He has been a part of the BBC's Olympics athletics coverage since Athens 2004.
== Career ==
=== 1991–1995 ===
In 1991 at the World Championships in Tokyo, Johnson earned his first world title by winning the 200 m race by the unusual margin of victory of 0.33 seconds over Frankie Fredericks.
Two weeks before the 1992 Summer Olympics began, Johnson and his agent both contracted food poisoning at a restaurant in Spain. Johnson lost both weight and strength. He was the favorite to win the 200 m going into the Olympics, but he could do no better than sixth in his semifinal heat, and failed to reach the 200 m final by 0.16 seconds. Nevertheless, he was able to race as a member of the 4 × 400 m relay team, which won a gold medal and set a new world-record time of 2:55.74. Johnson ran his leg in a time of 44.73.
He won the 1993 U.S. title in the 400 m, and followed it with world titles in both the 400 m and 4 × 400 m relay. His 42.94 second split time in the 4 × 400 m relay remains the fastest 400 meters in history. At the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Johnson won his first 200 m and 400 m "double". No elite-level male track athlete had accomplished this in a major meet in the 20th century. At the end he made it a "triple" by adding another title in the 4 × 400 m relay.
=== 1996 Atlanta Olympics ===
In June 1996, Johnson was 28 when he ran the 200-m in 19.66 seconds at the U.S. Olympic Trials, breaking Pietro Mennea's record of 19.72 seconds that had stood for nearly 17 years. With that performance he qualified to run at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and prepared to attempt to win both the 200 meters and 400 meters events, a feat never before achieved by a male athlete. (Two women have won Olympic gold medals in both races in the same year: Valerie Brisco-Hooks in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and Marie-José Pérec, in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.)
Johnson entered the Olympic finals donning a custom-designed pair of golden-colored Nike racing spikes made with Zytel, causing him to be nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Shoes". Sources differ on the exact weight of these shoes; the manufacturer of the spikes claims they weighed 3 ounces (85 g) each, while other sources state each shoe weighed about 94 grams (3.3 oz). The left shoe was a US size 10.5 while the right shoe was a US size 11, to account for Johnson's longer right foot.
On July 29, Johnson easily captured the 400 m Olympic title with an Olympic record time of 43.49 seconds, 0.92 seconds ahead of silver medalist Roger Black of Great Britain. At the 200 m final on August 1, Johnson ran the opening 100 meters in 10.12 seconds and finished the race in a world-record time of 19.32 seconds, breaking by more than three tenths of a second the previous record he had set in the U.S. Olympic Trials, on the same track one month earlier—the largest improvement ever on a 200 m world record. Some commentators compared the performance to Bob Beamon's record-shattering long jump at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. During the race, Johnson strained a muscle in his leg, which prevented him from winning his third gold medal of the Olympics in the 4 × 400 m relay as Team USA went on to win the gold even without him.
After the 1996 season ended, Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in any sport in the United States, and was named ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In August, HarperCollins published his biographical/motivational book, Slaying the Dragon: How to Turn Your Small Steps to Great Feats.
=== Rivalry with Donovan Bailey ===
After the end of the 1996 Summer Olympics, American Sportscaster Bob Costas claimed that Johnson was faster than 100 m Gold medalist Donovan Bailey because Johnson's 200 m time (19.32 Seconds) divided by 2 (9.66 Seconds) was shorter than Bailey's 100 m time (9.84). This started a debate on whether Johnson or Bailey was the real "World's Fastest Man", which in turn resulted in a 150 m race between the two, in which Bailey won after Johnson, already behind in the race, alleged to have injured his hamstring.
=== 1997–1999 ===
After recovering from the injury, Johnson was able to compete for his third 400 m world title. The IAAF invented a new policy of giving a "bye" to the defending champions essentially to allow Johnson to compete in the IAAF World Championships that year, because Johnson was unable to qualify the conventional method (by competing in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships) due to his injury from the race with Bailey. More than a month after the U.S. Championships, Johnson had recovered from his injury and won the 400 meters at the 1997 World Championships in Athens.
At the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York City, Johnson anchored the U.S. 4 × 400 m relay team with Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, and Tyree Washington to a win and set a world record of 2:54.20. Pettigrew has since admitted doping from 1997, while Young was caught doping in 1999. The world record was annulled by the IAAF in August 2008, and reverted to the time of 2:54:29 Johnson helped set in the 1993 World Championships.
Johnson was plagued by injury in 1999, and his following season was troubled with two injury scares that limited him to just four 400 m races before the 1999 World Championships in Seville. Were it not for the IAAF policy established two years earlier for Johnson, that allowed automatic entry to defending champions, he could not have raced in Seville since he failed to compete in the U.S. trials due to his injury. He recovered and won his fourth 400 meter world title with a new world-record time of 43.18 seconds at the relatively late age of 31 years and 11 months, which stood for 12 days short of 17 years before being beaten at the 2016 Olympics by the South African Wayde van Niekerk. Johnson's splits for this world record were 21.22 seconds for the opening 200 meters and 21.96 seconds for the closing 200 meters, giving a differential of 0.74 seconds.
=== 2000 Sydney Olympics ===
After qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics in the 400 m, Johnson sustained an injury in the 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials for the 200 meters while racing in a highly anticipated matchup against the 100 m and 200 m world champion, Maurice Greene. The injury prevented a defense of his 200 m Olympic title. Johnson ended his career at the Sydney Olympics by winning the gold medal in the 400 m, which brought his total number of Olympic gold medals to four. By winning the 400 m at the age of 33 years 12 days, he earned the distinction of being the oldest Olympic gold medalist at any track event shorter than 5000 m. Johnson was also the anchor of the United States 4 × 400 relay team along with Alvin Harrison, Antonio Pettigrew, and Calvin Harrison, which originally won the gold medal, but was later stripped of the title after Pettigrew and Jerome Young (who ran in the heats) were found guilty of having used performance-enhancing drugs.
On July 18, 2004, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) ruled that Jerome Young was ineligible to compete in Sydney and annulled all his past results, including those achieved as part of relay teams. Young had competed for the USA team in the heats and semi-final of this event. Therefore, the United States team was stripped of the gold medal and Nigeria, Jamaica, and the Bahamas were moved up one position each. On July 22, 2005, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned this decision and restored the original finish order of the race based on a ruling that a team should not be disqualified because of a doping offense by an athlete who did not compete in the finals. Then in June 2008, Antonio Pettigrew "admitted in court he cheated to win" by using banned performance-enhancing substances, and agreed to return his gold medal. Johnson announced that he would return his own gold medal, won as part of the relay team with Pettigrew. Johnson stated that he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by what Pettigrew had done at the Games. Pettigrew died by suicide in 2010.
== Achievements ==
Johnson has run 200 m in under 19.80 seconds six times, and he has run the distance in less than 20 seconds twenty-three times. He holds nine of the top 50 200 m performances of all time. Johnson has run twenty-two 400 m races in under 44 seconds; he holds twenty-two of the top 50 and four of the top ten 400 m performances of all time. Over the course of his career, he twice set the world record in the 200 m, three times set the world record as part of the 4 × 400 m relay team, twice set the indoor 400 m world record, set the outdoor 400 m world record once, and set the 300 m mark once.
=== Season's bests ===
== Beyond athletics ==
Johnson was elected to the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame in 2004, where his 200 m performance at the 1996 Olympics was named the greatest track and field moment of the last 25 years.
Since retiring from competitive track in 2001, Johnson has worked as a television commentator, often for the BBC in the United Kingdom, where he has also written columns for the Daily Telegraph and The Times newspapers. Johnson first appeared for the BBC in 2001 at the World Championships. He subsequently was part of the BBC's presenting team at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, 2012 Olympic Games in London, 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, and 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In addition, he has worked on the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast and 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. He was in the BBC commentary booth for the men's 400 meters final in Rio de Janeiro to see his world record broken by Wayde van Niekerk, saying about van Niekerk's performance, "Oh my God! From lane eight, a world record. He took it out so quick. I have never seen anything from 200 to 400 like that. That was a massacre from Wayde van Niekerk. He just put those guys away."
Johnson guest-starred in the 2002 film, The Master of Disguise, as one of the disguises Fabbrizio (James Brolin) takes on to borrow the U.S. Constitution, as part of a scheme by Devlin Bowman (Brent Spiner) to steal the world's greatest treasures. Incidentally, one of the guards in that scene happens to be played by another actor named Michael Johnson.
In 2007 Johnson opened Michael Johnson Performance, at McKinney, Texas, a training facility for youth athletes aged 9 to 18 and professional athletes in all sports. The company works with Olympic teams and football clubs and has operations around the world. Michael Johnson Performance currently works with Arsenal, assisting in the development of young players in their academy.
In June 2008, Johnson voluntarily returned the 4 × 400 m relay gold medal he earned in the 2000 Olympics after Antonio Pettigrew, who ran the second leg, admitted he took performance-enhancing drugs between 1997 and 2001. Pettigrew made his admission while giving testimony in the trial of coach Trevor Graham for his role in the BALCO scandal. On August 2, 2008, the International Olympic Committee stripped the gold medal from the U.S. men's 4 × 400-meter relay team. Three of the four runners in the event final, including Pettigrew and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison, and preliminary round runner Jerome Young, all have admitted or tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Only Johnson and Angelo Taylor, who also ran in preliminary rounds, were not implicated. Johnson had already returned his medal because, as he said, he felt the medal was not won fairly.
Johnson appeared as a contestant on NBC's 9th season of The Celebrity Apprentice (2010), placing 10th after exiting the show due to a personal issue on the fifth episode of the season first airing April 11, 2010.
As part of the build-up to the 2012 Summer Olympics, Johnson made a documentary, Survival of the Fastest, for Channel 4 which investigated the dominance of African-American and African-Caribbean sprinters. The program made the suggestion that a side effect of the slave trade may have been to accelerate natural selection as only the very fittest could survive the brutal process, resulting in a population predisposed to superior athletic performance.
Johnson was one of the Olympic torch bearers in the relay in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics, carrying it to Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire.
In the summer of 2018, Johnson was co-captain and a coach for Godspeed, a flag football team made of former professional American football players that participated in the American Flag Football League (AFFL). The team were crowned the champions of participating pro teams but lost in the final match to the amateur champion team.
In September 2018, Johnson suffered a stroke that affected his left side. By November, he stated he was almost "back to normal", and attributed his successful recovery to the "Olympic mindset". In connection with his 54th birthday in 2021, he states that he has fully recovered.
In 2024, he launched a new Track and Field League, Grand Slam Track, ahead of the 2025 season start. In December 2025, Grand Slam Track confirmed they had filed for bankruptcy. Grand Slam Track has expressed its intention to return for a 2026 season once its financial obligations are resolved.
== Personal life ==
As of 2008 Johnson lived in Marin County, California, with his second wife Armine Shamiryan, a chef, and his daughter Selendis Sebastian, born in 2000 during his first marriage to entertainment reporter Kerry D'Oyen.
== Awards ==
World Athletics Awards
World Athlete of the Year (Men): 1996, 1999
== References ==
== External links ==
Michael Johnson at World Athletics
Michael Johnson at www.USATF.org
Michael Johnson at the Team USA Hall of Fame (archive July 20, 2023)
Michael Johnson at Olympedia
Michael Johnson at Olympics.com
Michael Johnson at Olympic.org at the Wayback Machine (archived February 22, 2006) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_di_Braccio_Award#:~:text=2014%20Physics%20prize%20was%20awarded%20to%20Stefano%20Protti | Alfredo di Braccio Award | The Alfredo di Braccio Award is a prestigious prize for young Italian scientists given by the Italian Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
== Award winners ==
Every year a top young chemist or physicist receives this honor for their research.
2008 Chemistry prize was awarded to Lorenzo Malavasi (University of Pavia, Italy)
2009 Physics prize was awarded (ex aequo) to Alessandro Mirizzi (University of Bari, Italy) and Alessio Recati (CNR Trento, Italy)
2010 Chemistry prize was awarded to Riccardo Baron (Codoxo, USA)
2011 Physics prize was awarded (ex aequo) to Antonio Politano (University of Calabria, Italy) and Alessandro Giuliani (Roma Tre University, Italy)
2012 Chemistry prize was awarded to Tiziano Montini (University of Trieste, Italy)
2013 Physics prize was awarded (ex aequo) to Francesco Pellegrino (University of Catania, Italy) and Pasquale Serpico (CNRS, France)
2014 Physics prize was awarded to Stefano Protti (University of Pavia)
2015 Physics prize was awarded (ex aequo) to Filippo Caruso (University of Florence, Italy), Michele Cicoli (University of Bologna, Italy), and Alessandro Pitanti (CNR Pisa, Italy)
2016 Chemistry prize was awarded to Francesca Maria Toma (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Italy)
2017 Physics prize was awarded to Marco Genoni (University of Milan, Italy)
2018 Chemistry prize was awarded to Lorenzo Mino (University of Turin, Italy)
2019 Physics prize awarded (ex aequo) to Matteo Lucchini and Andrea Crespi (Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy), and Lorenzo Rovigatti (University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy)
2020 Chemistry prize was awarded to Raffaele Cucciniello (University of Salerno, Italy)
2021 Physics prize was awarded (ex aequo) to Eleonora Di Valentino (Durham University, UK) and Sunny Vagnozzi (University of Cambridge, UK)
2022 Chemistry prize was awarded to Gianvito Vilé (Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy)
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
List of physics awards
== References == |
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