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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazal_Ilahi_Chaudhry#:~:text=He%20was%20elected%20as%20member%20of%20the%20National%20Assembly%20in,the%20National%20Assembly%20in%201972. | Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry | Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry (1 January 1904 – 2 June 1982) was a Pakistani barrister, politician and statesman who served as the fifth president of Pakistan from 1973 until his resignation in 1978, due to Zia-ul-Haq's martial law following the 1977 coup d'état which overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government. He was the first legislatively-elected president in the country's history, serving as a constitutional figurehead.
Born in Kharian, Punjab, Chaudhry received his higher education at the Aligarh Muslim University and the University of the Punjab. He established his law firm in Lahore and further practised civil law. Entering early district-level administration in 1930, he was elected to the Gujrat District Board, unopposed. In 1942, he joined the All-India Muslim League and was elected the party president within the Punjab Muslim League for Gujrat District. He became active in the Pakistan Movement and took part in the 1946 Indian provincial elections in Punjab.
Following Pakistan's independence, Chaudhry was appointed the parliamentary secretary and later the education and health minister within the central cabinet in 1951. He was elected to the West Punjab Assembly from Gujrat District in the 1951 provincial election; and represented Pakistan in the United Nations in 1952. Being elected to the West Pakistan Assembly in 1956, Chaudhry served as its speaker until the 1958 coup d'état when the legislature was suspended. He joined the Convention Muslim League and was elected in the 1965 election to the National Assembly, serving as the legislature's deputy speaker until 1969 when Yahya Khan declared martial law and suspended the 1962 constitution. Chaudhry joined the Pakistan Peoples Party and contested the 1970 election, being elected once again to the National Assembly and later getting elected as its speaker in 1972.
Under the 1973 constitution, Chaudhry contested the 1973 presidential election as a candidate of the Peoples Party against the opposition coalition's contestant Khan Amirzadah Khan of the National Awami Party (Wali); which he won with an absolute electoral college majority. He was sworn in as the president on 14 August 1973, becoming the first ethnic Punjabi to hold the office. He succeeded Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as president, who was sworn in as the prime minister. He served as a figurehead as the presidency, under the newly-promulgated constitution, had become a ceremonial position with executive authority being vested in the prime minister's position. With the success of the 1977 coup d'état, the Bhutto-led federal government, alongside all provincial governments, was overthrown by Zia-ul-Haq, who assumed the position of chief martial law administrator; but Chaudhry continued his presidency with no influence over governmental, military and national affairs. Due to contentious relations with the Zia-led military government, he resigned from the presidency in September 1978, which was then assumed by Zia-ul-Haq.
Establishing himself from district-level administration to national politics and international diplomacy, Chaudhry remained a well-respected politician and legislator throughout his political career; and played his constitutionally nominal role as president. He died in June 1982 in Lahore at the age of 78.
== Early life and education ==
Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry was born on 1 January 1904 into an influential Punjabi family of Muslim Gujjars in the village of Marala in the Kharian Tehsil of Gujrat District, Punjab.
After receiving his early education from Kharian, Chaudhry joined the prestigious Aligarh Muslim University in 1920 and moved to the United Provinces, receiving his LLB in civil law in 1924. Thereafter, Chaudhry returned to Punjab, settling in the capital Lahore, and attended the University of the Punjab's post-graduate school in law and political science. In 1925, Chaudhry obtained his MA in political science in 1925, and the advanced LLM in Law and Justice, in 1927.
After completing his education, Chaudhry established his law firm in Lahore, advocating for civil liberties, and went back to Gujrat, and started practising civil law.
== Political career ==
=== Early years (1942–1956) ===
In 1930, Chaudhry started taking interest in politics and participated in the 1930 Indian general election for the Gujrat District Board and was elected unopposed. He joined the Muslim League in 1942. In 1945, he was elected from Gujrat as the President of Muslim League. He took part in the 1946 Indian provincial elections on Muslim League's ticket and played an important role in propagating the ideas of the Muslim League among the people of his area. Upon the independence of Pakistan, he was given the post of Parliamentary Secretary, and was included in Liaquat Ali Khan's cabinet, serving as the education and health minister.
He further joined Pakistan permanent representative's delegation to the United Nations in 1951. In 1951, he contested the elections of the Punjab Legislative Assembly on the Muslim League ticket and was elected as a member of the Punjab Assembly. In 1952, he represented Pakistan in the United Nations.
=== Parliamentary roles (1956–1972) ===
In the 1956 elections, he was elected as member of the West Pakistan Assembly. Chaudhry served as the first Speaker of the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly from 20 May 1956 to 7 October 1958. In 1962, when Ayub Khan announced the elections, he was selected as the Deputy Opposition Leader of the House on the basis of his experience and knowledge about parliamentary proceedings. Chaudhry joined the Convention Muslim League, and after the 1965 presidential election, he was elected as the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, a role he served in till 1969.
He was elected as member of the National Assembly in 1970 on the ticket of the Pakistan Peoples Party, and was later elected as the Speaker of the National Assembly in 1972. He ended up joining the Pakistan Peoples Party.
== Presidency ==
He contested the Presidential Elections of 1973 against Khan Amirzadah Khan of NAP and all opposition parties, and was elected president in 1973 (receiving 139 votes against Khan's 45), when the head of the PPP, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was made prime minister. He was the first ethnic Punjabi president of the country.
Chaudhry was largely a figurehead, and was the first Pakistani President with less power than the Prime Minister. This was due to the new constitution of 1973 that gave more powers to the Prime Minister. Previously, the President had been the chief executive of Pakistan and had the power to appoint Prime Minister. After Operation Fair Play - a codename of the operation to remove Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from power - Chaudhry continued his presidency but had no influence in the government operations or the military and national affairs.
=== Resignation ===
After contentious relations with the military, Chaudhry decided to resign from his post despite the urging of the Chief of Army Staff and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff. On 16 September 1978, Chaudhry handed the charge of the presidency to ruling military general Zia-ul-Haq who succeeded him as the sixth president, in addition to being the Chief Martial Law Administrator and the Chief of Army Staff.
== Death ==
Chaudhry died of a heart ailment on 2 June 1982 at the age of 78 in Lahore, Punjab.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Chronicles Of Pakistan |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_European_martial_arts#The_modern_HEMA_community | Historical European martial arts | Historical European martial arts (HEMA) are martial arts of European origin, particularly using arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms.
While there is limited surviving documentation of the martial arts of classical antiquity (such as Greek wrestling or gladiatorial combat), most of the surviving dedicated technical treatises or martial arts manuals date to the late medieval period and the early modern period. For this reason, the focus of HEMA is de facto on the period of the half-millennium of ca. 1300 to 1800, with a German, Italian, and Spanish school flowering in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (14th to 16th centuries), followed by French, English, and Scottish schools of fencing in the modern period (17th and 18th centuries).
Martial arts of the 19th century such as classical fencing, and even early hybrid styles such as Bartitsu, may also be included in the term HEMA in a wider sense, as may traditional or folkloristic styles attested in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including forms of folk wrestling and traditional stick-fighting methods.
The term Western martial arts (WMA) is sometimes used in the United States and in a wider sense including modern and traditional disciplines. During the Late Middle Ages, the longsword had a position of honour among these disciplines, and sometimes historical European swordsmanship (HES) is used to refer to swordsmanship techniques specifically.
== History of European martial arts ==
=== Ancient history ===
The earliest Western book about the fighting arts currently known (c. 2025), Epitoma rei militaris, was written into Latin by a Roman writer, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, who lived in Rome between the fourth and fifth centuries. There are no other known Western martial arts manuals predating the Late Middle Ages (except for fragmentary instructions on Greek wrestling, see Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 466), although medieval literature (e.g., sagas of Icelanders, Eastern Roman Acritic songs, the Digenes Akritas and Middle High German epics) record specific martial deeds and military knowledge; in addition, historical artwork depicts combat and weaponry (e.g., the Bayeux Tapestry, the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes, the Morgan Bible). Some researchers have attempted to reconstruct older fighting methods such as Pankration, Eastern Roman hoplomachia, Viking swordsmanship and gladiatorial combat by reference to these sources and practical experimentation.
The Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 (also known as the "Walpurgis" or "Tower Fechtbuch"), dated to c. 1300, is the oldest surviving Fechtbuch, teaching sword and buckler combat.
=== Post-classical history ===
The central figure of late medieval martial arts, at least in Germany, is Johannes Liechtenauer. Though no manuscript written by him is known to have survived, his teachings were first recorded in the late 14th-century Nürnberger Handschrift GNM 3227a. From the 15th to the 17th century, numerous Fechtbücher (German 'fencing-books') were produced, of which some several hundred are extant; a great many of these describe methods descended from Liechtenauer's. Liechtenauer's Zettel (recital) remains one of the most famous — if cryptic — pieces of European martial arts scholarship to this day, with several translations and interpretations of the poem being put into practice by fencers and scholars around the world.
Normally, several modes of combat were taught alongside one another, typically unarmed grappling (Kampfringen or abrazare), dagger (Degen or daga, often of the rondel dagger), long knife (Messer), or Dusack, half- or quarterstaff, polearms, longsword (Langesschwert, spada longa, spadone), and combat in plate armour (Harnischfechten or armazare), both on foot and on horseback. Some Fechtbücher have sections on dueling shields (Stechschild), special weapons used only in trial by combat.
Important 15th century German fencing masters include Sigmund Ringeck, Peter von Danzig (see Cod. 44 A 8), Hans Talhoffer and Paulus Kal, all of whom taught the teachings of Liechtenauer. From the late 15th century, there were "brotherhoods" of fencers (Fechtbruderschaften), most notably the Brotherhood of St. Mark (attested 1474) and the Federfechter.
An early Burgundian French treatise is Le jeu de la hache (The Play of the Axe) of ca. 1400.
The earliest master to write in the Italian language was Fiore dei Liberi, commissioned by the Marquis di Ferrara. Between 1407 and 1410, he documented comprehensive fighting techniques in a treatise entitled Flos Duellatorum covering grappling, dagger, arming sword, longsword, pole-weapons, armoured combat, and mounted combat. The Italian school is continued by Filippo Vadi (1482–1487) and Pietro Monte (1492, Latin with Italian and Spanish terms).
Three early (before George Silver) natively English swordplay texts exist, but are all very obscure and from uncertain dates; they are generally thought to belong to the latter half of the 15th century.
=== Early modern period ===
==== Renaissance ====
In the 16th century, compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed, notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s). The extent of Mair's writing is unmatched by any other German master, and is considered invaluable by contemporary scholars.
In Germany, fencing had developed sportive tendencies during the 16th century. The treatises of Paulus Hector Mair and Joachim Meyer derived from the teachings of the earlier centuries within the Liechtenauer tradition, but with new and distinctive characteristics. The printed Fechtbuch of Jacob Sutor (1612) is one of the last in the German tradition.
In Italy, the 16th century was a period of big change. It opened with the two treatises of Bolognese masters Antonio Manciolino and Achille Marozzo, who described a variation of the eclectic knightly arts of the previous century. From sword and buckler to sword and dagger, sword alone to two-handed sword, from polearms to wrestling (though absent in Manciolino), early 16th-century Italian fencing reflected the versatility that a martial artist of the time was supposed to have achieved.
Towards the mid-16th century, however, polearms and companion weapons besides the dagger and the cape gradually began to fade out of treatises. In 1553, Camillo Agrippa was the first to define the prima, seconda, terza, and quarta guards (or hand-positions), which would remain the mainstay of Italian fencing into the next century and beyond. From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris (1606).
Antonio Manciolino (1531, Italian)
Achille Marozzo (1536, Italian)
Angelo Viggiani (1551, Italian)
Camillo Agrippa (1553, Italian)
Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza (1569, Spanish)
Giacomo di Grassi (1570, Italian)
Giovanni Dall'Agocchie (1572, Italian)
Henry de Sainct-Didier (1573, French)
Angelo Viggiani (1575, Italian)
Frederico Ghisliero (1587, Italian)
Vincentio Saviolo (1595, Italian)
Girolamo Cavalcabo (1597, Italian)
George Silver (1599, English)
==== Baroque style ====
During the Baroque period, wrestling fell from favour among the upper classes, being now seen as unrefined and rustic. The fencing styles practice also needed to conform to the new ideals of elegance and harmony.
This ideology was taken to great lengths in Spain in particular, where La Verdadera Destreza 'the true art (of swordsmanship)' was now based on Renaissance humanism and scientific principles, contrasting with the traditional "vulgar" approach to fencing inherited from the medieval period. Significant masters of Destreza included Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza ("the father of Destreza", d. 1600) and Luis Pacheco de Narváez (1600, 1632). Girard Thibault (1630) was a Dutch master influenced by these ideals.
The French school of fencing also moves away from its Italian roots, developing its own terminology, rules and systems of teaching. French masters of the Baroque period include Le Perche du Coudray (1635, 1676, teacher of Cyrano de Bergerac), Besnard (1653, teacher of Descartes), François Dancie (1623) and Philibert de la Touche (1670).
In the 17th century, Italian swordsmanship was dominated by Salvator Fabris, whose De lo schermo overo scienza d'arme of 1606 exerted great influence not only in Italy, but also in Germany, where it all but extinguished the native German traditions of fencing. Fabris was followed by Italian masters such as Nicoletto Giganti (1606), Ridolfo Capo Ferro (1610), Francesco Alfieri (1640), Francesco Antonio Marcelli (1686) and Bondi' di Mazo (1696).
The Elizabethan and Jacobean eras produce English fencing writers, such as the Gentleman George Silver (1599) and the professional fencing master Joseph Swetnam (1617). The English verb to fence is first attested in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor (1597).
The French school of fencing originated in the 16th century, which is based on the Italian school, and developed into its classical form during the Baroque period.
==== Rococo style ====
In the 18th century, during the late Baroque and Rococo period, the French style of fencing with the small sword and later with the foil (fleuret), originated as a training weapon for small sword fencing.
By 1715, the rapier had been largely replaced by the lighter and handier small sword throughout most of Europe, although treatments of the former continued to be included by authors such as Donald McBane (1728), P. J. F. Girard (1736) and Domenico Angelo (1763).
In this time, bare-knuckle boxing emerged as a popular sport in England and Ireland. The foremost pioneers of the sport of boxing were Englishmen James Figg and Jack Broughton.
Throughout the course of the 18th century, the French school became the western European standard to the extent that Angelo, an Italian-born master teaching in England, published his L'École des Armes in French in 1763. It was extremely successful and became a standard fencing manual over the following 50 years, throughout the Napoleonic period. Angelo's text was so influential that it was chosen to be included under the heading of Éscrime in the Encyclopédie of Diderot.
=== Late modern period ===
==== Development into modern sports ====
In the 19th century, Western martial arts became divided into modern sports on one-handed fencing and applications that retain military significance on the other. In the latter category are the methods of close-quarter combat with the bayonet, besides use of the sabre and the lance by cavalrists and of the cutlass by naval forces. The English longbow is another European weapon that is still used in the sport of archery.
Apart from the many styles of fencing, European combat sports of the 19th century include Boxing in England, Savate in France, and regional forms of wrestling such as Cumberland and Westmorland Wrestling, Lancashire Wrestling, and Cornish Wrestling.
Fencing in the 19th century transformed into a pure sport. While duels remained common among members of the aristocratic classes, they became increasingly frowned upon in society during the course of the century, and such duels as were fought to the death were increasingly fought with pistols, instead of bladed weapons.
==== Stick fighting ====
Styles of stick fighting include walking-stick fighting (including Irish bata or shillelagh, French la canne and English singlestick) and Bartitsu (an early hybrid of Eastern and Western schools popularized at the turn of the 20th century).
Some existing forms of European stick fighting can be traced to direct teacher-student lineages from the 19th century. Notable examples include the methods of Scottish and British Armed Services singlestick, la canne and bâton français, Portuguese jogo do pau, Italian Paranza or Bastone Siciliano, and some styles of Canarian juego del palo.
In the 19th century and early 20th century, the greatstick (pau/bâton/bastone) was employed by some Portuguese, French, and Italian military academies as a method of exercise, recreation, and as preparation for bayonet training.
A third category might be traditional "folk styles", mostly folk wrestling. Greco-Roman wrestling was a discipline at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Inclusion of freestyle wrestling followed in 1904.
==== 19th century revival ====
Attempts at reconstructing the discontinued traditions of European systems of combat began in the late 19th century, with a revival of interest from the Middle Ages. The movement was led in England by the soldier, writer, antiquarian, and swordsman, Alfred Hutton.
Hutton learned fencing at the school founded by Domenico Angelo. In 1862, he organized in his regiment stationed in India the Cameron Fencing Club, for which he prepared his first work, a 12-page booklet entitled Swordsmanship.
After returning home from India in 1865, Hutton focused on the study and revival of older fencing systems and schools. He began tutoring groups of students in the art of 'ancient swordplay' at a club attached to the London Rifle Brigade School of Arms in the 1880s. In 1889, Hutton published his most influential work Cold Steel: A Practical Treatise on the Sabre, which presented the historical method of military sabre use on foot, combining the 18th century English backsword with the modern Italian duelling sabre.
Hutton's pioneering advocacy and practice of historical fencing included reconstructions of the fencing systems of several historical masters including George Silver and Achille Marozzo. He delivered numerous practical demonstrations with his colleague Egerton Castle of these systems during the 1890s, both in order to benefit various military charities and to encourage patronage of the contemporary methods of competitive fencing. Exhibitions were held at the Bath Club and a fund-raising event was arranged at Guy's Hospital.
Among his many acolytes were Egerton Castle, Captain Carl Thimm, Colonel Cyril Matthey, Captain Percy Rolt, Captain Ernest George Stenson Cooke, Captain Frank Herbert Whittow, Esme Beringer, Sir Frederick, and Walter Herries Pollock. Despite this revival and the interest that was received in late Victorian England, the practice died out soon after the death of Hutton in 1910. Interest in the physical application of historical fencing techniques remained largely dormant during the first half of the 20th century, due to a number of factors.
Similar work, although more academic than practical in nature, occurred in other European countries. In Germany, Karl Wassmannsdorf conducted research on the German school and Gustav Hergsell reprinted three of Hans Talhoffer's manuals. In France, there was the work of the Academie D'Armes circa 1880–1914. In Italy, Jacopo Gelli and Francesco Novati published a facsimile of the "Flos Duellatorum" of Fiore dei Liberi, and Giuseppe Cerri's book on the Bastone drew inspiration from the two-handed sword of Achille Marozzo. Baron Leguina's bibliography of Spanish swordsmanship is still a standard reference today.
==== 20th century ====
Starting in 1966, the Society for Creative Anachronism, an amateur medieval reenactment organization, renewed public interest in the practice of historic fighting arts, and has hosted numerous tournaments in which participants compete in simulated medieval and renaissance fighting styles using padded weapons. Dividing their focus between Heavy Armored Fighting, to simulate early medieval warfare, and adapted sport Rapier fencing, to reenact later renaissance styles, the SCA regularly holds large re-creation scenarios throughout the world. Their styles have been criticized by other groups as lacking historical authenticity, although a number of members of the group regularly engage in scholarship.
A number of researchers, principally academics with access to some of the sources, continued exploring the field of historical European martial arts from a largely academic perspective. In 1972, James Jackson published a book called Three Elizabethan Manuals of Fence. This work reprinted the works of George Silver, Giacomo di Grassi, and Vincentio Saviolo. In 1965, Martin Wierschin published a bibliography of German fencing manuals, along with a transcription of Codex Ringeck and a glossary of terms. In turn, this led to the publication of Hans-Peter Hils' seminal work on Johannes Liechtenauer in 1985.
During the mid-20th century, a small number of professional fight directors for theatre, film and television – notably including Arthur Wise. William Hobbs and John Waller, all of them British – studied historical combat treatises as inspiration for their fight choreography.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Patri J. Pugliese began making photocopies of historical treatises available to interested parties, greatly spurring on research. In 1994, with the rise of the Hammerterz Forum, a publication devoted entirely to the history of swordsmanship. During the late 1990s, translations and interpretations of historical sources began appearing in print as well as online.
== The modern HEMA community ==
Since the 1980s and 1990s, historical European martial arts communities have emerged in Europe, North America, Australia, and the wider English-speaking world. These groups attempt to reconstruct historical European martial arts using various training methods. Although the focus generally is on the martial arts of medieval and Renaissance masters, 19th- and early 20th-century martial arts teachers are also studied and their systems are reconstructed, including Edward William Barton-Wright, the founder of Bartitsu; combat savate and stick fighting master Pierre Vigny; London-based boxer and fencer Rowland George Allanson-Winn; French journalist and self-defence enthusiast Jean Joseph-Renaud; and British quarterstaff expert Thomas McCarthy.
=== Research and publications ===
Research into the rapier style of the innovative Roman, Neapolitan and Sicilian School of Fencing in Italy's 16th and 17th century was pioneered by M° Francesco Lodà, PhD, founder of Accademia Romana d'Armi in Rome, Italy. While research focused on the Marcelli family of fencing masters and their pupils in Rome and abroad (e.g. Mattei, Villardita, Marescalchi, De Greszy, Terracusa), through publication of papers and books on rapier fencing, attention was also paid to the influences of 16th century's masters active in Rome, such as Agrippa, Cavalcabò, Paternoster, or of the early 17th like D'Alessandri. Within Accademia Romana d'Armi historical research has continuously been carried out also on Fiore de' Liberi's longsword system, publishing the first Italian analysis and transcription of MS. Par. Lat. 11269, Radaelli's military saber and MS. I.33 sword and buckler, and more recently on Liechtenauer's tradition of fencing.
Research into Italian sword forms and their influence on the French styles of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries has been undertaken by Rob Runacres of England's Renaissance Sword Club since 2013.
Italian traditions are mainly investigated in Italy by Sala d'Arme Achille Marozzo, where you can find studies dedicated to the Bolognese tradition, to the Italian medieval tradition by Luca Cesari and Marco Rubboli, and to the Florentine tradition by Alessandro Battistini. Central and Southern Italian traditions are also investigated by Accademia Romana d'Armi, through the studies of Francesco Lodà on Spetioli (Marche) and Pagano (Neaples). Italian rapier instructors Tom Leoni (US) and Piermarco Terminiello (UK) have published annotated English translations of some of the most important rapier treatises of the 17th century, making this fencing style available to a worldwide audience. Leoni has also authored English translations of all of Fiore de' Liberi's Italian-language manuscripts, as well as Manciolino's Opera Nova and the third book of Viggiani's Lo Schermo. Ken Mondschein, one of the few professional academics working in this field, translated Camillo Agrippa's treatise of 1553 as well as the Paris manuscript of Fiore dei Liberi and written several academic articles.
The martial traditions of the Netherlands are researched by Reinier van Noort, who additionally focuses on German and French martial sources of the 17th century.
The ongoing study of the Germanic Langes Messer is most notably represented by the work of Jens Peter Kleinau and Martin Enzi. Dierk Hagedorn has also published significant translations.
Leading researchers on Manuscript I.33's style of fence include Roland Warzecha, at the head of the Dimicator fencing school in Germany.
Other fencing traditions are represented in the scholarship of Stephen Hand and Paul Wagner of Australia's Stoccata School of Defence, focusing on a range of systems, ranging from the works of George Silver and the techniques depicted in the Royal Armouries' Manuscript I.33 to the surviving evidence for how large shields were used, rapier according to Saviolo and Swetnam and Scottish Highland broadsword.
Christian Henry Tobler is one of the earliest researchers on the German school of swordsmanship.
Early publications also included books by Terry Brown, John Clements, David M. Cvet (self-published in 2001). In 2003, Stephen Hand edited a collection of scholarly papers titled SPADA, followed by a second volume in 2005. Since the mid-2000s, the rate of publication of HEMA related texts has greatly increased. A list of current publications is included below.
=== Events ===
Since 1998, Sala d'Arme Achille Marozzo has organized an annual championship in Italy. Due to the excessive number of participants, in 2011 this competitive event was split in two separate events: military weapons (in autumn) and civil weapons (in spring), extending the organization in a larger coalition of Italian HEMA clubs. Civilian weapons include single sword, sword and cape, sword and dagger, and sword and Brocchiero (Buckler). The military weapons are the two-handed sword, spear, shield and spear, sword and targe, and sword and rotella. The civil weapons championship is one of the largest HEMA tournaments in the world.
Since 1999, a number of HEMA groups have held the Western Martial arts Workshop (WMAW) in the United States. In 2000, The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA), then known as the "Historical Armed Combat Association" (HACA), hosted the Inaugural Swordplay Symposium International conference bringing together many of the then leading researchers from the US, Europe and Australia. Since 2003, ARMA has held the ARMA International Gathering every two to three years. The Fiore-oriented Schola Saint George has hosted a Medieval Swordsmanship Symposium annually in the United States since 2001.
The annual Australian Historical Swordplay Convention, primarily a teaching event was hosted and attended by diverse Australian groups from 1999 to 2006. It was held in Brisbane in 1999 and 2006, Sydney in 2000 and 2004, Canberra in 2001 and 2005, the Gold Coast in 2003 and Melbourne in 2004. Since 2009, Swordplay, a tournament event has been run each year in Brisbane.
Since 2002, Royal Arts Fencing Academy and the Rose & Gold foundation have hosted Ascalon Sword Festival, one of the largest HEMA tournaments in the United States. The event covers Olympic fencing, as well as the HEMA disciplines of longsword, rapier and dagger, military saber, and Harnisfechten. It was originally part of the larger Arnold Sports Festival as the Arnold Fencing Classic.
Since 2004, FightCamp has been running and it is organized by London-based Schola Gladiatoria.
Since 2006, a Swedish annual event called Swordfish has been taking place every year in Gothenburg, hosted by the Gothenburg Historical Fencing School (GHFS). It is currently one of the biggest HEMA tournaments in the world and is generally considered to be the "world cup of HEMA".
Since 2006, a Canadian event called Nordschlag has been taking place annually in Edmonton, Alberta, hosted by The Academy of European Swordsmanship (The AES). It is Canada's first interprovincial tournament, and currently largest Canadian tournament, and has participants from all over Western Canada. The event also includes a full day workshop that features international and local instructors.
Since 2010, The annual Pacific Northwest HEMA Gathering has been hosted by multiple schools and clubs in the Pacific Northwest. The tournament includes longsword, singlestick, glima, and one rotating weapon which is changed every year. The location of the event changes every year, and has been located at Fort Casey and Pacific Lutheran University.
Since 2011, a biannual event called the Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium, has been held in Vancouver, Canada. Hosted by Academie Duello, this event has brought instructors, authors and researchers from around the world for workshops, lectures and seminars.
Since 2012, the annual event SoCal Sword Fight has been hosted in Southern California. The event includes tournaments and classes in a variety of historical weapons, including some non-european weapons. In February 2023, the event had 329 registered fighters and over 500 participants.
Since 2013, an annual event, Fechtschule Edinburgh, an event focusing on 16th century Fencing has been hosted in Edinburgh, UK, by the Stork's Beak: School of Historical Swordplay. This Event has attracted many practitioners from around the world.
Since 2014, the Purpleheart Armoury Open has been held in Houston, TX. Formerly Fechtshule America, the Purpleheart Armoury Open is one of the largest and fastest growing HEMA competitions in North America.
In 2015, Australia's Stoccata School of Defence hosted a revival of the World Broadsword Championship in Sydney, Australia. This event, held throughout the late 19th century in England, the United States and Australia was last won by Parker in Sydney in 1891. Parker was never challenged. The 2015 event was won by Paul Wagner of Sydney, also the current holder of the Glorianna Cup, the broadsword championship of Britain. Lewis Hand of Hobart, Australia won the junior title. In the tradition of the 19th century title, the championship is held in the home town of the current Champion. As such the next championship will be held in Sydney in early 2017.
Jousting tournaments have become more common, with Jousters travelling Internationally to compete. These include a number organised by an expert in the Joust, Arne Koets, including The Grand Tournament of Sankt Wendel and The Grand Tournament at Schaffhausen
Another type of event that is becoming more common is the sparring camp/fight camp. These events are often more casual than tournaments, with events and competitions not typical of more formal tournaments, and an emphasis on classes and sparring.
=== Umbrella groups ===
In 1998, the British Federation for Historical Swordplay was established as an umbrella organisation for UK groups.
In 2001, the Historical European Martial Arts Coalition (HEMAC) was created to act as an umbrella organization for groups in Europe, with 4 sets of goals:
Martial
reconstruct historical martial arts from primary sources; refine interpretations into viable, effective martial arts; test martial skills in a variety of competitive environments
Research
locate, transcribe, translate primary sources; have a better understanding of the socio-historical context of the arts
Outreach
promote and publicise HEMA; dispel misconceptions & stereotypes; educate the general public
Community
establish a network of individuals and groups devoted to HEMA; foster close friendships and a sense of community among members; organise at least one annual HEMAC event. Since 2002, HEMAC has organized the annual International Historical European Martial arts Gathering in Dijon, France.
In 2003, the Australian Historical Swordplay Federation became the umbrella organization for groups in Australia.
In 2010, several dozen HEMA schools and clubs from around the world united under the umbrella of the HEMA Alliance, a US-based martial arts federation dedicated to developing and sharing the Historical European Martial Arts and assisting HEMA schools and instructors with such things as instructor certification, insurance, and equipment development.
In 2012, Ruth García Navarro and Mariana López Rodríguez started Esfinges, an umbrella affinity group for women in or interested in HEMA. The goal of Esfinges is to encourage more participation of underrepresented genders in HEMA, and to support those already practicing the discipline.
== See also ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
A Chronological History of the Martial arts and Combative Sports 1350–1699 by Joseph R. Svinth
Historical European Martial Arts: Studies & Sources. On-line historical and literary magazine for Russian speaking and partly for English speaking readers.
HROARR, an online repository of articles and other resources on historical European martial arts and sports
Wiktenauer, the world's largest library of historical European martial arts treatises, currently complete up to the late 1500s
AEMMA – Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts
Official website of HEMA ITALIA – Societas Artis Gladii – Information Point of Italian Martial Arts
Academy of Medieval Fencing and Culture – HEMA in Russia
Fencing club "NoName" – HEMA in Russia
Acta Periodica Duellatorum, a peer-reviewed journal of historical European martial arts research
Meyer Freifechter Guild, International Fencing Guild with a mission to educate people on the efficacy and art of Medieval & Renaissance martial arts. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Monarch#Captain's_death | MS Monarch | MS Monarch (formerly Monarch of the Seas) was the second of three Sovereign-class cruise ships owned by Royal Caribbean International. Beginning on April 1, 2013, Monarch was operated by RCCL's Pullmantur Cruises, before being sold for scrap in 2020 following Pullmantur's closure. The ship was built in 1991 at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyards in Saint-Nazaire, France.
At 73,941 GT, Monarch was one of the largest cruise ships in the world at time of her completion. She could carry up to 2,744 passengers.
== History ==
About a third of the ship burned during its completion afloat in 1990, due to an accident involving some welding equipment. At the time, the cost to make repairs was so significant that it was not clear if the ship could be repaired.
After consideration, the ship was placed in dry dock and the damaged bow section was removed. This section was then rebuilt and the metal recycled to construct the next ship of the class, Majesty of the Seas.
Monarch had an outdoor basketball court, two shuffleboard courts, and a rock climbing wall. There were also two full-sized salt water pools. She was refurbished in May 2003 to add the rock-climbing wall. The fitness center, spa and children's area were also enlarged. Prior to being retired from the Royal Caribbean International fleet, Monarch of the Seas (as she was then called) sailed to the Bahamas out of Port Canaveral, Florida.
In 2007, Monarch became the first major cruise ship in the world to be captained by a woman, the Swede Karin Stahre-Janson, who remained the only one until 2010 when the British captain Sarah Breton took charge of MS Artemis of P&O Cruises.
On 1 April 2013, after serving for Royal Caribbean International for 22 years, Monarch was transferred to Spain's Pullmantur Cruises, joining her sister ship MS Sovereign. Before sailing for Pullmantur, Monarch underwent another refurbishment to some of her cabins, casino and shops. She began sailing year-round in the Southern Caribbean on 27 April 2013.
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Monarch and MS Sovereign were placed into "cold lay-up" and Pullmantur Cruises filed for financial reorganization. According to reports, the interiors of the ships were stripped of "everything of value". Pullmantur Cruises announced that MS Monarch, MS Sovereign and MS Horizon were to be sold to breakers for scrap in Aliağa, Turkey. She was beached on 22 July 2020 and scrapping started on 5 April 2021 with the removal of the pilot's cabinet.
== Incidents ==
=== Grounding off St. Maarten ===
After evacuating a sick passenger at Philipsburg, Sint Maarten, the Netherlands Antilles on December 15, 1998, Monarch of the Seas grazed a reef while departing, opening a gash along the starboard hull 40 by 2 metres (131 ft 3 in by 6 ft 7 in) in size. The ship started taking on water and began to sink by the bow. Three of its watertight compartments were completely flooded and several others partially flooded.
The ship was intentionally grounded on a sandbar to prevent further sinking. All passengers were evacuated by crew members and local tender operators. There were no deaths. The grounding breached two of the ship's diesel fuel tanks and an overflow tank causing a small fuel spill of approximately 100 US gallons (380 L; 83 imp gal). There was also severe damage to the ship. A joint investigation by the Norwegian Maritime Investigator and the United States Coast Guard found that the accident was due to "…a myriad of human performance deficiencies." Reports also indicate that navigation out of the port was done visually rather than using electronic navigation and that the relocation of a vital buoy was not reflected on charts.
The ship was drydocked for repairs for three months at Atlantic Marine's Mobile, Alabama, facilities. 114 of the ship's compartments had to be cleaned. The work also included replacement of machinery, 460 tons of shell plating, and 18 miles (29 km) of electrical wiring.
American comedian John Pinette was aboard the ship at the time of the incident, referencing it in his 2005 DVD 'I Say Nay Nay'.
=== Gas leak ===
While docked at the Port of Los Angeles in August 2005, maintenance on a sewage pipe caused a small amount of raw sewage and an unknown amount of hydrogen sulfide gas to escape. Three crew members were killed and 19 others were injured. Reports said that the deaths were almost instantaneous as the crew members were not wearing breathing apparatus at the time.
=== Captain's death ===
Thirty-eight-year-old Captain Joern Rene Klausen was found dead in his stateroom aboard Monarch early the morning of January 30, 2006. The ship was returning to Los Angeles from a three-night cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. According to reports, the death appeared to be from natural causes.
=== Coronavirus pandemic ===
On 14 March 2020, Panama repatriated 1,504 Colombian tourists from the cruise ship Monarch due to coronavirus fears. Since the port of Cartagena, Colombia was closed, the people had to fly from Colón, Panama.
On 17 April 2020, a Honduran crew member died of the virus in a hospital in Panama City. He had been medically evacuated after having trouble breathing, and tested positive at the hospital.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
""MONARCH of the SEAS" IMO Number 8819500 Official Number 9000119 Report of the investigation into hazardous material release during pipe work renewal. at Los Angeles, USA on 2nd September 2005" (PDF). Bahamas Maritime Authority.
== External links ==
Official website with Royal Caribbean
Video Clip of Monarch of the Seas
incidents at sea aboard Monarch of the Seas
Video of the accident |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bourchier,_Countess_of_Bath | Margaret Bourchier, Countess of Bath | Margaret Bourchier, Countess of Bath (née Donington; c. 1509 – 20 December 1561) was an English Tudor noblewoman. She is notable for the three high-profile and advantageous marriages she secured during her lifetime, and for her success in arranging socially impressive marriages for many of her children. Through her descendants she is a common ancestor of many of the noble families of England.
Margaret was the only daughter and sole heiress of John Donington, a member of the Worshipful Company of Salters, and Elizabeth Pye. Through her first marriage she became the owner of Hengrave Hall, where she installed a tomb and stained glass window to the memory of her three husbands, who all predeceased her. She is buried in Hengrave Church.
== Marriages and issue ==
=== First marriage ===
Her first marriage was to Sir Thomas Kitson, a wealthy merchant and Sheriff of London, as his second wife. Together they had five children:
Sir Thomas Kitson (1540–1603), who married firstly Jane Paget, the daughter of William Paget, 1st Baron Paget, by whom he had no issue, and secondly Elizabeth Cornwallis, the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Cornwallis (d.1604), by whom he had a son who died as an infant and two daughters. From the daughters are descended the Dukes of Devonshire, the Dukes of Newcastle and the Earls Rivers.
Katherine Kitson, who married Sir John Spencer (1524 – 8 November 1586), by whom she had four sons and six daughters. Their descendants include the Earls Spencer, the Dukes of Marlborough and the Barons Monteagle.
Dorothy Kitson (1531–1577), who married firstly Sir Thomas Pakington (died 2 June 1571) by whom she had four sons, including Sir John Pakington and three daughters. Dorothy married secondly Thomas Tasburgh (c. 1554 – c. 1602) by whom she had no issue.
Frances Kitson, who married firstly on 11 December 1548 her step-brother John Bourchier, Lord FitzWarin (who predeceased his father), eldest son of John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, by whom she had a son, William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath, and secondly she married William Barnaby. Frances' descendants include the Earls of Stamford.
Anne Kitson, who married, as his first wife, Sir William Spring. Their descendants include the Spring baronets.
Through this marriage Dame Margaret inherited extensive property, including Hengrave Hall in Suffolk.
=== Second marriage ===
Margaret's marriage to the courtier Sir Richard Long took place in 1540, a few months after the death of her first husband. The couple had four children:
Jane Long (1541–1562)
Mary Long (born 1543)
Henry Long (1544–1573), godson of Henry VIII of England. He married Dorothy Clark, and their daughter, Elizabeth, married William Russell, 1st Baron Russell of Thornhaugh and is an ancestor of the Dukes of Bedford.
Catherine Long (born 1546), married Edward Fisher in 1561.
=== Third marriage ===
Her final marriage was to John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath on 11 December 1548, after which Margaret was styled Countess of Bath. Before the marriage she insisted that at the same time as her marriage to Bourchier, his son and heir, Lord FitzWarin, should marry her own daughter from her first marriage, Frances Kitson. The marriage settlement also ensured that Margaret retained control over her property. The Earl and Countess of Bath made Hengrave Hall their primary residence. The couple had two daughters:
Lady Susanna Bourchier
Lady Bridget Bourchier, who married Thomas Price.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litteris_et_Artibus | Litteris et Artibus | Litteris et Artibus is a Swedish royal medal established in 1853 by Charles XV of Sweden, who was then crown prince. It is awarded to people who have made important contributions to culture, especially music, dramatic art and literature.
The obverse side of the medal has the image of the current King while the reverse has the text "Litteris et Artibus" (Latin: Letters and Arts).
== Recipients ==
1857 – Karolina Bock
1865 – Elise Hwasser
1869 – Louise Michaëli
1871 – Henriette Nissen-Saloman
1874 – Béla Kéler
1885 – Bertha Tammelin
1886 – Ellen Hartman
1890 – Dina Edling
1891 – Thecla Åhlander, Agi Lindegren, Carolina Östberg
1894 – Herman af Sillén
1895 – Mathilda Grabow
1896 – Agnes Branting
1899 – John Forsell
1900 – Adelina Patti
1906 – Martina Bergman-Österberg
1907 – Armas Järnefelt
1914 – Alice Tegnér
1914 – Anna Bergström-Simonsson
1915 – Anna Oscàr
1916 – Hugo Alfvén, Harriet Bosse, Carl Boberg
1920 – Nanny Larsén-Todsen, Wilhelm Kempff
1921 – Lotten Dahlgren
1922 – Sigrid Leijonhufvud
1923 – Helena Nyblom
1924 – Märta Måås-Fjetterström
1925 – Pauline Brunius, Ellen Roosval von Hallwyl
1926 – Carl Malmsten
1927 – Ida von Schulzenheim
1928 – Tora Teje
1932 – Oskar Lindberg
1934 – Olof Winnerstrand, Helga Görlin
1937 – Greta Garbo
1940 – Irma Björck
1950 – Tyra Lundgren
1952 – Marian Anderson
1960 – Birgit Nilsson
1968 – Nicolai Gedda
1969 – Eric Ericson, Elisabeth Söderström
1973 – Erland Josephson
1975 – Astrid Lindgren, Erik Saedén, Margaretha Krook
1976 – Margareta Hallin
1977 – Birgit Cullberg, Alf Henrikson, Lars-Erik Larsson, Allan Pettersson
1978 – Povel Ramel, Gunnar de Frumerie, Dag Wirén
1979 – Anders Ek, Gunn Wållgren
1980 – Erik Bruhn
1981 – Tage Danielsson, Lars Johan Werle, Hans Alfredson
1982 – Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Götz Friedrich
1983 – Birgitta Valberg, Ingvar Kjellson
1986 – Bengt Hambraeus, Jan Malmsjö, Sif Ruud
1987 – Nils Poppe
1988 – Per Myrberg
1989 – Bibi Andersson
1990 – Mona Malm, Sven Delblanc, Ulf Johanson
1991 – Lars Gunnar Bodin, Lars Fresk, Freskkvartetten
1992 – Börje Ahlstedt, Harriet Andersson, Tomas Tranströmer
1993 – Gösta Winbergh, Håkan Hagegård, Lars Forssell
1994 – Sven-David Sandström
1995 – Daniel Börtz, Lennart Hjulström
1996 – Esa-Pekka Salonen, P. C. Jersild, Per Anders Fogelström, Solveig Ternström
1997 – Bo Widerberg, Göran Tunström, Kristina Adolphson, Sara Lidman
1998 – Kerstin Ekman, Georg Reidel, Gerda Antti, Margareta Ekström
1999 – Björn Ulvaeus, Agneta Pleijel, Anne Sofie von Otter, Lennart Hellsing, Marie Göranzon, Olle Johansson, Stina Ekblad, Willy Kyrklund, Ylva Eggehorn
2000 – Björn Granath, Hans Gefors, Krister Henriksson, Maria Gripe, Per Olov Enquist
2001 – Anita Wall, Dan Laurin, Kim Anderzon, Majgull Axelsson, Mats Ek, Staffan Göthe, Staffan Valdemar Holm
2002 – Staffan Göthe, Arne Domnérus, Loa Falkman, Jan Sandström, Lena Endre, Olle Adolphson, Pernilla August, Roland Pöntinen, Sven-Bertil Taube, Torgny Lindgren
2003 – Marie Fredriksson, Eva Bergman, Håkan Hardenberger, Karin Rehnqvist, Kristina Lugn, Lars Amble
2004 – Birgitta Trotzig, Catarina Ligendza, Christian Lindberg, Hillevi Martinpelto, Katarina Dalayman, Knut Ahnlund, Lena Nyman, Lil Terselius
2005 – Bertil Norström, Eva Ström, Gunnel Vallquist, Ingvar Hirdwall, Irene Lindh, Jan Troell, Per Tengstrand, Per Wästberg, Peter Jablonski, Putte Wickman
2006 – Henning Mankell, Bobo Stenson, Inger Sandberg, Johan Rabaeus, Lars Gustafsson, Lasse Sandberg
2007 – Reine Brynolfsson, Carola Häggkvist
2008 – Carl-Göran Ekerwald, Alf Hambe, Gunnar Harding, Inga Landgré, Lars Norén, Malin Ek, Nina Stemme
2009 – Katinka Faragó, Meg Westergren, Roy Andersson, Örjan Ramberg
2010 – Bodil Malmsten, Dan Ekborg, Malin Hartelius
2011 – Malena Ernman, Mats Bergström, Sten Ljunggren, Peter Mattei, Marie Richardson
2012 – Anders Paulsson, Martin Fröst, Wilhelm Carlsson, Lena Josefsson, Charlotta Larsson, Jan-Erik Wikström
2013 – Åke Lundqvist, Per Nyström, Vibeke Olsson Falk, Kristina Törnqvist, Sven Wollter
2014 – Tomas von Brömssen, Pers Anna Larsson, Staffan Mårtensson, Ingela Olsson
2015 – Rigmor Gustafsson, Livia Millhagen, Ann Petrén, Therese Brunnander
2016 – Kerstin Avemo, Malin Byström, Anders Eljas, Nils Landgren, Lars Lerin, Magnus Lindgren, Elin Rombo, Johannes Öhman
2017 – Elisabeth Eriksson, Ann Hallenberg, Elin Klinga, Lars Humble, Ola Larsmo, Lisa Nilsson
2018 – Rolf Martinsson, Dan-Olof Stenlund, Iréne Theorin, Helen Sjöholm, Per Åhlin
2019 – Gunilla Bergström, Lars Lind, Peter Andersson, Katarina Ewerlöf, Erland Hagegård, Bengt Krantz
2020 – Kicki Bramberg, Lisa Larsson, Gunilla Röör, Gregor Zubicky, Gary Graden, Per Gudmundson, Sissela Kyle, Johan Ulveson, Ingrid Tobiasson
2021 – Gun-Britt, Alexander Ekman, Pia Johansson, Ragnar Håkanson, Daniel Johansson, Mats Larsson Gothe, Lena Philipsson, Magnus Uggla, Mattias Andersson, Jill Johnson, Sofia Jupither Adrian, Peter Jöback, Bo W. Lindström, Susanne Resmark, Ulrika Wallenström
2022 – Leif Andrée, Manne af Klintberg, Ulla Skoog, Michael Weinius, Tomas Boström, Henrik Dorsin, Merit Hemmingson, Tommy Körberg, Patrik Ringborg, Cajsa Stina Åkerström
2023 – Ada Berger, Ludwig Göransson, Hans Josefsson, Efva Lilja, Veronica Maggio, Shanti Roney, Annsofi Östbergh Nyberg, Gunnel Fred, Thomas Hanzon, Ola Salo, Janne Schaffer
2024 – Lennart Jähkel, Laleh Pourkarim, Ingela Strandberg, Elisabet Strid, Georg Wadenius, Nina Zanjani
2025 – Birgitta Andersson, Orup, Siri Hamari, Mikael Samuelson, Tobias Theorell, Klas Östergren
== See also ==
Orders, decorations, and medals of Sweden
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_paddlefish#:~:text=The%20Chinese%20paddlefish%20was%20officially,become%20functionally%20extinct%20by%201993. | Chinese paddlefish | The Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius; simplified Chinese: 白鲟; traditional Chinese: 白鱘; pinyin: báixún: literal translation: "white sturgeon"), also known as the Chinese swordfish, is an extinct species of fish that was formerly native to the Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China. With records of specimens over 3.6 metres (12 ft) and possibly 7 m (23 ft) in length, it was one of the largest species of primarily freshwater fish. It was the only species in the genus Psephurus and one of two recent species of paddlefish (Polyodontidae), the other being the still-living American paddlefish (Polyodon spathula). The species was not a strictly freshwater fish, with individuals having migrated down the Yangtze into the sea as juveniles, where they spent time in coastal waters, before returning into the river by adulthood, and migrating upriver to spawn. Unlike the American paddlefish, which is a filter feeder on plankton, the Chinese paddlefish was a piscivorous predator that primarily consumed small to medium-sized fish.
Since the 1990s, the species was officially listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered, and was last seen alive in 2003. A 2019 paper including scientists from the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute found the species to be extinct based on its absence from extensive capture surveys, with the extinction suggested to have occurred by 2005, and no later than 2010, although it had become functionally extinct by 1993. It was unanimously agreed to be extinct by the Species Survival Commission Sturgeon Specialist Group of the IUCN on 15 September 2019, with its conservation status being formally updated by the IUCN Red List in July 2022.
The main cause of its extinction was the construction of the Gezhouba Dam in 1981, fragmenting the population and blocking the migration of the fish to its upriver spawning grounds required to sustain its population. Overfishing also played a significant role in its decline. Fishing of the Chinese paddlefish dates back centuries, with annual harvests reaching 25 tons by the 1970s.
== Description ==
The Chinese paddlefish had a white underbelly, and its back and head were grey. Its dorsal and anal fins were situated considerably far back on the body. The paddle-like rostrum was narrow and pointed, and was between a quarter and up to a third of total body length. Its eyes were small and round. The tail fin was heterocercal (spine extending into the upper lobe), with the lower lobe being well developed. The skull is more elongate and narrower than that of the American paddlefish, and lacks the sculpturing present on the skull bones of other paddlefish, with the stellate (star-shaped) bones on the rostrum less numerous than those of the American paddlefish. The teeth were small, sharp, canine shaped and inward curling, and became proportionally smaller relative to the jaw during growth, and in mature adults were completely fused into the bone. Compared to Polyodon, the jaws were shorter, and had a proportionately narrower gape, and unlike the American paddlefish, but similar to fossil paddlefish, the upper jaw was not firmly attached to the braincase. Like other paddlefish, the skeleton was largely cartilaginous. The body lacked scales, except for small scales in the caudal peduncle and caudal fin.
Juveniles attained a weight of around 1 to 1.5 kilograms (2 to 3 lb) by their first winter and a length of 1 m (3 ft) and a weight of about 3.3 kg (7 lb 4 oz) by the time they were a year old. Beyond this length, proportional weight gain relative to body length dramatically increased, reaching a weight of about 12.5 kg (28 lb) by the time they were around 1.5 m (5 ft) long. They reached sexual maturity at a weight of around 25 kg (55 lb). Female fish are suggested to have grown larger than male fish once sexually mature, though they grew at similar rates prior to this.The maximum length of the Chinese paddlefish is often quoted as 7 m (23 ft), with this estimate apparently being given by C. Ping (1931) as quoted by John Treadwell Nichols in 1943, though according to Lance Grande and William Bemis in 1991, the Chinese paddlefish was only definitively known to have body lengths in excess of 3 metres (9.8 ft). Ping is often suggested to have said that fishermen in Nanjing caught a Chinese paddlefish with a length of 7 metres (23 ft) and a weight of 907 kilograms (2,000 lb). However, Grande and Bemis (1991) suggested that this enormous length may have been the result of a translation error. The last known specimen of the species, a mature female caught in 2003, was measured as being 3.63 metres (11.9 ft) in length with a body mass of approximately 200 kilograms (440 lb). A 1996 study estimated based on extrapolations from growth curves, that the largest female and male fish may have grown to lengths of 4.363 metres (14.31 ft) and 3.685 metres (12.09 ft) respectively. FishBase and World Wide Fund for Nature gives a conservative maximum weight of 300–500 kg (660–1,100 lb).
The lifespan has been estimated at 29–38 years, though the theoretical maximum lifespan is likely to have been significantly higher, as the estimate reflects anthropogenic impacts on the population.
== Taxonomy and evolutionary history ==
The species was first named as a species of Polyodon (the genus of the American paddlefish) by Eduard von Martens in 1862. It was placed into a separate, monotypic genus by Albert Günther in 1873. The species was also given a different name, Spatularia angustifolium by Johann Jakob Kaup also in 1862, but this is considered a junior synonym of P. gladius.
Paddlefish (Polyodontidae) are one of two living families of Acipenseriformes alongside sturgeons (Acipenseridae). The oldest records of Acipenseriformes date to the Early Jurassic, over 190 million years ago. The oldest paddlefish fossil is that of Protopsephurus from the Early Cretaceous of China, dating to around 120 million years ago. The oldest representatives of the genus containing the American paddlefish, Polyodon date to around 65 million years ago, from the beginning of the Paleocene. Various molecular clock estimates have been given for the age of the divergence between the American and Chinese paddlefish, including 68 million years ago 72 million years ago, and 100 million years ago, all dating to the middle to Upper Cretaceous.
Relationships of recent and fossil paddlefish genera, after Grande et al. (2002).
== Distribution, habitat and ecology ==
The Chinese paddlefish was native to the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) River basin and its estuary at the East China Sea. Historically it was also recorded in the Yellow River basin (which is connected to the Yangtze by the Grand Canal) and its estuary at the Yellow Sea. They were also historically found in coastal waters of the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea; occasionally spring tides would bring individuals into the lower reaches of the Qiantang and Yong rivers of Zhejiang province. It primarily inhabited the rivers, particularly in the case of the Yangtze the relatively more prey-rich lower-middle reaches as opposed to the relatively food-poor upper reaches, but sometimes travelled into large lakes.
During fall and winter, breeding-age adults migrated from the rest of the Yangtze river system to the lower Jinsha River (a name given to the upper part of the Yangtze) in the section of the river around the city of Yibin in southern Sichuan, to congregate for spawning, which occurred in spring of the following year, from mid-March to early April. Males and females are suggested to have reached sexual maturity and began spawning at 5 and 6 years of age respectively, with spawning males being reported as approximately 5-10 years of age, while spawning females were generally 6 to 16 years of age. One spawning site on the Jinsha River, located at the midpoint of the river, around 60 m (200 ft) from the riverbank, was around 500 m (1,600 ft) in length, and had a max water depth of 10 m (33 ft) and rapid water flow, with the bottom sediments in the lower reaches being shingly and in the upper reaches muddy/sandy. Females probably did not spawn every year, likely every other year or somewhat less frequently, like other members of Acipenseriformes. The ovaries of the female fish contained over 100,000 eggs, each approximately 2.7 mm (3⁄32 in) across, which had a sticky surface. Once the eggs had become fertilized, they sank and attached to pebbles on the river bottom.
The fish was amphidromous (migrating between freshwater and the sea for reasons other than spawning), with young juveniles migrating 2,750 kilometres (1,710 mi) downriver following their hatching in their spawning grounds in the upper Yangtze, reaching the Yangtze estuary in the vicinity of Shanghai by the time they were 4-5 months of age in July to August, following which they spent part of their life living in brackish and saline coastal waters. As subadults they later migrated back up into freshwater in the Yangtze at around 1.5-2 years old, following which they would progressively migrate upriver over the next 1-4 years until they reached close to their spawning grounds in the section of the Yangtze between Chongqing and Yibin.
The fish was largely solitary, and occupied the lower-mid layers of the water column. Chinese paddlefish were noted for being strong swimmers. Unlike its relative the American paddlefish, which is a planktivorous filter feeder, the Chinese paddlefish was primarily piscivorous, mainly feeding on small to medium-sized fishes like anchovies (Coilia), cyprinids (Coreius, Rhinogobio), gobies (Gobius) as well as bagrid catfish and bothid flounders. It also consumed crustaceans like shrimp and crabs. The jaws, unlike the American paddlefish but like sturgeons and fossil paddlefish, were capable of protrusion, a form of cranial kinesis allowing them to move relative to the rest of the skull, with the upper jaw being able to thrust downwards and forwards in order to seize prey. Paddlefish, like other Acipenseriformes and several other groups of vertebrates, engage in passive electroreception (the sensing of external electric fields) using structures called ampullae that form an extension of the lateral line system of sensory organs. Passive electroreception (where electric fields are sensed but not generated, as in electric fish) is primarily used for detecting the weak electric fields generated by prey. The head and rostrum of Chinese paddlefish, like those of other paddlefish, was densely packed with ampullae, indicating that enhancing electroreception was one of the rostrum's primary functions.
== Decline and extinction ==
The last records of Chinese paddlefish in the Yellow River basin and its estuary date back to the 1960s, although declines were realized between the 13th and 19th centuries. Declines were significant throughout its primary range in the Yangtze basin, but annual captures of 25 tonnes continued into the 1970s. A 2024 study estimated that the population of spawning age individuals of the fish was around 3,000 in 1980. In 1983, the Chinese government made fishing of the species illegal due to its decline in numbers. The species was still being found in small numbers in the 1980s (for example, 32 were caught in 1985), and young were seen as recently as 1995. Due to the rarity of the fish by the time it was realised that it was in peril, and the fact that the adult fish were difficult to keep in captivity, attempts to create a captive breeding stock failed.
Since 2000, there have been only two confirmed sightings of the fish alive, both from the Yangtze basin: The first was a 3.3-metre (10 ft 10 in), 117-kilogram (258 lb) female caught at Nanjing in 2002 and the second, initially reported as 3.52-metre (11 ft 7 in), 160 kg (350 lb) female accidentally caught at Yibin, Sichuan, on January 24, 2003, by fisherman Liu Longhua (刘龙华); the former died despite attempts to save it and the latter was radio-tagged and released, but the tag stopped working after only 12 hours.
During a search conducted in the Yangtze basin from 2006 to 2008, a research team from the Chinese Academy of Fisheries Science in Jingzhou failed to catch any paddlefish, but two possible specimens were recorded with hydroacoustic signals. A comprehensive study published in 2019, including scientists from the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute, found that the species was certainly extinct, based on its absence from extensive capture surveys of the Yangtze between 2017 and 2018. The paper estimated that the species went extinct between 2005 and 2010, but became functionally extinct by 1993. The paper thus recommended the reclassification of the species as Extinct by the IUCN. A similar recommendation was also made by the Species Survival Commission Sturgeon Specialist Group of the IUCN in September 2019. The official IUCN status of the species was formally updated to "extinct" in July 2022.
The primary cause of its extinction was the construction of the Ghezouba Dam, which became operational 1981, which a 2024 study described as having "sealed its fate of inevitable extinction" upon becoming operational because it effectively prevented the fish from properly completing its life cycle, dividing the fish population into subadults downstream of the dam who could not migrate upriver through the dams turbines to reproduce, and a residual adult population upstream of the dam who could continue to spawn but not effectively replace itself over the long term. Overfishing also played a role in its decline. The Chinese paddlefish was heavily overfished in all stages of growth from fry (which were easily captured by traditional fishing methods) to adult, which combined with the long generation time due to its slow maturation led to reduced sustainability of viable populations.
== Cultural significance ==
A gold belt from the Jinsha site in Sichuan, dating to around 1000 BC, has been found emblazoned with drawings of what is suggested to be Chinese paddlefish. The Classic of Poetry (11th to 7th century BC) may contain references to the Chinese paddlefish as one of the animals sacrificed during rituals. The Huainanzi (2nd century BC) claims that the fish was receptive to rhythm and attracted to the sound of musical instruments. The Eastern Jin writer Guo Pu apparently mentions the fish in his work Jiang Fu (江賦 , lit. Ode to the River). The 9th century Tang Dynasty book Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang suggests that killing a Chinese paddlefish could cause rain. The fish is depicted in a number of historical Chinese paintings. Sichuanese fishermen had a saying regarding the fish, referencing its large size. Some common names for the fish in Chinese compare the rostrum of the fish to an elephant's trunk.
Like the related sturgeons and American paddlefish, the species was fished for its caviar, though it made up only a small proportion (less than 1%) of the total number of fish caught from the Yangtze in the late 20th century by weight.
== See also ==
Baiji – a critically endangered, probably extinct species of river dolphin also native to the Yangtze, whose decline was driven by the same factors that drove the Chinese paddlefish to extinction
List of endangered and protected species of China
== References ==
== External links ==
Article on the extinction in Qilu Yidian, which contains numerous rare images of the fish alive or recently dead
Chinese documentary on the species, which features footage of the fish alive |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia%E2%80%93Europe_Meeting#ASEM_Education_Ministers'_Meetings_(ASEMME) | Asia–Europe Meeting | The Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an Asian–European political dialogue forum to enhance relations and various forms of cooperation between its partners.
It was officially established on 1 March 1996 at the 1st ASEM Summit (ASEM1) in Bangkok, Thailand, by the then 15 Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission, the then 7 Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the individual countries of China, Japan, and South Korea. A series of enlargements saw additional EU Member States join as well as India, Mongolia, Pakistan and the ASEAN Secretariat in 2008, Australia, New Zealand and Russia in 2010, Bangladesh, Norway, and Switzerland in 2012, as well as Croatia, and Kazakhstan in 2014.
The main components of the ASEM Process rest on the following 3 pillars:
Political Pillar
Economic & Financial Pillar
Social, Cultural & Educational Pillar
In general, the ASEM Process is considered by the Partners involved to be a way of deepening the relations between Asia and Europe at all levels, which is deemed necessary to achieve a more balanced political and economic world order. The process is enhanced by the biennial meetings of Heads of State and Government, alternately in Asia and Europe, and biennial meetings of Foreign Ministers as well as other Ministerial Meetings, and other political, economic, and socio-cultural events at various levels.
== Partners ==
The ASEM Partnership currently has 53 Partners: 51 countries and 2 regional organisations. The countries are Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Vietnam while the European Union and the ASEAN Secretariat are the regional organisations involved.
== Meetings ==
=== ASEM Summits ===
Biennial Summits are held alternating between Asia and Europe, attended by the Heads of State and Government of the respective partner countries and organisations:
ASEM13: 25–26 November 2021, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
ASEM12: 18–19 October 2018, Brussels, Belgium
ASEM11: 15–16 July 2016, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
ASEM10: 16–17 October 2014, Milan, Italy
ASEM9: 05–06 November 2012, Vientiane, Laos
ASEM8: 04–05 October 2010, Brussels, Belgium
ASEM7: 24–25 October 2008, Beijing, China
ASEM6: 10–11 September 2006, Helsinki, Finland
ASEM5: 08–09 October 2004, Hanoi, Vietnam
ASEM4 Archived 1 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine: 22–24 September 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark
ASEM3: 20–21 October 2000, Seoul, South Korea
ASEM2: 03–04 April 1998, London, United Kingdom
ASEM1: 01–02 March 1996, Bangkok, Thailand
=== ASEM Ministerial Meetings ===
Aside from Summits, regular Ministerial Meetings are held on foreign affairs, financial, cultural, economic, educational, labor and employment, transport, or environmental issues, attended by the relevant ministers:
==== ASEM Foreign Ministers' Meetings (ASEMFMM) ====
ASEMFMM14 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 15-16 December 2019, Madrid, Spain
ASEMFMM13: 20–21 November 2017, Naypyidaw, Myanmar
ASEMFMM12: 05–06 November 2015, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
ASEMFMM11 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 11–12 November 2013, New Delhi, India
ASEMFMM10 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 06–07 June 2011, Gödöllő, Hungary
ASEMFMM9 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 25–26 May 2009, Hanoi, Vietnam
ASEMFMM8 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 28–29 May 2007, Hamburg, Germany
ASEMFMM7 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 06–07 May 2005, Kyoto, Japan
ASEMFMM6 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 17–18 April 2004, Kildare, Ireland
ASEMFMM5 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 23–24 July 2003, Bali, Indonesia
ASEMFMM4 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 06–07 June 2002, Madrid, Spain
ASEMFMM3 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 24–25 May 2001, Beijing, China
ASEMFMM2 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 29 March 1999, Berlin, Germany
ASEMFMM1 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 15 February 1997, Singapore
==== ASEM Finance Ministers' Meetings (ASEMFinMM) ====
ASEMFinMM14: 2020, Dhaka, Bangladesh
ASEMFinMM13 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 26 April 2018, Sofia, Bulgaria
ASEMFinMM12 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 09–10 June 2016, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
ASEMFinMM11 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 11–12 September 2014, Milan, Italy
ASEMFinMM10 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 15 October 2012, Bangkok, Thailand
ASEMFinMM9 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 17–18 April 2010, Madrid, Spain
ASEMFinMM8 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 16 June 2008, Jeju, South Korea
ASEMFinMM7 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 08–09 April 2006, Vienna, Austria
ASEMFinMM6 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 25–26 June 2005, Tianjin, China
ASEMFinMM5 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 05–06 July 2003, Bali, Indonesia
ASEMFinMM4 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 05–06 July 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark
ASEMFinMM3 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 13–14 January 2001, Kobe, Japan
ASEMFinMM2 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 15–16 September 1999, Frankfurt, Germany
ASEMFinMM1 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 19 September 1997, Bangkok, Thailand
==== ASEM Culture Ministers' Meetings (ASEMCMM) ====
ASEMCMM9: 2020, Asia
ASEMCMM8: 01-02 March 2018, Sofia, Bulgaria
ASEMCMM7 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 22–24 June 2016, Gwangju, South Korea
ASEMCMM6 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 20–21 October 2014, Rotterdam, Netherlands
ASEMCMM5: 18–19 September 2012, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
ASEMCMM4: 08–10 September 2010, Poznań, Poland
ASEMCMM3: 21–24 April 2008, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ASEMCMM2: 06–07 June 2005, Paris, France
ASEMCMM1: 03 December 2003, Beijing, China
==== ASEM Economic Ministers' Meetings (ASEMEMM) ====
ASEMEMM7: 21–22 September 2017, Seoul, South Korea
High-level Meeting: 16-17 September 2005, Rotterdam, Netherlands
ASEMEMM5: 23–24 July 2003, Dalian, China
ASEMEMM4: 18–19 September 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark
ASEMEMM3: 10–11 September 2001, Hanoi, Vietnam
ASEMEMM2: 09–10 October 1999, Berlin, Germany
ASEMEMM1: 27–28 September 1997, Makuhari, Japan
==== ASEM Education Ministers' Meetings (ASEMME) ====
ASEMME9: 25-26 January 2024, Valletta, Malta
ASEMME8: 15 December 2021, Bangkok (online), Thailand
ASEMME7 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 15-16 May 2019, Bucharest, Romania
ASEMME6: 21–22 November 2017, Seoul, South Korea
ASEMME5: 27–28 April 2015, Riga, Latvia
ASEMME4: 12–14 May 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
ASEMME3: 09–10 May 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark
ASEMME2: 14–15 May 2009, Hanoi, Vietnam
ASEMME1: 05–06 May 2008, Berlin, Germany
==== ASEM Labour & Employment Ministers' Conferences (ASEMLEMC) ====
ASEMLEMC5 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 03–04 December 2015, Sofia, Bulgaria
ASEMLEMC4: 24–26 October 2012, Hanoi, Vietnam
ASEMLEMC3: 12–14 December 2010, Leiden, Netherlands
ASEMLEMC2: 13–15 October 2008, Bali, Indonesia
ASEMLEMC1: 03 September 2006, Potsdam, Germany
==== ASEM Transport Ministers' Meetings (ASEMTMM) ====
ASEMTMM5 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 11-12 December 2019, Budapest, Hungary
ASEMTMM4 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 26–28 September 2017, Bali, Indonesia
ASEMTMM3 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 29–30 April 2015, Riga, Latvia
ASEMTMM2: 24–25 October 2011, Chengdu, China
ASEMTMM1 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 19–20 October 2009, Vilnius, Lithuania
==== ASEM Environment Ministers' Meetings (ASEMEnvMM) ====
ASEMEnvMM4 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 22–23 May 2012, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
ASEMEnvMM3 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 23–26 April 2007, Copenhagen, Denmark
ASEMEnvMM2 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 12–13 October 2003, Lecce, Italy
ASEMEnvMM1 Archived 16 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine: 17 January 2002, Beijing, China
==== ASEM Ministerial Conference on Energy Security (ASEMESMC) ====
ASEMESMC1: 17–18 June 2009, Brussels, Belgium
== See also ==
ASEM Education Process
Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the only permanently established institution under the ASEM framework
European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean Summit
== References ==
== External links ==
ASEM InfoBoard, the official information platform of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)
Introduction to the Asia-Europe Meeting
ASEM in Its Tenth Year: Looking Forward, Looking Back Archived 21 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine
Asia-Europe People's Forum (AEPF)
Asia-Europe Labour Forum (AELF)
ASEM Education Secretariat (AES)
Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the only permanently established institution under the ASEM framework
ASEF Classroom Network (ASEF ClassNet)
Asia-Europe Museum Network (ASEMUS) Archived 1 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
ASEF University Alumni Network (ASEFUAN)
Asia-Europe Institute (AEI) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harnaam_Kaur | Harnaam Kaur | Harnaam Kaur (born 29 November 1990) is a British social media personality, postpartum coach, life coach, and motivational speaker.
== Early life ==
Kaur was born in Slough, Berkshire on 29 November 1990 in what she describes as "a traditional Punjabi family". At the age of 12, Kaur was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is due to elevated androgens (male hormones) in females. One of the symptoms of PCOS is hirsutism, or the ability to grow excessive facial and body hair. Kaur is able to grow a full beard as a result of her condition. While Kaur initially attempted to remove her facial hair due to constant bullying, she has grown to embrace her unconventional appearance and has become a spokesperson for the body positivity movement. In an interview with Rock N Roll Bride, Kaur reflects on her decision to keep her beard: "I decided to keep my beard and step forward against society's expectations of what a woman should look like. Today I am not suicidal and I do not self-harm. Today I am happy living as a young beautiful bearded woman. I have realised that this body is mine, I own it, I do not have any other body to live in so I may as well love it unconditionally".
== Career ==
Kaur worked as a primary school teaching assistant at Khalsa Primary School before coming to media attention in 2014, when she started giving public interviews. After achieving fame, Kaur became a full-time public figure and freelance model and motivational speaker.
In March 2015, photographer Mr. Elbank included a photo of Kaur in his exhibit at Somerset House in London, which featured portraits of over 80 individuals with beards. In June 2015, Kaur modeled for Rock N Roll Bride and was photographed by Louisa Coulthurst of Urban Bridesmaid Photography. In November 2015, Kaur joined the "Eff Your Beauty Standards" campaign founded by Tess Holliday as a spokesperson and representative.
In March 2016, Kaur became the first woman with a beard to walk at London Fashion Week. She opened the show for designer Marianna Harutunian. She is signed to Wanted Models in Paris and continues to be featured in fashion spreads in both online and print magazines. In May 2016, the conceptual artist Annelies Hofmeyr featured Kaur in her project Trophy Wife Barbie, where Hofmeyr altered a Barbie doll to Kaur's likeness.
In July 2016, musician Aisha Mizra featured Kaur in the music video for her song "Fuck Me or Destroy Me".
In September 2016, Kaur was included in the Guinness World Records as the youngest woman in the world to have a full beard. Her record citation read: "Now with a beard measuring as long as six inches [15 cm] in places, she overcame years of bullying to take ownership of her appearance and achieve this record title at the age of 24 years 282 days".
In March 2017, Kaur was featured in the Teen Vogue article "Instagrammers Challenge Body and Facial Hair Stigma".
In August 2017, Kaur collaborated with the grooming company Captain Fawcett to create and design a beard oil elixir. Kaur models in the advertisement campaign for the beard oil.
=== Activism ===
In interviews and on social media, Kaur references the abuse and harassment she received as a teenager that led to her self-harm and attempted suicide. In 2017, Kaur contributed to panel discussions in the House of Parliament on topics relating to mental health, body image, cyberbullying, LGBTQIA+ and how social media, businesses, schools and the government can help with the development of positive body images.
Kaur uses her profiles on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to contribute to numerous body-positive campaigns. She frequently posts content to promote awareness of body shaming, cyberbullying and mental illness. Kaur also aims to challenge gender stereotypes in media. She has said, "I don't think I believe in gender. I want to know who said a vagina is for a woman and a penis is for a man, or pink is for a girl and blue is for a boy. I am sitting here with a vagina and boobs – and a big beautiful beard".
== Personal life ==
While Kaur has referenced her conversion to Sikhism at age 16 as one of the reasons she stopped removing her facial hair, she now describes herself as spiritual rather than religious. Traditionally, Sikhism forbids the cutting of hair. She continues to wear her turban or other head coverings, which is a custom of the Khalsa tradition of Sikhism.
Kaur is originally from Slough, England. Her younger brother, Gurdeep Singh Cheema, created the film Happy Ending? The Dangers of Online Grooming to bring awareness to the issue of online child grooming by predators.
To promote self-love and acceptance, Kaur has stated that she has named her beard Sundri, which means beauty or beautiful, and refers to her beard as "she".
== See also ==
Polycystic ovary syndrome
Hirsutism
Bearded lady
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_Churchill | Savannah Churchill | Savannah Churchill (born Savannah Valentine Roberts; August 21, 1920 – April 19, 1974) was an American rhythm and blues singer in the 1940s and 1950s. She is best known for her number-one R&B single "I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)."
== Life and career ==
Born to Creole parents Emmett Roberts and Hazel Hickman in Colfax, Louisiana, her family moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was three. Growing up, Churchill played violin and sang with the choir at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church and School in Brooklyn. She graduated from Brooklyn's Girls' High School.
In the 1930 and 1940 United States Censuses, Churchill and her parents are listed as Negro, as Louisiana Creoles were required to do at the time. Churchill never denied her African American ancestry even as she attained fame, and she appeared in black publications such as Jet magazine.
In 1939, Churchill quit her job as a waitress to pursue a singing career. She began singing at Small's Paradise in Harlem, earning $18 a week. Churchill performed with the Crystal Caraverns in Washington, D.C., and then toured with Edgar Hayes band in 1941.
Churchill's first recordings, including the risqué "Fat Meat Is Good Meat", issued on Beacon Records in 1942. These were followed the next year by recordings on Capitol with the Benny Carter Orchestra, including her first hit, "Hurry, Hurry".
In 1945, Churchill signed with Irving Berman's Manor Records, and that year "Daddy Daddy" peaked at No. 3 on the R&B chart. Two years later, she reached No. 1 on the R&B chart with "I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)", which topped the charts for eight weeks. The record was billed as being with vocal group The Sentimentalists, who soon renamed themselves The Four Tunes. Subsequent recordings with The Four Tunes, including "Time Out For Tears" (No. 10 R&B, No. 24 pop) and "I Want To Cry", both in 1948, were also successful.
Billed as "Sex-Sational", Churchill performed to much acclaim, and appeared in the movies Miracle in Harlem (1948) and Souls of Sin (1949). The films feature African American casts.
From 1949, Churchill recorded with Regal, RCA Victor and Decca Records, recording the original version of "Shake A Hand", later a big hit for Faye Adams, also recording with the Ray Charles Singers.
By 1952, Churchill became one of the top box-office attractions at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, the Regal Theater in Chicago, the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., and the Palladium in London. She toured widely with backing vocal group The Striders, including a visit to Hawaii in 1954.
In 1953, Churchill released gospel tunes on Decca Records. In 1956, she was one of the first artists signed to the Argo label, set up as a subsidiary to Chess Records.
Churchill's career ended in 1956 when, as she was singing on stage in a club, a drunken man fell on top of her from a balcony above, causing severe, debilitating injuries from which she would never fully recover. Although she did some recording in 1960, releasing her debut album Time Out For Tears on Jamie Records, her health declined greatly until her death from pneumonia in Brooklyn in 1974.
== Personal life ==
Savannah Churchill moved from Louisiana to Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in New York with her mother Hazel Roberts and stepfather. She attended St. Peter Claver catholic school and later Girls High School. They had a house on Quincy Street that formerly had a carriage house with a horse stable in the back yard. Churchill later had two children with her first husband, David Churchill, who was killed in a car accident in 1941. On May 19, 1952, Churchill remarried, to Jesse Johnson in Franklin, Ohio.
== Discography ==
=== Chart singles ===
== Filmography ==
Miracle in Harlem (1948)
Souls of Sin (1949)
== References ==
== External links ==
Savannah Churchill Biography I
Savannah Churchill Biography II
Savannah Churchill Biography & Discography
Savannah Churchill press clippings 1943-1953
Savannah Churchill at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bentley_(painter)#: | Charles Bentley (painter) | Charles Bentley (1805/6–4 September 1854), was an English watercolour painter of coastal and river scenery.
== Life ==
Bentley was born in 1805 or 1806, the son of a master-carpenter and builder living in Tottenham Court Road, London. He was sent to work colouring prints for Theodore Fielding to whom he was eventually apprenticed in order to learn aquatinting. Bentley became a lifelong friend of another, rather younger, pupil of Fielding, William Callow. During his apprenticeship he was sent to Paris, probably to assist work on the plates for Excursion sur les Cotes et dans les Ports de Normandie' (Paris, 1823-5), most of which were after watercolours by Richard Bonington.
After the end of his apprenticeship, though earning some money from engraving or designing plates for periodicals, Bentley turned increasingly to painting watercolours. He exhibited four works at the first Exhibition of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours, (later the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours) in 1832, and six the next year. He was then living at 15, Bateman's Buildings, a narrow turning on the south side of Soho Square, where he remained for another six years. In February 1834, Bentley was elected an Associate-Exhibitor of the Old Water-Colour Society (later the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours). By 1838 he had moved to 11, Mornington Place, Hampstead Road, where, except for a three-year break (when he lived with William Callow in Charlotte Street) he spent the rest of his life. His exhibits at the Old Water-Colour Society in 1838 included two imaginative compositions :From the Red Rover, depicting a naval battle, and From Tom Cringle's Log, which represented a sinking slave-ship. He showed at the British Institution for the first time in 1843, and the next year became a full member of the "Old Society" . In 1851 he showed at the Society of British Artists.
Bentley painted scenes all over Britain, in Jersey, the north of Ireland, and in Normandy, which he visited several times with Callow between 1836 and 1841. He also exhibited views of Venice, Holland and Düsseldorf, but it is not certain that he actually went to these places, as he is known to have painted works after sketches by other people, such as his paintings of Trebizond and Abydos, shown in 1841 and 1849, based on drawings by Coke Smyth. He also worked up the illustrations for 12 Views in the Interior of Guiana, published by Rudolf Ackermann in 1841, from studies done on an expedition to South America by John Morison.
Bentley was not financially successful: Samuel Redgrave described him as "uncertain in his transactions, and always poor". He died of cholera on 4 September 1854, leaving a widow, and was buried in the western side of Highgate Cemetery. The grave (no.6056) no longer has a headstone or marker.
== References ==
== External links ==
Radford, Ernest (1885). "Bentley, Charles" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Works by Bentley (Government Art Collection)
Charles Bentley on Artnet
Scarborough Castle from the South Bay Archived 16 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine (Watercolour - Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery)
Painting of Venice. Santa Salute., engraved by J. Thomas for The Literary Souvenir, 1835 with a poetical illustration on Venice by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
Painting of Site of the Castle of Ulysses. engraved by Robert Sands for The Literary Souvenir, 1837 with a poetical illustration Song of the Sirens by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.
Paintings for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Books with poetical illustrations by Letitia Elizabeth Landon:
1837, Town and Harbour of Ithaca. engraved by J Tingle.
1837, Gibraltar. Scene During the Plague. engraved by Joseph Clayton Bentley.
1838, The Village of Kursalee. engraved by J Appleton.
1838, Tunis, from the Saneeah Eftoor. engraved by James Sands.
1838, Gibraltar—from the Sea. engraved by James Charles Armytage.
1838, Death of the Lion among the Ruins of Sbeitlah. engraved by Samuel Lacey.
1838, Gibraltar, from the Signal Tower at the foot of the Queen of Spain's Chair. engraved by Edward Francis Finden.
1838, Corfu and Manduchio form Mount Olivet.. engraved by James Sands. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron | Emmanuel Macron | Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He served as Minister of Economics and Finance under President François Hollande from 2014 to 2016. He has been a member of Renaissance since founding the party in 2016.
Born in Amiens, Macron studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University. He completed a master's degree in public affairs at Sciences Po and graduated from the École nationale d'administration in 2004. He worked as a senior civil servant at the General Inspectorate of Finance and as an investment banker at Rothschild & Co. Macron was a senior adviser to President Hollande, being appointed as Élysée deputy secretary-general by Hollande after the 2012 presidential election. He was later appointed as Economics Minister in 2014 in the second Valls government, and led several business-friendly reforms. He resigned in 2016 to launch his 2017 presidential campaign. A member of the Socialist Party between 2006 and 2009, he ran in the election under the banner of En Marche !, a centrist and pro-European political movement which he founded in 2016.
Partly due to the Fillon affair, Macron was elected President in May 2017 with 66% of the vote in the second round, defeating Marine Le Pen of the National Front. Aged 39, he became the youngest president in French history. In the 2017 legislative election, his party, renamed La République En Marche! (LREM), secured a majority in the National Assembly. During his presidency, Macron has overseen reforms to labour laws, taxation, and pensions; and pursued a renewable energy transition. Dubbed "president of the rich" by opponents, increasing protests against his reforms culminated in 2018–2020 with the yellow vests protests and the pension reform strike. From 2020, he led France's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession, including by overseeing the country's vaccination rollout. In foreign policy, Macron called for reforms to the European Union (EU) and signed treaties with Germany and Italy. He conducted €40 billion in trade and business agreements with China during the China–United States trade war and oversaw a dispute with Australia and the U.S. over the AUKUS security pact. Macron has also continued Opération Chammal in the war against the Islamic State and joined in the international condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Macron was elected to a second term in the 2022 presidential election, again defeating Le Pen and becoming the first French presidential candidate to win reelection since Jacques Chirac in 2002. In the 2022 legislative election, Macron's centrist coalition lost its majority, resulting in a hung parliament and formation of France's first minority government since 1993. In 2023, the government of his prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, passed legislation raising the retirement age from 62 to 64; this led to public sector strikes and violent protests. In 2024, Macron appointed Gabriel Attal as Prime Minister after a government crisis. He then dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap legislative election following overwhelming defeat at the 2024 European Parliament elections, which resulted in another hung parliament and an electoral defeat for his coalition. Afterwards, Macron appointed Michel Barnier, a conservative and former chief Brexit negotiator, as Prime Minister. Three months in, Barnier was toppled by a historic vote of no confidence, prompting Macron to replace him with centrist veteran François Bayrou. After Bayrou was himself brought down by a confidence vote in September 2025, Macron appointed Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces, as Prime Minister. Lecornu resigned less than a month later following political backlash over the composition of his government, but was reappointed by Macron shortly afterwards. The formations of these short-lived governments have marked a political crisis.
== Early life ==
Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron was born on 21 December 1977 in Amiens. He is the son of Françoise Macron (née Noguès), a physician, and Jean-Michel Macron, professor of neurology at the University of Picardy. The couple divorced in 2010. He has two siblings, Laurent, born in 1979, and Estelle, born in 1982. Françoise and Jean-Michel's first child was stillborn.
The Macron family legacy is traced back to the village of Authie, Picardy. One of his paternal great-grandfathers, George William Robertson, was English, and was born in Bristol, United Kingdom. His maternal grandparents, Jean and Germaine Noguès (née Arribet), are from the Pyrenean town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Gascony. He commonly visited Bagnères-de-Bigorre to visit his grandmother Germaine, whom he called "Manette". Macron associates his enjoyment of reading and his leftward political leanings to Germaine, who, after coming from a modest upbringing of a stationmaster father and a housekeeping mother, became a teacher and then a principal.
Although raised in a non-religious family, Macron was baptized a Catholic at his own request at age 12; he is agnostic today. His parents chose his name in reference to the biblical prophecy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel.
Macron was educated mainly at the Jesuit institute Lycée la Providence in Amiens before his parents sent him to finish his last year of school at the elite Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, where he completed the high school curriculum and the undergraduate program with a "Bac S, Mention Très bien". At the same time, he was nominated for the "Concours général" (most selective national level high school competition) in French literature and received his diploma for his piano studies at Amiens Conservatory. His parents sent him to Paris due to their alarm at the bond he had formed with Brigitte Auzière, a married teacher with three children at Jésuites de la Providence, who later became his wife.
In Paris, Macron twice failed to gain entry to the École normale supérieure. He instead studied philosophy at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, obtaining a DEA degree (a master level degree), with a thesis on Machiavelli and Hegel. Around 1999 Macron worked as an editorial assistant to Paul Ricoeur, the French Protestant philosopher who was then writing his last major work, La Mémoire, l'Histoire, l'Oubli. Macron worked mainly on the notes and bibliography. Macron became a member of the editorial board of the literary magazine Esprit.
Macron did not perform national service because he was pursuing his graduate studies. Born in December 1977, he belonged to the last cohort for whom military service was mandatory.
Macron obtained a master's degree in public affairs at Sciences Po, majoring in "Public Guidance and Economy" before training for a senior civil service career at the selective École nationale d'administration (ENA), training at the French Embassy in Nigeria and at the prefecture of Oise before graduating in 2004.
== Professional career ==
=== Inspector of Finances ===
After graduating from ENA in 2004, Macron became an Inspector in the Inspection générale des finances (IGF), a branch of the Finance Ministry. Macron was mentored by Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the then-head of the IGF. During his time as an Inspector of Finances, Macron gave lectures during the summer at the "prep'ENA" (a special cram school for the ENA entrance examination) at IPESUP, an elite private school specializing in preparation for the entrance examinations of the Grandes écoles, such as HEC or Sciences Po.
In 2006, Laurence Parisot offered him the job of managing director for Mouvement des Entreprises de France, the largest employer federation in France, but he declined.
In August 2007, Macron was appointed deputy rapporteur for Jacques Attali's "Commission to Unleash French Growth". In 2008, Macron paid €50,000 to buy himself out of his government contract. He then became an investment banker in a highly-paid position at Rothschild & Cie Banque. In March 2010, he was appointed to the Attali Commission as a member.
=== Investment banker ===
In September 2008, Macron left his job as an Inspector of Finances and took a position at Rothschild & Cie Banque. Macron left the government when Nicolas Sarkozy became president. He was originally offered the job by François Henrot. His first responsibility at the bank was assisting with the acquisition of Cofidis by Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe.
Macron formed a relationship with Alain Minc, a businessman on the supervisory board of Le Monde. In 2010, Macron was promoted to partner with the bank after working on the recapitalization of Le Monde and the acquisition by Atos of Siemens IT Solutions and Services. In the same year, Macron was put in charge of Nestlé's acquisition of Pfizer's infant nutrition division for €9 billion, which made him a millionaire.
In February 2012, Macron advised businessman Philippe Tillous-Borde, the CEO of the Avril Group.
Macron reported that he had earned €2 million between December 2010 and May 2012. Official documents show that between 2009 and 2013, Macron had earned almost €3 million. He left Rothschild & Cie in 2012.
== Early political career ==
In his youth beginning in 1998, Macron worked for the Citizens' Movement for two years, but he never applied to be a member. Macron was an assistant for Mayor Georges Sarre of the 11th arrondissement of Paris during his time at Sciences Po. Macron joined the Socialist Party at the age of 24, but last renewed his membership for the period 2006–2009.
Macron met François Hollande through Jean-Pierre Jouyet in 2006 and joined his staff in 2010. In 2007, Macron attempted to run for a seat in the National Assembly in Picardy under the Socialist Party label in the 2007 legislative elections; however, his application was declined. Macron was offered the chance to be the deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister François Fillon in 2010, though he declined.
=== Deputy Secretary-General of the Élysée (2012–2014) ===
On 15 May 2012, Macron became the deputy secretary-general of the Élysée, a senior role in President François Hollande's staff. Macron served with Nicolas Revel. He served under the secretary-general, Pierre-René Lemas.
During the summer of 2012, Macron put forward a proposal that would increase the 35-hour work week to 37 hours until 2014. He also tried to hold back the large tax increases on the highest earners that were planned by the government. Hollande refused Macron's proposals. In 2013, his was one of the deciding votes against regulating the salaries of CEOs. Nicolas Revel, the other deputy secretary-general of the Élysée opposed Macron on a proposed budget responsibility pact favoured by the Medef.
On 10 June 2014, it was announced that Macron had resigned from his role and was replaced by Laurence Boone. Reasons given for his departure included his disappointment at not being included in the first Government of Manuel Valls and his frustration with his lack of influence on the reforms proposed by the government. This was following the appointment of Jean-Pierre Jouyet as chief of staff.
Jouyet said that Macron left to "continue personal aspirations" and create his own financial consultancy firm. It was later reported that he was planning to create an investment firm that would attempt to fund educational projects. Shortly afterwards he was hired as a research fellow at the University of Berlin with the help of businessman Alain Minc. He had also sought a position at Harvard University.
Offered a chance to be a candidate in the municipal elections in 2014 in his hometown of Amiens, Macron declined, leading François Hollande to reject Manuel Valls's idea of appointing him Budget Minister, as he had never been elected to public office.
=== Minister of Economics and Finance (2014-2017) ===
He was appointed as the Minister of Economics and Finance in the Second Valls government on 26 August 2014, replacing Arnaud Montebourg. He was the youngest Minister of Economics since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1962. Macron was branded by the media as the "Anti-Montebourg" due to being pro-EU and much more liberal, while Montebourg was eurosceptic and left-wing. As Minister of Economics, Macron was at the forefront of pushing through business-friendly reforms. On 17 February 2015, prime minister Manuel Valls pushed Macron's signature law package through a reluctant parliament using the special 49.3 procedure.
Macron increased the French share in the company Renault from 15% to 20% and then enforced the Florange law which grants double voting rights on shares registered for more than two years unless two-thirds of shareholders vote to overturn it. This gave the French state a minority share in the company though Macron later stated that the government would limit its powers within Renault.
Macron was widely criticized for being unable to prevent the closing down of an Ecopla factory in Isère.
In August 2015, Macron said that he was no longer a member of the Socialist Party and was an independent.
==== Macron Law ====
A law which had originally been sponsored by Arnaud Montebourg before he left the government, and which had focused on "purchasing power", grew into the Macron law, a grab bag of measures liberalizing laws prohibiting work on Sunday and at night; restrictions on coaches for public transportation; regulations for debt collectors, barristers and auctioneers; and rules governing the rental of equipment by the military from private companies. The law also sought to simplify many government procedures, such as that for obtaining a driving licence. Manuel Valls, fearing that it would not pass in the National Assembly, decided to push the law through with the 49.3 procedure and so it was adopted on 10 April 2015.
Estimates of the increase in GDP the law might generate ranged from 0.3% to 0.5%.
=== 2017 presidential campaign ===
==== Formation of En Marche and resignation from government ====
Macron first became known to the French public after his appearance on the French TV programme Des Paroles Et Des Actes in March 2015. Before forming his political party En Marche!, he gave a number of speeches, his first one in March 2015 in Val-de-Marne. He threatened to leave Manuel Valls' second government over the proposed removal of dual-nationality from terrorists. He also took various foreign trips, including one to Israel where he spoke on the advancement of digital technology.
Tensions around the question of Macron's loyalty to the Valls government and Hollande increased when they turned down a bill he put forward dubbed "Macron 2", which had a larger scope than his original law. Macron was given the chance to help draft into the El Khomri law and put specific parts of "Macron 2" into the law though El Khomri was able to overturn these with the help of other ministers.
Amid tensions and deterioration of relations with the current government, Macron founded an independent political party, En Marche, in Amiens on 6 April 2016. A social-liberal, progressive political movement that gathered huge media coverage when it was first established, the party and Macron were both reprimanded by President Hollande and the question of Macron's loyalty to the government was raised. Several MEPs spoke out in support for the movement though the majority of the Socialist Party spoke against En Marche including Manuel Valls, Michel Sapin, Axelle Lemaire and Christian Eckert.
In June 2016, support for Macron and his movement, En Marche, began to grow in the media with Libération reporting that L'Express, Les Échos, Le 1, and L'Opinion had begun to support him. Following several controversies surrounding trade unionists and their protests, Acrimed reported that major newspapers began to run front-page stories about Macron and En Marche. Criticized by both the far-left and the far-right, these pro-Macron influencers in the press were dubbed "Macronites".
In May 2016, Orleans mayor Olivier Carré invited Macron to the festival commemorating the 587th anniversary of Joan of Arc's efforts during the Siege of Orléans. LCI reported that Macron was trying to take back the symbol of Joan of Arc from the far-right. Macron later went to Puy du Fou and declared he was "not a socialist" in a speech amid rumours he was going to leave the current government.
On 30 August 2016, Macron resigned from the government ahead of the 2017 presidential election, to devote himself to his En Marche movement. There had been rising tensions and several reports that he had wanted to leave the Valls government since early 2015. He initially planned to leave after the cancellation of his "Macron 2" law but decided to stay on temporarily after a meeting with President François Hollande. Michel Sapin was announced as Macron's replacement, while Hollande said he felt Macron had "methodically betrayed" him. An IFOP poll showed that 84% of those surveyed agreed with his decision to resign.
==== First round of the presidential election ====
Macron first showed his intention to run by forming En Marche, but following his resignation from the government, he was able to dedicate more time to his movement. He first announced that he was considering running for president in April 2016, and after his resignation from the position of economy minister, media sources began to identify patterns in his fundraising indicating he would run. In October 2016, Macron criticized Hollande's goal of being a "normal" president, saying that France needed a more "Jupiterian presidency".
On 16 November 2016, Macron formally declared his candidacy for the French presidency after months of speculation. In his announcement speech, he called for a "democratic revolution" and promised to "unblock France". He had expressed hope that Hollande would run several months earlier, saying that—as the sitting president—he was the legitimate Socialist party candidate. Macron's book Révolution was published on 24 November 2016 and reached fifth position on the French best-seller list in December 2016.
Shortly after announcing his run, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and Manuel Valls both asked Macron to run in the Socialist Party presidential primary, which he ultimately refused to do. Jean-Christophe Cambadélis began to threaten to exclude members who associated or supported Macron following Lyon mayor Gérard Collomb throwing his support behind him.
Macron's campaign, headed by French economist Sophie Ferracci, announced in December 2016 that it had raised 3.7 million euros in donations, three times the budget of then-front runner Alain Juppé. Macron came under criticism from several individuals, including Benoît Hamon−who requested he reveal a list of his donors and accused him of conflicts of interest due to the time he spent at Rothschilds, which Macron dismissed as "demagogy". Journalists Marion L'Hour and Frédéric Says later reported that he had spent €120,000 on setting up dinners and meetings with various personalities within the media and in French popular culture while at Bercy. Christian Jacob and Philippe Vigier accused him of using this money to campaign without campaigning. His successor, Michel Sapin, saw nothing illegal about his actions, saying that he had the right to spend the funds. Macron called the allegations "defamatory" and said that none of the ministerial budget had been spent on his party.
Macron's campaign enjoyed considerable coverage from the media. Mediapart reported that over fifty magazine covers were dedicated purely to him. Friends with the owners of Le Monde and Claude Perdiel, the former owner of Nouvel Observateur, he was labelled the "media candidate" by the far-left and far-right and was viewed as such in opinion polls. Many observers compared his campaign to a product being sold due to Maurice Lévy, a former Publicis CEO, using marketing tactics to try to advance his presidential ambitions. The magazine Marianne reported that BFM TV, owned by Patrick Drahi, broadcast more coverage of Macron than of all the other main candidates combined. Marianne speculated that this might be due to the campaigns links with Drahi through Bernard Mourad.
François Bayrou, with whom Macron had been compared, announced he was not going to stand in the presidential election and instead formed an electoral alliance with Macron, whose poll ratings began to rise. After several legal issues surrounding François Fillon were publicized, Macron overtook him in the polls to become the front-runner.
Macron attracted criticism for the time taken to spell out a formal program during his campaign; despite declaring in November that he had still not released a complete set of proposals by February, attracting both attacks from critics and concern among allies and supporters. He eventually laid out his 150-page formal program on 2 March, publishing it online and discussing it at a marathon press conference that day.
Macron accumulated a wide array of supporters, securing endorsements from François Bayrou of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the ecologist candidate François de Rugy of the primary of the left, and Socialist MP Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of En Marche, as well as numerous others – many of them from the Socialist Party, but also a significant number of centrist and centre-right politicians. The Grand Mosque of Paris urged French Muslims to vote en masse for Macron.
On 23 April 2017, Macron received the most votes in the first round of the presidential election, with more than 8 million votes (24%) and faced Marine Le Pen in the second round, with the support of former candidates François Fillon and Benoît Hamon and the sitting president François Hollande.
==== Second round of the presidential election ====
Many foreign politicians supported Macron in his bid against right-wing populist candidate Marine Le Pen, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former US President Barack Obama.
A debate was arranged between Macron and Le Pen on 3 May 2017. The debate lasted for two hours and opinion polls showed that he was perceived to have won.
In March 2017, Macron's digital campaign manager, Mounir Mahjoubi, told Britain's Sky News that Russia is behind "high level attacks" on Macron, and said that its state media are "the first source of false information". He said: "We are accusing RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Sputnik News (of being) the first source of false information shared about our candidate ...".
Two days before the French presidential election on 7 May, it was reported that nine gigabytes of Macron's campaign emails had been anonymously posted to Pastebin, a document-sharing site. These documents were then spread onto the imageboard 4chan, which led to the hashtag "#macronleaks" trending on Twitter. In a statement the same evening, Macron's political movement, En Marche, said: "The En Marche movement has been the victim of a massive and coordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information". Macron's campaign had previously been presented a report in March 2017 by the Japanese cyber security firm Trend Micro detailing how En Marche had been the target of phishing attacks. Trend Micro said that the group conducting these attacks was the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear, also accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee on 22 July 2016. 21,075 verified emails and another 50,773 emails it could not verify were released in July 2017 by WikiLeaks. This followed Le Pen accusing Macron of tax avoidance.
On 7 May 2017, Macron was elected President of France with 66.1% of the vote to Marine Le Pen's 33.9%. The election had record abstention at 25.4%, and 8% of ballots were blank or spoiled. Macron resigned from his role as president of En Marche and Catherine Barbaroux became interim leader.
== Presidency (2017–present) ==
=== First term (2017–2022) ===
Macron formally became president on 14 May. At 39, he became the youngest president in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. He is also the first president of France born after the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
He appointed Patrick Strzoda as his chief of staff and Ismaël Emelien as his special advisor for strategy, communication and speeches. On 15 May, he appointed Édouard Philippe of the Republicans as Prime Minister. On the same day, he made his first official foreign visit, meeting in Berlin with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. The two leaders emphasised the importance of France–Germany relations to the European Union. They agreed to draw up a "common road map" for Europe, insisting that neither was against changes to the Treaties of the European Union.
In the 2017 legislative election, Macron's party La République En Marche and its Democratic Movement allies secured a comfortable majority, winning 350 seats out of 577. After the Republicans emerged as the winners of the Senate elections, government spokesman Christophe Castaner stated the elections were a "failure" for his party.
On 3 July 2020, Macron appointed the centre-right Jean Castex as the Prime Minister of France. Castex, described as a social conservative, was a member of the Republicans. The appointment was described as "doubling down on a course that is widely seen as centre-right in economic terms".
==== Domestic policy ====
In his first few months as president, Macron pressed for the enactment of a package of reforms on public ethics, labour laws, taxes, and law enforcement agency powers.
==== Anti-corruption ====
In response to Penelopegate, the National Assembly passed a part of Macron's proposed law to stop mass corruption in French politics by July 2017, banning elected representatives from hiring family members. Meanwhile, the second part of the law scrapping a constituency fund was scheduled for voting after Senate objections.
Macron's plan to give his wife an official role within government came under fire with criticisms ranging from its being undemocratic to what critics perceive as a contradiction to his fight against nepotism. Following an online petition of nearly 290,000 signatures on change.org Macron abandoned the plan. On 9 August, the National Assembly adopted the bill on public ethics, a key theme of Macron's campaign, after debates on the scrapping the constituency funds.
==== Labour policy and unions ====
Macron aims to shift union-management relations away from the adversarial lines of the current French system and toward a more flexible, consensus-driven system modelled after Germany and Scandinavia. He has also pledged to act against companies employing cheaper labour from eastern Europe and in return affecting jobs of French workers, what he has termed as "social dumping". Under the Posted Workers Directive 1996, eastern European workers can be employed for a limited time at the salary level in eastern European countries, which has led to dispute between the EU states.
The French government announced the proposed changes to France's labour rules ("Code du Travail"), being among the first steps taken by Macron and his government to galvanize the French economy. Macron's reform efforts have encountered resistance from some French trade unions. The largest trade union, the CFDT, has taken a conciliatory approach to Macron's push and has engaged in negotiations with the president, while the more militant CGT is more hostile to reforms. Macron's labour minister, Muriel Pénicaud, is overseeing the effort.
The National Assembly, including the Senate approved the proposal, allowing the government to loosen the labour laws after negotiations with unions and employers' groups. The reforms, which were discussed with unions, limit payouts for dismissals deemed unfair and give companies greater freedom to hire and fire employees as well as to define acceptable working conditions. The president signed five decrees reforming the labour rules on 22 September. Government figures released in October 2017 revealed that during the legislative push to reform the labour code, the unemployment rate had dropped 1.8%, the biggest since 2001.
===== Migrant crisis =====
Speaking on refugees and, specifically, the Calais Jungle, Macron said on 16 January 2018 that he would not allow another refugee camp to form in Paris before outlining the government policy towards immigration and asylum. He has also announced plans to speed up asylum applications and deportations but give refugees better housing.
On 23 June 2018, President Macron said: "The reality is that Europe is not experiencing a migration crisis of the same magnitude as the one it experienced in 2015", "a country like Italy has not at all the same migratory pressure as last year. The crisis we are experiencing today in Europe is a political crisis". In November 2019, Macron introduced new immigration rules to restrict the number of refugees reaching France, while stating to "take back control" of the immigration policy.
In 2022, the total number of new foreigners coming to France rose above 320,000 for the first time, with nearly a majority coming from Africa.
===== Economic policy =====
Pierre de Villiers, then-Chief of the General Staff of the Armies, stepped down on 19 July 2017 following a confrontation with Macron. De Villiers cited the military budget cut of €850 million as the main reason he was stepping down. Le Monde later reported that De Villiers told a parliamentary group, "I will not let myself be fucked like this." Macron named François Lecointre as De Villiers' replacement.
Macron's government presented its first budget on 27 September, the terms of which reduced taxes as well as spending to bring the public deficit in line with the EU's fiscal rules. The budget replaced the wealth tax with one targeting real estate, fulfilling Macron's campaign pledge to scrap the wealth tax. Before it was replaced, the tax collected up to 1.5% of the wealth of French residents whose global worth exceeded €1.3m.
In February 2018, Macron announced a plan to offer voluntary redundancy in an attempt to further cut jobs from the French civil service.
In December 2019, Macron announced that he would scrap the 20th-century pension system and introduce a single national pension system managed by the state. In January 2020, after weeks of public transport shutdown and vandalism across Paris against the new pension plan, Macron compromised on the plan by revising the retirement age. In February, the pension overhaul was adopted by decree using Article 49 of the French constitution. However, on 16 March 2020, Macron announced that the draft legislation would be pulled as France went into lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19.
===== Terrorism =====
In July 2017, the Senate approved its first reading of a controversial bill with stricter anti-terror laws, a campaign pledge of Macron. The National Assembly voted on 3 October to pass bill 415–127, with 19 abstentions. Interior Minister Gérard Collomb described France as being "still in a state of war" ahead of the vote, with the 1 October Marseille stabbing having taken place two days prior. The Senate then passed the bill on its second reading by a 244–22 margin on 18 October. Later that day Macron stated that 13 terror plots had been foiled since early 2017. The law replaced the state of emergency in France and made some of its provisions permanent.
The bill was criticized by human rights advocates. A public poll by Le Figaro showed 57% of the respondents approved of it even though 62% thought it would encroach on personal freedoms.
The law gives authorities expanded power to search homes, restrict movement, close places of worship, and search areas around train stations and international ports and airports. It was passed after modifications to address concerns about civil liberties. The most punitive measures will be reviewed annually and were scheduled to lapse by the end of 2020. The bill was signed into law by Macron on 30 October 2017. He announced that starting 1 November, it would bring an end to the state of emergency.
===== Civil rights =====
Visiting Corsica in February 2018, Macron sparked controversy when he rejected Corsican nationalist wishes for Corsican as an official language but offered to recognize Corsica in the French constitution.
Macron also proposed a plan to "reorganise" the Islamic religion in France saying: "We are working on the structuring of Islam in France and also on how to explain it, which is extremely important – my goal is to rediscover what lies at the heart of laïcité, the possibility of being able to believe as not to believe, in order to preserve national cohesion and the possibility of having freedom of conscience." He declined to reveal further information about the plan.
===== Foreign policy and national defence =====
Macron attended the 2017 Brussels summit on 25 May 2017, his first NATO summit as president of France. At the summit, he met US President Donald Trump for the first time. The meeting was widely publicized due to a handshake between the two of them, characterized as a "power-struggle".
On 29 May 2017, Macron met with Vladimir Putin at the Palace of Versailles. The meeting sparked controversy when Macron denounced Russia Today and Sputnik, accusing the news agencies of being "organs of influence and propaganda, of lying propaganda". Macron also urged cooperation in the conflict against ISIS and warned that France would respond with force in Syria if chemical weapons were used. In response to the chemical attack in Douma, Syria in 2018, Macron directed French participation in airstrikes against Syrian government sites, coordinated with the United States and the United Kingdom.
In his first major foreign policy speech on 29 August, President Macron stated that fighting Islamist terrorism at home and abroad was France's top priority. Macron urged a tough international stance to pressure North Korea into negotiations, on the same day it fired a missile over Japan. He also affirmed his support for the Iranian nuclear deal and criticized Venezuela's government as a "dictatorship". He added that he would announce his new initiatives on the future of the European Union after the German elections in September. At the 56th Munich Security Conference in February, Macron presented his 10-year vision policy to strengthen the European Union. Macron remarked that larger budget, integrated capital markets, effective defence policy and quick decision-making held the key for Europe. He added that reliance on NATO and especially the US and the UK was not good for Europe, and a dialogue must be established with Russia.
Prior to the 45th G7 summit in Biarritz, France, Macron hosted Vladimir Putin at the Fort de Brégançon, stating that "Russia fully belongs within a Europe of values." At the summit itself, Macron was invited to attend on the margins by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Macron, who "attempted a high-risk diplomatic gambit", thought that the Foreign Minister of Iran might be able to defuse the tense situation over the Iranian nuclear programme in spite of the recent uptick in tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States and Britain.
In March 2019, at a time when China–U.S. economic relations were troubled with a trade war underway, Macron and Chinese leader Xi Jinping signed a series of 15 large-scale trade and business agreements totaling 40 billion euros (US$45 billion) which covered many sectors over a period of years. This included a €30 billion purchase of airplanes from Airbus. Going beyond aviation, the new trade agreement covered French exports of chicken, a French-built offshore wind farm in China, a Franco-Chinese cooperation fund, as well as billions of Euros of co-financing between BNP Paribas and the Bank of China. Other plans included billions of euros to be spent on modernizing Chinese factories, as well as new ship building.
In July 2020, Macron called for sanctions against Turkey for violating Greece's and Cyprus' sovereignty, saying it is "unacceptable that the maritime space of (EU) member states be violated and threatened". He also criticized Turkish military intervention in Libya. Macron said that "We have the right to expect more from Turkey than from Russia, given that it is a member of NATO."
In 2021, Macron was reported as saying Northern Ireland was not truly part of the United Kingdom following disputes with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson over implementations of the Northern Ireland protocol. He later denied this, saying he was referring to the fact that Great Britain is separated from Northern Ireland by sea in reference to the Irish Sea border.
French-U.S. relations became tense in September 2021 due to fallout from the AUKUS security pact between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The security pact is directed at countering Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific region. As part of the agreement, the U.S. agreed to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. After entering into AUKUS, the Australian government canceled an agreement that it had made with France for the provision of French conventionally powered submarines, angering the French government. On 17 September, France recalled its ambassadors from Australia and the US for consultations. Despite tension in the past, France had never before withdrawn its ambassador to the United States. After a call between Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden on request from the latter, the two leaders agreed to reduce bilateral tensions, and the White House acknowledged the crisis could have been averted if there had been open consultations between allies.
On 26 November 2021, Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi signed the Quirinal Treaty at the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The treaty aimed to promote the convergence and coordination of French and Italian positions in matters of European and foreign policies, security and defence, migration policy, economy, education, research, culture and cross-border cooperation.
During the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron spoke face-to-face and on the phone to Russian President Vladimir Putin. During Macron's campaign for the re-election, nearly two months after the Russian invasion began, Macron called on European leaders to maintain dialogue with Putin.
===== Approval ratings =====
According to an IFOP poll for Le Journal du Dimanche, Macron started his five-year term with a 62% approval rating, which rose to 64% by 24 June. One month later, Macron suffered a 10% point drop in popularity, the largest at the beginning of a term for any president since Jacques Chirac in 1995, and by August, his popularity had fallen off 24 percentage points since June. This was attributed to his recent confrontations with former Chief of Defence Staff Pierre de Villiers, the nationalization of the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard owned by the bankrupt STX Offshore & Shipbuilding, and a reduction in housing benefits.
By the end of September 2017, seven out of ten respondents said that they believed Emmanuel Macron was respecting his campaign promises, though a majority felt that the policies the government was putting forward were "unfair". Macron's popularity fell sharply again in 2018, reaching about 25% by the end of November during the yellow vests movement. During the COVID-19 pandemic in France, his popularity increased, reaching 50% at its highest in July 2020.
===== Benalla affair =====
On 18 July 2018, Le Monde revealed in an article that a member of Macron's staff Alexandre Benalla posed as a police officer and beat a protester during May Day demonstrations in Paris earlier in the year and was suspended for a period of 15 days before only being internally demoted. The Élysée failed to refer the case to the public prosecutor and a preliminary investigation into the case was not opened until the day after the publication of the article, and the lenient penalty served by Benalla raised questions within the opposition about whether the executive deliberately chose not to inform the public prosecutor as required under the code of criminal procedure.
==== 2022 presidential campaign ====
In the 2022 election, Macron was the first incumbent to be re-elected since Jacques Chirac defeated Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 election. Macron again defeated Marine Le Pen in the runoff, this time by a closer margin, with 58.55% of the votes to Le Pen's 41.45%. Due to near-record abstentions, this represented 38.52% of registered voters, the lowest figure since Georges Pompidou's 37.5% in 1969. The French far-right received their highest vote total since the start of the French Republic, with nationalist candidates (Le Pen, Zemmour and Dupont-Aignan) winning 32.3% of the votes in the first round and Le Pen achieving a record 41.5% of the votes in the second round.
=== Second term (2022–present) ===
Though Macron's second inauguration took place on 7 May 2022, his second presidential term officially began on 14 May 2022.
==== Borne government ====
On 16 May 2022, Prime Minister Jean Castex resigned after 22 months as head of government. The same day, President Macron appointed Élisabeth Borne at the Hôtel Matignon, thus making her the second female PM in French history after Édith Cresson between 1991 and 1992. She then formed a new government on 20 May 2022.
==== 2022 legislative election ====
In June 2022, one month into his second term, less than two weeks before the end of the French presidency of the Council of the EU and days after he called for voters to hand him a "solid majority" in a controversial 'tarmac speech', Macron lost his parliamentary majority and was returned a hung parliament in the second round of the 2022 legislative election: Macron's presidential coalition, which enjoyed a 115-seat majority going into the election, failed to reach the threshold of 289 seats needed to command an overall majority in the National Assembly, retaining only 251 out of the 346 it had held in the previous Assembly, and falling 38 short of an absolute majority. Crucially, three close political allies to President Macron were defeated in the elections: incumbent President of the National Assembly Richard Ferrand, Macron's own LREM parliamentary party leader Christophe Castaner and MoDem parliamentary group leader Patrick Mignola, thus effectively "decapitating" Macron's parliamentary bloc leadership and further weakening the President's political position in hung parliament territory.
Three government ministers resigned after losing their seats: Justine Bénin (junior minister for the Sea), Brigitte Bourguignon (Minister for Health and Prevention) and Amélie de Montchalin (Minister for Ecological Transition).
Macron's government, still led by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, was reshuffled in early July 2022 and continued as a minority administration, after talks with opposition leaders to form a stable majority government failed.
==== Domestic affairs ====
Macron's second presidential term began with two significant political controversies. Hours after the new Borne cabinet was announced, rape accusations against newly appointed Minister for Solidarity Damien Abad were made public, and on 28 May, the handling of the 2022 UEFA Champions League final chaos at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis drew criticism at home and abroad.
Despite its minority status in the legislature after the 2022 legislative election, Macron's government passed bills to ease the cost-of-living crisis, to repeal the COVID-era "state of health emergency", and to revive the French nuclear energy sector. However, government proposals were defeated several times in the National Assembly and by the end of 2022, the Borne cabinet had had to use the provisions of Article 49.3 of the Constitution ten times in a row to pass the 2023 Government Budget and Social Security Budget.
In May 2024, protests and riots broke out in New Caledonia. On 22 May, Macron visited the island.
===== Pension reform =====
In March 2023, Macron's government passed a law raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, partly bypassing Parliament by again resorting to Article 49.3 to break the parliamentary deadlock.
Nationwide protests that had begun when the bill was introduced back in January increased in intensity after the reform was passed without a solemn vote.
===== Votes of no-confidence in the Borne government =====
On 20 March 2023, Macron's cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Borne, survived a cross-party motion of no-confidence by only nine votes, the slimmest margin for such a vote since 1992.
On 12 June 2023, his government survived its 17th no-confidence motion since the beginning of the 16th legislature; the motion, brought by the left-wing NUPES coalition, fell 50 votes short of the 289 votes needed.
===== Nahel Merzouk riots =====
In early summer 2023, French authorities faced riots following the killing of Nahel M., aged 17, by a police officer during a traffic stop. To calm widespread unrest, comparable in intensity to the 2005 French riots, Macron's administration ramped up government response, with a total of 45,000 police officers deployed on the ground and a ministerial order advising courts to apply harsher sentences and accelerated procedures: this crackdown resulted in over 1,300 arrests on the fourth night of unrest alone, bringing the total number of arrests since the riots' beginning to over 2,000 as of 1 July.
===== 2023 government reshuffle =====
On 20 July 2023, Macron carried out a government reshuffle at the end of the "hundred days of appeasement and action" he called for in April 2023 following the violent protests surrounding the passage of his pension system reform. Pap Ndiaye and Marlène Schiappa were sacked as part of the reshuffle.
===== Defence policy =====
On 1 August 2023, Macron signed into law a multi-year military planning bill, which set the stage for a 40%-increase in military spending to a total of €413 billion between 2024 and 2030, after it was passed by the French parliament on 13 July 2023.
===== Immigration policy =====
In February 2023, Macron's government introduced an immigration and asylum bill aimed at removing deportation safeguards, fast-tracking asylum application process and immigration litigation, while also facilitating legalization of undocumented workers. His government later pulled the draft legislation amid fears of defeat in Parliament, instead planning to hold talks with the centre-right LR party before reintroducing the bill in the autumn.
In August 2023, in a lengthy interview with weekly magazine Le Point, Macron said that France "must significantly reduce immigration, starting with illegal immigration" because the "current situation is not sustainable".
On 11 December 2023, the "flagship" immigration bill introduced by Macron's government was unexpectedly defeated after the narrow passage of a motion for preliminary dismissal in the National Assembly. Political commentators and news media described the vote as a "spectacular debacle", eventually sparking a major political crisis for Macron's minority administration.
In an effort to salvage the bill, Macron's government sent the draft legislation to a joint parliamentary committee: it resulted in a deal with the conservative-controlled Senate on a drastically hardened bill. On 19 December 2023, the French Parliament passed the piece of legislation thanks to support from the conservative LR and far-right RN parliamentary groups and in spite of a major rebellion from Macron's own coalition and ministers. Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau, whom Macron had appointed to the government only six months earlier, resigned shortly after the vote.
===== Constitutional reform =====
On the 65th anniversary of the French Constitution on 4 October 2023, Macron unveiled avenues for constitutional reform: broadening the scope and relaxing rules for referendums; enshrining the right to abortion and climate protection in the Constitution; stepping up the level of territorial devolution; giving some form of political autonomy to Corsica and New Caledonia.
On 4 March 2024, a joint session of the French Parliament passed a constitutional amendment supported by Macron to protect abortion as a 'guaranteed freedom' in the Constitution. It represented the first constitutional reform since 2008 and the first since Macron took office in 2017.
===== Attal government =====
In January 2024, in the wake of the government crisis produced by the passage of the 'controversial' immigration bill, Macron requested Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to resign and subsequently replaced her by Education minister Gabriel Attal, making him both the youngest head of government in French history and the first openly gay man ever to hold the job.
The new Attal cabinet was widely described as the most right-leaning government since the start of the Macron Presidency: out of the 14 Cabinet ministers appointed on 11 January 2024 by Macron and Attal, 57% are former members of the conservative UMP/LR party, while prominent left-leaning ministers of the outgoing Borne government were sacked, moves described as indicating a notable tilt to the right.
===== Economy =====
In February 2024, amid slowing economic growth and disappointing unemployment figures, Macron's government unveiled €10 billion in emergency spending cuts to hold to its 2024 deficit goal.
A month later, Macron convened a 'crisis meeting' to discuss the state of France's public finances amid reports showing that the government had heavily missed its 2023 fiscal targets, with a bigger-than-forecasted deficit, putting the country's credit rating at risk of downgrade.
==== 2024 snap legislative election ====
On 9 June 2024, following the results of the 2024 European Parliament elections in which his centrist grouping received only 14.6% of the votes, finishing nearly 17 points behind Le Pen's RN party, Macron unexpectedly dissolved the National Assembly and called for an early legislative election to be held on 30 June and 7 July 2024.
In the first round of the election, on 30 June, Macron's grouping received only 20.04% of the votes nationwide, placing third well behind the hard-right RN (33.15%) and the left-wing NFP alliance (27.99%), which constituted the worst electoral performance for a governing coalition in a general election since the start of the modern French Republic in 1870. Exit polls released shortly after 8pm on 30 June suggested the RN-led alliance was on course to win either a plurality of seats or an outright majority in the second round, while Macron's coalition was set to lose at least half of the seats it won in 2022.
In the second round, on 7 July, Macron was handed another hung parliament with the left-wing coalition unexpectedly winning a plurality of seats though 90 to 100 seats short of an overall majority, leaving the left theoretically unable to form a government on its own. Macron's grouping lost both 86 seats and its status as the largest parliamentary bloc while the RN-led alliance, though dramatically underperforming the polls, still managed to make significant gains, eventually becoming the largest single party in the new National Assembly. The results presented unprecedented potential for political crisis and parliamentary gridlock.
Shortly after exit polls were released on the night of 7 July, Macron's Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, announced he would tender his resignation to the President. The following day, Macron refused Attal's resignation, instead asking him to stay on until a new government could be formed.
On 27 August, Macron refused to appoint NFP-designate Lucie Castets as prime minister.
After holding talks with leaders from parties represented in Parliament in an effort to find a working majority, Macron appointed conservative figure Michel Barnier as Prime Minister on 5 September and invited him to form a "unity government". Barnier's appointment was seen as a growing sign of Le Pen's influence on French politics since she had previously blocked the appointment of Xavier Bertrand, another conservative figure seen as a serious contender for the premiership.
===== Vote of no-confidence in the Barnier government =====
In early December 2024, Prime Minister Michel Barnier resorted to Article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass the 2025 Social Security budget without parliamentary approval. In response to Barnier's move, the National Assembly approved a vote of no confidence on 4 December, effectively bringing down the government. Barnier resigned, but Macron vowed to stay in office until the end of his term. It was the first French cabinet to be toppled by Parliament since 1962. Macron addressed the country on 5 December. He accepted the resignation of Barnier but vowed to remain in office until the end of his term. He blamed an alliance of 'extreme left and extreme right' for the collapse of the French government.
==== Foreign affairs ====
On 16 June 2022, Macron visited Ukraine alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi. He met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and expressed "European Unity" for Ukraine. He said that the nations that remained neutral in the Russo-Ukrainian War made a historic mistake and were complicit in the new imperialism.
In September 2022, Macron criticized the United States, Norway and other "friendly" natural gas supplier states for the extremely high prices of their supplies, saying in October 2022 that Europeans are "paying four times as much as the price at which you sell to your industry. That is not exactly the meaning of friendship."
Macron and his wife attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, on 19 September 2022, and the coronation of King Charles III the following year.
On 23 October 2022, Macron became the first foreign leader to meet new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, just a day after she and her ministers were sworn into office.
During a summit to China with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which included a formal meeting with Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and President of China, Macron called for Europe to reduce its dependence on the United States in general and to stay neutral and avoid being drawn into any possible confrontation between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. Speaking after a three-day state visit to China, Macron emphasised his theory of strategic autonomy, suggesting that Europe could become a "third superpower". He argued that Europe should focus on boosting its own defence industries and additionally reduce its dependence on the United States dollar (USD). in a follow-up speech in The Hague to further outline his vision of strategic autonomy for Europe. On 7 June 2023, a report by the pan-European think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) found that most Europeans agree with Macron's views on China and the United States.
In February 2023, he welcomed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Paris to normalize relations between France and Ethiopia, strained by the Tigray War between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels.
On 31 May 2023 Macron visited the GLOBSEC forum in Bratislava, where he again delivered a speech on European sovereignty. During the question and answer session that followed the Bratislava speech, he said that negotiating with Putin may have to take priority over any war crimes tribunal which some others, including Zelensky, wish to see.
On 12 June 2023, Macron promised to deliver more ammunition, weapons and armed vehicles to help Ukrainian forces with the ongoing counter-offensive to liberate Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine. At the NATO Summit in Vilnius, he promised to supply Ukraine with Scalp long-range cruise missiles to hit Russian targets deep behind the front lines. On 10 November 2023, he said that what Russia is doing in Ukraine is "imperialism and colonialism" and it was the "duty" of France and other countries to help Ukraine defend itself, but added that maybe the time will come to hold fair peace negotiations and find a solution with Russia.
In June 2023 Macron hosted a global climate finance conference described by many as the new Bretton Woods Conference. The purpose is to adjust the global economy to the contemporary threats of climate change and hunger. One of the propositions is to offer low income countries aid instead of credit so they can use their resources for stopping climate change and poverty instead of debt payments. Macron supported the idea, but a climate activist from Uganda remarked that the promises were meaningless if at the same time Macron supported projects such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a major threat to the climate and to the drinking water of 40 million people. At the summit Macron proposed an international taxation system and debt restructuring but stressed it can have an effect only with international cooperation.
In July 2023, Macron postponed his planned state visit to Germany due to the ongoing Nahel M. riots.
In October 2023, Macron condemned Hamas's actions during the Gaza war and expressed his support to Israel and its right to self-defense. On 10 November 2023, he called for a ceasefire and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza and killing civilians. In July 2025, Macron announced that at the next meeting of the UN General Assembly, France would officially recognise a Palestinian state.
In February 2024, during a meeting with other European states, Macron generated controversy by suggesting sending ground troops to Ukraine. On 28 May 2024, Macron gave Ukraine permission to use SCALP EG missiles against targets on Russian soil. Such usage was instructed to be limited "to neutralize military sites from which missiles are being fired, military sites from which Ukraine is being attacked". On 24 February 2025, during a meeting with US President Donald Trump, Macron said that a truce between Ukraine and Russia could be agreed in the coming weeks.
In February 2025, Macron characterised Russia as an "existential threat" to Europe, convening a special meeting in Paris to coordinate European responses under the Weimar+ framework. In March 2025, German lawmakers approved an amendment to the Basic Law that would allow Friedrich Merz's government to implement the most massive rearmament of Germany since World War II. Germany's decision to massively increase defense spending was welcomed by Macron.
Following the Israeli strikes on Iran on 13 June 2025, Macron called for "maximum restraint" while reaffirming "Israel's right to defend itself and ensure its security." On 17 June 2025, he claimed that president Trump's haste departure from the G7 summit, was to reach a cease fire between Israel and Iran. To which Trump responded "Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!". On 23 June 2025, Macron called Trump's air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites "illegal" and counterproductive, and called for the resumption of diplomatic talks with Iran.
==== Controversies ====
===== Uber Files =====
On 10 July 2022, The Guardian revealed that Macron had assisted Uber in lobbying during his term as the Minister of Economics and Finance, leading to calls from opposition lawmakers for a parliamentary inquiry. In his own defence, Macron expressed that he "did his job" and that he would "do it again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow". He stated, "I'm proud of it".
=== Co-prince of Andorra ===
As president of France, Macron also serves ex officio as one of the two co-princes of Andorra. His chief of staff Patrick Strzoda serves as his representative in this capacity. Joan Enric Vives i Sicília, appointed as the Bishop of Urgell on 12 May 2003, served as Macron's co-prince until Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat succeeded him in 2025. Macron swore the Constitution of Andorra through Strzoda in an act that took place on 15 June 2017 in Casa de la Vall. Macron visited the country on a State visit on 12 September 2019. The following day he spoke at the historic building of the General Council of Andorra alongside Episcopal Co-Prince Joan Enric Vives, Prime Minister Xavier Espot and the General Syndic Roser Suñé Pascuet.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Andorran government asked France for economic aid, but Macron refused, arguing that the Bank of France could not offer loans to another country without the approval of the European Central Bank.
In January 2024, former New Caledonian high commissioner Patrice Faure was appointed chief of staff to Macron, and in November, his representative to Andorra.
== Political positions ==
Macron's political views have been described as moderate, centrist, and pragmatic.
== Personal life ==
Macron is married to Brigitte Trogneux. She is his former La Providence High School teacher and is close to 25 years his senior. They met during a theatre workshop that she was giving when she was a 39-year-old teacher and he was a 15-year-old student and classmate of her daughter. A romantic relationship started later, and his parents attempted to separate the couple by sending him away to Paris to finish the final year of his schooling, as they felt his youth made this relationship inappropriate. (The age of consent in France is 15.) The couple reunited after Macron graduated and were married in 2007. She has three children from a previous marriage; he has no children of his own. Her role in Macron's 2017 presidential campaign has been considered pivotal, with close Macron allies stating that Brigitte Macron helped him to develop skills such as public speaking.
His best man was Henry Hermand, a businessman who loaned €550,000 to Macron for the purchase of his first apartment in Paris when he was Inspector of Finances. Hermand also let Macron use some of his offices on the Avenue des Champs Élysées in Paris for his movement En Marche.
In the 2002 French presidential election, Macron voted for souverainist Jean-Pierre Chevènement. In 2007 Macron voted for Ségolène Royal in the second round of the presidential election. During the Socialist Party primary in 2011, Macron voiced his support for François Hollande.
Macron plays the piano, which he studied for ten years in his youth. He especially enjoys the work of Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt. Macron also skis, plays tennis, and enjoys boxing. In addition to his native French, Macron speaks fluent English.
In August 2017 a photojournalist was arrested and detained by the police for six hours after he entered the private residence where Macron was vacationing in Marseille. Macron subsequently filed a complaint for "harassment". In September 2017 he dropped the complaint "as a gesture of appeasement".
On 27 August 2017, Macron and his wife Brigitte adopted Nemo, a black Labrador Retriever-Griffon dog who lives with them in the Élysée Palace. When he was a schoolboy, Macron decided to be baptised as a Catholic. In June 2018, prior to meeting Pope Francis, he identified himself as an agnostic Catholic. In the same year he agreed to become an honorary canon of St John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.
A fan of football, Macron is a supporter of French club Olympique de Marseille. During the 2018 World Cup, he attended the semi-final between France and Belgium with the Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde; and at the World Cup final against Croatia, he sat and celebrated alongside Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. Macron received widespread media attention for his celebrations and his interactions with the Croatian president.
== Honours and decorations ==
=== National honours ===
=== Foreign honours ===
== Prizes ==
Le Trombinoscope (2014, 2016)
Charlemagne Prize (2018)
Champion of the Earth (2018)
Westfälischer Friedenspreis (2024)
== Publications ==
Macron, Emmanuel; Goldberg, Jonathan; Scott, Juliette (2017). Revolution. Brunswick, Victoria, Australia: Scribe Publications. ISBN 978-1-925322-71-2. OCLC 992124322.
——; Fottorino, Éric (2017). Macron par Macron (in French). La Tour d'Aigues, France: Editions de l'Aube. ISBN 978-2-8159-2484-9. OCLC 1003593124.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Chamorel, Patrick. "Macron versus the yellow vests". Journal of Democracy 30.4 (2019): 48–62. doi:10.1353/jod.2019.0068.
Chopin, Thierry. "Emmanuel Macron, France and Europe 'France is back in Europe': on which terms". (Fondation Robert Schuman, 2018).
Chopin, Thierry, and Samuel BH Faure. "Presidential Election 2022: A Euroclash Between a "Liberal" and a "Neo-Nationalist" France Is Coming". Intereconomics 2021.2 (2021): 75–81.
Cole, Alistair. Emmanuel Macron and the two years that changed France. (Manchester University Press, 2020).
Elgie, Robert. "The election of Emmanuel Macron and the new French party system: a return to the éternel marais?". Modern & Contemporary France 26.1 (2018): 15–29.
Hewlett, Nick. "The phantom revolution. The presidential and parliamentary elections of 2017". Modern & Contemporary France 25.4 (2017): 377–390.
Kutsenko, Andrii. "Emmanuel Macron and Franco-Russian relations at the present stage". Political Science and Security Studies Journal 1.1 (2020): 94–100. doi:10.5281/zenodo.4553586.
Mayaffre, Damon (2021). Macron ou le mystère du verbe: Ses discours décryptés par la machine (in French). La tour d'Aigues: Les éditions de l'Aube. ISBN 978-2-8159-3746-7.
Nougayrède, Natalie. "France's Gamble: As America Retreats, Macron Steps up". Foreign Affairs 96 (2017): 2+
Pedder, Sophie. Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the quest to reinvent a nation (Bloomsbury, 2018).
Perottino, Michel, and Guasti, Petra. "Technocratic populism à la française? The roots and mechanisms of Emmanuel Macron's success". Politics and Governance 8.4 (2020): 545–555. doi:10.17645/pag.v8i4.3412.
Tiersky, Ronald. "Macron's World: How the New President Is Remaking France". Foreign Affairs. 97 (2018): 87+.
== External links ==
Appearances on C-SPAN
Emmanuel Carrère (20 October 2017). "Orbiting Jupiter: My Week with Emmanuel Macron". The Guardian. "Is France's new president a political miracle, or a mirage that is already fading away?". |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(American_TV_series)_season_3 | The Circle (American TV series) season 3 | The third season of the American reality competition streaming series The Circle began on Netflix on September 8, 2021, and concluded on September 29, 2021. The season was announced in March 2020 when Netflix renewed The Circle for a second and third season. Michelle Buteau returned as host.
Like the previous seasons, players compete against each other to become the most popular, but do not actually meet their competitors. Instead, they communicate through a specially designed app and are able to portray themselves in any way they choose. In August 2021 ahead of the season premiere, the series was renewed for a fourth and fifth season.
On September 29, 2021, the season was won by James Andre Jefferson Jr., who had played the game as himself, and won the US$100,000 prize that came along with it. Matthew Pappadia as "Ashley" was the runner-up. Keisha "Kai" Ghost won the Fan Favorite award and US$10,000.
== Format ==
The contestants, or "players", move into the same apartment building. However, the contestants do not meet face-to-face during the course of the competition, as they each live in their own individual apartment. They communicate solely using their profiles on a specially designed social media app that gives them the ability to portray themselves in any way they choose. Players can thus opt to present themselves as a completely different personality to the other players, a tactic otherwise known as catfishing.
Throughout the series, the contestants "rate" one another from first to last place. At the end of the ratings, their average ratings are revealed to one another from lowest to highest. Normally, the two highest-rated players become "Influencers", while the remaining players will be at risk of being "blocked" by the Influencers. However, occasionally there may be a twist to the blocking process – varying from the lowest rating players being instantly blocked, the identity of the Influencers being a secret, or multiple players being blocked at one time. Blocked players are eliminated from the game, but are given the opportunity to meet one player still in the game in-person. A video message is shown to the remaining players to reveal if they were real or fake the day after.
During the finale, the contestants rate each other one final time, where the highest rated player wins the game and US$100,000. Also, fans of The Circle are able to vote for their favorite player. The player that receives the most votes is known as the Fan Favorite and receives US$10,000.
== Players ==
=== Future appearances ===
==== Perfect Match ====
In 2023, Calvin Crooks and Nick Uhlenhuth competed on the first season of Perfect Match Crooks was eliminated in Episode Two. Uhlenhuth finished as a finalist alongside LC Chamblin.
==== Battle Camp ====
Nick Uhlenhuth competed on the first season of Battle Camp. He was eliminated tenth.
==== Other ====
Rachel Ward appeared on the comedy game show Game Changer, appearing as a suitor in a Bachelor-themed episode.
== Episodes ==
== Results and elimination ==
Color key
The contestant was blocked.
The contestant was an influencer.
The contestant was immune from being blocked.
The player was at risk of being blocked following a twist
This player was blocked, but returned under a different profile
=== Notes ===
^Note 1 : After the ratings were revealed, the players were alerted that Kai would be the sole influencer and must block someone by herself. She ended up choosing Ava.
^Note 2 : After Ava was blocked, Ava and Chanel were given a second chance to play but had to clone another player, and ended up choosing to clone Michelle.
^Note 3 : Both Michelle's were at risk of being blocked. The other players were tasked with voting one to be blocked, and the Michelle with the most votes was blocked from The Circle.
^Note 4 : After being blocked in Episode 7, Calvin had to choose one player to give a secret advantage to. Calvin chose Nick, giving him the power of a second profile known as "Vince", although he still kept his original profile.
^Note 5 : In Episode 9, "Vince" was revealed to be the second profile of an existing player and removed from the game.
^Note 6 : The players' ratings were not revealed, instead the top two players would become secret influencers. James & Nick both placed the highest.
^Note 7 : The players made their final ratings.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisons#:~:text=Voter%20participation%C2%A0%25-,56.7,-49.6 | Grisons | The Grisons (; French: [ɡʁizɔ̃]) or Graubünden (Swiss Standard German: [ɡraʊˈbʏndn̩] ), more formally the Canton Grisons, is one of the twenty-six cantons of Switzerland. It has eleven districts, and its capital is Chur. The German name of the canton, Graubünden, translates as the "Grey Leagues", referring to the canton's origin in three local alliances, the Three Leagues. The other native names also refer to the Grey League: Grischùn in Sutsilvan, Grischun in the other forms of Romansh, and Grigioni in Italian. Rhaetia is the Latin name for the area. The Alpine ibex is the canton's heraldic symbol.
The largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland, it is also one of the three large southern Alpine cantons, along with Valais and Ticino. It is the most diverse canton in terms of natural and cultural geography, as it encompasses both sides of the Alps and several natural and cultural regions. The diversity of the canton is often compared to that of Switzerland as a whole and warrants it the name of "Little Switzerland". The Grisons is bordered by four cantons as well as Austria, Italy and Liechtenstein.
The state is the only trilingual canton of Switzerland. It is also the only one where Romansh, Switzerland's fourth national language, has official status. Romansh language and culture is an important part of local identity. In 2020 the canton had a population of 200,096. It is the least densely populated canton of Switzerland. The only sizable city in the canton is Chur, as the majority of the population lives in mountainous areas, including some of the most remote valleys of the country. One of the birthplaces of winter sports, the canton is a major tourist destination year-round, including a large number of Alpine resort towns, notably Davos and St. Moritz. The canton is also renowned for its extensive narrow-gauge railway network, operated by the Rhaetian Railway, and linking the capital with most valleys of the Grisons.
Formerly occupied by the Rhaeti, most of the lands of the canton became part of the Roman province called Raetia, which was established in 15 BC, with Curia, a settlement dating back to the Pfyn culture, as capital city. The area later became part of the lands of the diocese of Chur. The late middle ages saw the foundation of the League of God's House, the Grey League and the League of the Ten Jurisdictions. In 1471 an alliance gave birth to the Three Leagues, and before the end of the 15th century, the latter became an ally of the Old Swiss Confederacy. In 1803 the Three Leagues finally became one of the cantons of the Confederation.
== Geography and climate ==
The Grisons is Switzerland's largest and at the same time easternmost canton. Its geography, essentially marked by the Alps, is complex and encompasses a wide range of climates and ecosystems. It is one of the three large southern Alpine cantons, along with Ticino and Valais, which include regions on the south side of the Alps. But in contrast to those (and all other cantons), it fully extends on both sides of the great Alpine barrier, from the northern plains at Maienfeld to the southern plains at Roveredo. However, a large portion of the canton is neither clearly north nor south of the Alps, it is the Engadin (the "garden of the Inn"), a large inner Alpine valley oriented towards eastern Europe. Therefore there are parts of this canton in four of the five drainage basins of the country. The north of the canton is drained by the Rhine (ending in the North Sea), the south by the Po and Adige through several affluents (Mediterranean Sea), and the Engadin by the Danube through the Inn (Black Sea).
The Grisons lies fully within the Alps, with elevations above sea-level ranging from 260 to 4,049 metres (853 to 13,284 ft). It is both one of the highest and lowest cantons of Switzerland, and the second-highest when considering mean elevation. As a consequence, its topography is extremely rugged and many of the highest settlements in the country (and Europe) are found there, notably in the Upper Engadin. The mountains are numerous; well over 1,000 summits are in the canton. The highest is Piz Bernina, closely followed by numerous peaks in the homonymous range. Other prominent mountains are Piz Russein, Piz Kesch, Calanda, Aroser Rothorn and Rheinwaldhorn (see list of mountains of Graubünden for a more exhaustive list). The canton includes numerous subranges of the Alps other than the Bernina. These are the Albula, the Bregaglia, the Glarus, the Gotthard, the Lepontine, the Livigno, the Plessur, the Oberhalbstein, the Ortler, the Rätikon, the Samnaun, the Sesvenna and the Silvretta ranges.
The regions on the north side of the Alps are all drained by the Rhine and form an intricate network of valleys. The Rhine is both one of the longest rivers within the canton and the only one flowing directly into a sea. The sources of the Rhine are found in the west of the canton and form the Anterior Rhine and the Posterior Rhine. These two rivers converge at Reichenau to form the Rhine in the strict sense of the term. Just after the convergence, the valley opens and its floor constitutes the flattest plains of the canton, from Domat/Ems to Fläsch at the St. Gallen border. In the area around Chur, at the foot of the Calanda, the Rhine progressively changes its direction, from eastward to northward. The Anterior Rhine and Posterior Rhine include numerous tributaries as well before their own convergence. The former constitutes a long and straight valley, the Surselva, shut off from the lower plains by the Rhine Gorge. Its biggest tributaries are the rivers Glogn, Valser Rhine, Rabiusa, forming respectively the Val Lumnezia, the Vals Valley and the Safiental. The other one, the Posterior Rhine, notably collects the waters of the Avers Rhine and the Albula, which in turn collects the waters of the Gelgia and the Landwasser. Similarly to the Anterior Rhine, the upper portion of the Posterior Rhine is also shut off from the plains by the Viamala Gorge. After the convergence with the Albula, the Posterior Rhine forms a wide valley, the Domleschg, until it meets its anterior counterpart. After that, the Rhine collects the water of two important rivers: the Plessur at Chur, forming the valley of the Schanfigg, and the Landquart at the homonymous town, forming the Prätigau.
The Engadin is entirely drained by the Inn and is the only valley in Switzerland in the Danube basin. The Inn is one of the longest rivers in the canton and forms an almost straight valley, from the Maloja Pass to Martina, with a change of direction near Zernez. Despite its length and numerous tributaries, only a few long rivers converge with the Inn. These are the Flaz (forming the Val Bernina), the Spöl (forming the Val da Spöl) and the Clemgia (forming the Val S-charl). In the lower part of the Engadin is also the side valley of Samnaun. The main passes connecting the Engadin with the northern Grisons are (from west to east): the Julier Pass, the Albula Pass and the Flüela Pass.
The valleys on the south side of the Alps are not contiguous to each other and form four distinct regions. The Mesolcina, drained by the Moesa, the Val Bregaglia, drained by the Mera, the Val Poschiavo, drained by the Poschiavino, and the Val Müstair, drained by the Rom. The first three are in the Po basin and the last one is in the Adige basin. While the first two (Mesolcina and Bregaglia) are contiguous to the region north of the Alps, through the San Bernardino Pass, and the Septimer Pass respectively, the three last ones (Bregaglia, Poschiavo and Müstair) are contiguous to the Engadin, through the Maloja Pass, the Bernina Pass, and the Ofen Pass.
Although no large bodies of water are found in the canton, numerous mountain lakes (above 800 m elevation) dot the landscape, some of them being used as reservoirs for hydroelectricity production. The largest natural lakes are Lake Sils, Lake Silvaplana, Lago di Poschiavo and Lake St. Moritz (all in Upper Engadin except that of Poschiavo). Artificial lakes are more numerous, the largest (over 100 ha) being Lago di Livigno, Lago di Lei, Lai da Sontga Maria, Zervreilasee, Lago Bianco, Lai da Marmorera and Lägh da l'Albigna. The total number of lakes has been estimated to 600.
Unlike other large cantons, the Grisons includes very few cities. The largest (and capital city) is Chur. It is followed by Davos, Landquart, Domat/Ems and St. Moritz, which are, however, far less populated. The canton is particularly renowned for its numerous Alpine resort towns, notably two of the aforementioned ones (Davos and St. Moritz), but also Klosters, Arosa, Lenzerheide, Disentis, Flims, Pontresina and Scuol.
The diversity of the climate of the Grisons is high and comparable to that of Switzerland. In the southernmost and lowest regions, vineyards and olives are grown, while on the highest summits, snow is found year-round. The inner valleys, particularly the Engadin, are significantly drier than the north and south side of the Alps, being sheltered by the high mountains of the range. On the south side of the Alps, Grono is one of the top warmest places in the country with an average of 12.4 °C (54.3 °F). The nationwide record temperature of 41.5 °C (106.7 °F) was registered there. The southern valleys are also significantly wetter than the rest of the canton (1,476 mm of rain in Grono, 849 mm in Chur, and 705 mm in Scuol). The coldest places are naturally at high elevations, such as on Piz Corvatsch. The localities of the Upper Engadin are amongst the coldest inhabited regions in the country, notably Samedan with an average temperature of 2.0 °C (35.6 °F). The cantonwide record-low temperature of −37.9 °C (−36.2 °F) was registered there. The low-elevation region of Chur, including the Bündner Herrschaft, experiences naturally less harsh temperatures with an average of 10.0 °C (50.0 °F).
The area of the Grisons is 7,105.2 square kilometres (2,743.3 sq mi), 19.2% larger than the canton of Bern, the second largest canton. Only about a third of this is commonly regarded as productive land of which forests cover about a fifth of the total area.
The canton is almost entirely mountainous and it is the most sparsely populated region of the country. In its southeastern part lies the only official Swiss National Park. In its northern part, the mountains were formed as part of the thrust fault that was in 2008 declared a geologic UNESCO World Heritage Site, under the name Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona. Another Biosphere Reserve is the Biosfera Val Müstair adjacent to the Swiss National Park, while Ela Nature Park is one of the regionally supported parks.
The Grisons is sometimes included in the larger region of Eastern Switzerland, together with six other cantons. The Grisons shares border with numerous regions of Europe, reflecting its cultural diversity, and is the only canton adjacent to three different countries. On the national level it shares borders with four other cantons: Uri, Glarus, St. Gallen to the northwest (essentially across the Glarus Alps) and Ticino to the west (essentially across the Gotthard Massif and the Lepontine Alps but also at the level of the plain at Roveredo). On the international level, the canton shares borders with three countries: Liechtenstein to the north, the Austrian regions of Vorarlberg and Tyrol to the northeast and the Italian regions of Trentino-South Tyrol and Lombardy to the east and south.
== History ==
The deep Alpine valleys of the present-day Grisons were originally settled by the Raetians (Rhaeti). In Chur, archaeological evidence of settlement goes back as far as the Pfyn culture (3900–3500 BC), making the capital city of the Grisons one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland.
Most of the lands of the canton were once part of a Roman province called Raetia, which was established in 15 BC. The current capital of the Grisons, Chur, was known as Curia in Roman times. The area later was part of the lands of the diocese of Chur.
In 1367 the League of God's House (Cadi, Gottes Haus, Ca' di Dio) was founded to resist the rising power of the Bishop of Chur. This was followed by the establishment of the Grey League (Grauer Bund), sometimes called Oberbund, in 1395 in the Upper Rhine valley. The name Grey League is derived from the homespun grey clothes worn by the people and was used exclusively after 16 March 1424. The name of this league later gave its name to the canton of the Grisons. A third league was established in 1436 by the people of ten bailiwicks in the former Toggenburg countship, as the dynasty of Toggenburg had become extinct. The league was called League of the Ten Jurisdictions (Zehngerichtebund).
The first step towards the canton of the Grisons was when the league of the Ten Jurisdictions allied with the League of God's House in 1450. In 1471 the two leagues allied with the Grey League. In 1497 and 1498 the Leagues allied with the Old Swiss Confederacy after the Habsburgs acquired the possessions of the extinct Toggenburg dynasty in 1496, siding with the Confederacy in the Swabian War three years later. The Habsburgs were defeated at Calven Gorge and Dornach, helping the Swiss Confederation and the allied leagues of the canton of the Grisons to be recognised. However the Three Leagues remained a loose association until the Bundesbrief of 23 September 1524.
The last traces of the Bishop of Chur's jurisdiction were abolished in 1526. The Musso war of 1520 drove the Three Leagues closer to the Swiss Confederacy.
Between 1618 and 1639 it became a battleground between competing factions during the Bündner Wirren. The Protestant party was supported by France and Venice, while the Catholic party was supported by the Habsburgs in Spain and Austria. Each side sought to gain control of the Grisons to gain control over the important alpine passes. In 1618, the young radical Jörg Jenatsch became a member of the court of 'clerical overseers' and a leader of the anti-Habsburg faction. He supervised the torture to death of the arch-priest Nicolò Rusca of Sondrio. In response, Giacomo Robustelli of the pro-Catholic Planta family, raised an army of rebels in the Valtellina. On the evening of 18/19 July 1620, a force of Valtellina rebels supported by Austrian and Italian troops marched into Tirano and began killing Protestants. When they finished in Tirano, they marched to Teglio, Sondrio and further down the valley killing every Protestant that they found. Between 500 and 600 people were killed on that night and in the following four days. The attack drove nearly all the Protestants out of the valley, prevented further Protestant incursions and took the Valtellina out of the Three Leagues.
In response, in February 1621, Jenatsch led a force of anti-Habsburg troops to attack Rietberg Castle, the home of a leader of the pro-Catholic faction, Pompeius Planta. They surprised Planta and according to legend he was killed by Jörg Jenatsch with an axe. The murder of Planta encouraged the Protestant faction and they assembled a poorly led and disorganized army to retake the Valtellina and other subject lands. However, the army fell apart before they could attack a single Catholic town. This Protestant invasion provided the Spanish and Austrians with an excuse to invade the Leagues. By the end of October, Spain and Austria had occupied all of the Grisons. The resulting peace treaty of January 1622, forced Grisons to cede the Müstair, the Lower Engadine and Prättigau valleys. The treaty also forbade the Protestant religion in these valleys. In response, in 1622, the Prättigau valley rebelled against the Austrians and drove them out of the valley. The Austrians invaded the valley twice more, attempting to reimpose the Catholic faith, in 1623–1624 and 1629–1631.
In 1623 the Leagues entered into an alliance with France, Savoy and Venice. Jürg Jenatsch and Ulysses von Salis used French money to hire an 8,000-man mercenary army and drive out the Austrians. The peace treaty of Monzon (5 March 1626) between France and Spain, confirmed the political and religious independence of the Valtellina. In 1627 the French withdrew from the Valtellina valley, which was then occupied by Papal troops. Starting in 1631 the League, under the French Duke Henri de Rohan, started to expel the Spaniards. However, Richelieu still did not want to hand the valley over to its residents. When it became clear that the French intended to remain permanently in the Leagues, but would not force the Valtellina to convert to Protestantism, Jürg Jenatsch (now a mercenary leader) converted in 1635 to the Catholic faith. In 1637, he rebelled and allied with Austria and Spain. His rebellion along with the rebellion of 31 other League officers forced the French to withdraw without a fight. On 24 January 1639, Jürg Jenatsch was killed during Carnival by an unknown attacker who was dressed as a bear. The attacker may have been a son of Pompeius Planta or an assassin hired by the local aristocracy. According to legend he was killed by the same axe that he used on Pompeius Planta. On 3 September 1639 the Leagues agreed with Spain to bring the Valtellina back under League sovereignty, but with the promise to respect the free exercise of the Catholic faith. Treaties with Austria in 1649 and 1652, brought the Müstair and Lower Engadine valleys back under the authority of the Three Leagues.
In 1798, the lands of the canton of the Grisons became part of the Helvetic Republic as the canton of Raetia except Valtellina, which was separated in 1797 for joining the Cisalpine Republic. It was later part of the Empire of Austria in 1814 before joining the Kingdom of Italy in 1859. With the Act of Mediation the "perpetual ally" of Switzerland became a canton in 1803. The constitution of the canton dates from 1892. In the following century, there have been about 30 changes made to the constitution.
The arms of the three original leagues were combined into the modern cantonal coat of arms in 1933.
== Government ==
The Grand Council (German: Grosser Rat; Italian: Gran Consiglio, Romansh: Cussegl Grond), the legislature of the canton, sits in Chur, the cantonal capital. Its 120 members, elected in 39 districts using a majority system, are in office for four years. The last district elections were in 2014. The cantonal government, exercising executive authority, is made up of five members, elected by the people for a term of four years and limited to three terms using a majority system.
The constitution of the Grisons, last revised on 14 September 2003, states in its preamble that the canton's purpose is to "safeguard freedom, peace, and human dignity, ensure democracy and the Rechtsstaat, promote prosperity and social justice and preserving a sane environment for the future generations, with the intention of promoting trilingualism and cultural variety and conserving them as part of our historical heritage".
The constitution allows for the enfranchisement of foreign residents at a municipal level, at discretion of the local governments. In 2009, the municipality of Bregaglia became the first in the canton to make use of this provision, granting voting rights to foreigners.
== Politics ==
=== Federal election results ===
^a FDP before 2009, FDP.The Liberals after 2009
^b "*" indicates that the party was not on the ballot in this canton.
== Political subdivisions ==
=== Regions ===
as of January 2017
Albula with capital Tiefencastel
Bernina with capital Poschiavo
Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair with capital Scuol
Imboden with capital Domat/Ems
Landquart with capital Igis
Maloja with capital Samedan
Moesa with capital Roveredo
Plessur with capital Chur
Prättigau/Davos with capital Davos
Surselva with capital Ilanz
Viamala Region with capital Thusis
=== Municipalities ===
There are 100 municipalities in the canton (as of January 2025).
== Demographics ==
The inhabitants of the Grisons are called Bündner or (rarely) Grisonians.
The population of the canton (as of 31 December 2020) is 200,096. As of 2007, the population included 28,008 foreigners, or about 14.84% of the total population. The main religions are Catholicism and Protestantism. Both are well represented in the canton, with Roman Catholics forming a slight plurality (47% Catholic to 41% Protestant).
=== Languages ===
The Grisons is the only canton of Switzerland with three official languages: German (74.7%), Romansh (13.9%), and Italian (13.9%) with the remaining 13% speaking another language natively.
More speakers of the Romansh language live in the Grisons than in any other canton, although it has become a minority language there. Since the late Middle Ages the Romansh language has greatly reduced (by more than half the original territory, that included Liechtenstein and sections of western Austria) the area where it is spoken by the majority of the population.
Romansh consists of five dialect groups, each with its own written language: Sursilvan, Vallader, Puter, Surmiran and Sutsilvan. There also exists a common written language called Rumantsch Grischun.
Romansh has been recognized as one of four "national languages" by the Swiss Federal Constitution since 1938. It was declared an "official language" of the Confederation in 1996, meaning that Romansh speakers may use Romansh for correspondence with the federal government and expect to receive a response in Rumantsch Grischun.
Romansh has official language status at the canton level. Municipalities in turn are free to specify their own official languages.
== Economy ==
Agriculture is still essential to keep remote valleys inhabited and cultivated, differing it from sheer wilderness. Agriculture is therefore supported by subsidies by the authorities both national and regional. Eight per cent of the population work in agriculture and forestry, where 50 per cent of the production is certified as organic. Agriculture includes forests and mountain pasturage in summer, particularly of cows, sheep and goats.
Since wolf and bear have returned, the use of Maremma Sheepdogs is not unusual. Although mountain pastures are predominant, there is also wine production in the Rhine Valley, particularly in Fläsch, Maienfeld, Jenins and Malans. This area is referred to as the Bündner Herschaft. In the southern valleys of Mesolcina and Val Poschiavo there is corn (maize) and chestnut farming, allowed by the milder climate. In the Mesolcina, olive trees are also grown.
24 per cent of the workforce are employed in industry whereas 68 per cent work in the service industry. The most industrialized region is naturally that of Chur. Ems-Chemie is based in Domat/Ems and is a major employer in the area.
The tourism industry is a major player and reaches a remarkable 14 per cent of the GDP. Tourism is concentrated around the towns of Davos, Klosters, Lenzerheide, Arosa, Flims, St. Moritz and Pontresina, which have large ski areas. There are, however, a great number of other tourist resorts in the canton, divided by the official tourist board for winter sports for example into categories "Top - Large - Small and beautiful". St. Moritz is one of the oldest winter sport resorts, being popular in winter since 1864. The following year, Davos also saw its first tourists in winter. St. Moritz hosted the 1928 Winter Olympics and the 1948 Winter Olympics. Summer tourism is also an important source of revenue. Trekking, mountaineering, and mountain biking are some of the main activities. Business tourism is also a source of revenue, notably in Davos, where the World Economic Forum meetings are traditionally organised.
== Transport ==
As the canton extends on both sides of the great Alpine barrier, many important mountain passes are found there, particularly on the north-south axis. Transport has always been an important issue in the area; cart tracks from the Roman era were found on Julier Pass and Septimer Pass was rebuilt for cart use in 1387 and, although it later became unimportant, it is still in its 1800 form (for hikers only). Corniche paths were necessary for long stretches, and gorges such as the Viamala gave construction problems for any kind of transport. The first real roads of 3.7 m (4 yd) width were built across the Alps from around 1816, one of which is still in a very good historical condition as this connection across Splügen Pass lost its importance after the opening of rail tunnels crossing the alps. The last valley to be connected to the road system in the Grisons was Avers, whose remote hamlet of Juf was only reached in 1897. After the Swiss Post expanded their Postal Bus transport services, the region's inhabitants became more used to motorized traffic. In 1925, there were already 250 vehicles in service. Eventually, the inhabitants of the Grisons gave up their resistance against individual motor traffic in 1926, In 1967 opened San Bernardino road tunnel, built to host tourism traffic, is used also by heavy goods vehicles nowadays although not really suitable for them because of its ascent gradients. Most other passes have lost their importance for goods transport nowadays.
Unlike Valais and Ticino, the Grisons does not benefit from major railway axes across the Alps such as the Lötschberg and Gotthard. As a consequence, the only standard gauge railway in the canton is that of the Rhine Valley, ending at Chur station. Conversely, the latter has become a major railway station and a transport hub of the canton since the construction of the Rhaetian Railway, which links most regions of the canton from the Rhine Valley.
Huge efforts ensure public transport to (nearly) every settlement by an integrated timetable of different transport companies. Even Juf, inhabited by some 30 people only but holding a European record, is reached five times a day by public transport. The two main transport companies are PostBus, the national post bus company, and the Rhaetian Railway, essentially owned by the cantonal government. The latter uses the largest narrow-gauge railway network in Switzerland and serves most regions of the canton, with branches towards Central Switzerland and Italy. This network is notably travelled by two of the longest distance trains of Switzerland: the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express. The Swiss Federal Railways extend only a few kilometres into the canton, from Maienfeld, and serve essentially Landquart and Chur, where passengers transfer to the Rhaetian Railway and a large number of PostBus routes. The Albula Line became a UNESCO world heritage as did the Bernina Railway, the highest and only railway to cross the Alps without the use of a tunnel at the pass. In winter some of the road passes are closed whereas several high mountain passes such as the Julier, Bernina and Lukmanier are kept open all winter (subject to restrictions). Being the highest elevated state in Switzerland, the Grisons hosts huge alpine areas that are not accessible by any means of transport but have to be walked to. A large number of cable transport facilities provide easy access to some of the mountains of the Grisons, the highest being on Piz Corvatsch.
The Engadin valley has its own airport, Samedan Airport. It is the highest airport in Switzerland. However, there are no scheduled flights to and from the airport. Generally, residents in the Grisons would also use Zurich Airport, and Milan's Malpensa Airport, Linte Airport and Bergamo Airport to fly other domestic and international destinations.
== Culture ==
The Grisons is culturally the most diverse region of Switzerland. Its common denominator, however, is a strong mountain culture marked by life in isolated rural communities, notably depicted in Johanna Spyri's Heidi. Traditional customs include Alpine transhumance in spring and autumn, and the Chalandamarz at the end of winter.
The canton has a large concentration of medieval castles (and ruins). The most notable, in the Engadin, is that of Tarasp, guarding the Inn valley. Many ruins and castles are found in the Domleschg area. Close by lies the church of Zillis, where 1130/40 a famous romanesque illustrated ceiling was added which is now treated as national heritage. Three World Heritage Sites are located in the canton: the Benedictine Convent of Saint John, the Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona and the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula and Bernina Landscapes.
The gastronomy of the Grisons is mostly known for a dried-beef delicacy called Bündnerfleisch, often simply referred to as Grisons Meat. Other meat specialities include dried sausages (especially Salsiz, made of various meats), speck and ham. Cheeses produced in the Grisons are also numerous. Among notable dishes are the Capuns, predominantly made in the western part of the Grisons. Capuns consist of hearty dumplings with pieces of meat wrapped in chard leaves, then gratinated in oven with cheese and cream. The Maluns are another well-known dish of the Grisons. They are made of boiled potatoes mixed with flour, then fried in butter. Maluns are typically served with a compote of apples and various other local products such as cheeses and meat specialities. The Pizzoccheri are another dish, essentially eaten in the valley of Poschiavo. They consist of buckwheat noodles, cooked with potatoes, vegetables and cheese. The emblematic dessert of the Grisons is the Bündner Nusstorte. It is essentially a shortcrust pastry filled with a mix of caramelized walnuts and honey. Another similar pastry, but containing chestnuts instead, the Torta di Castagne, is made in the southern valleys, especially in the Val Bregaglia.
Wines are essentially produced in the Bündner Herrschaft. In the vineyards between Fläsch and Malans, 42 types of vines are found, Pinot Noir being the most popular. Wines are also naturally produced in the southern valleys but in smaller quantities. The valley of the Mesolcina is contiguous with the Ticino wine region and that of Poschiavo is contiguous with the Valtellina wine region. Numerous breweries can be found in the canton as well. The largest, located at Chur, is Calanda Bräu.
Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha is the Romansh-speaking division of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and focuses on the Grisons. Die Südostschweiz (in German) and La Quotidiana (Romansh) are some of the most important written media of the region.
== Nature ==
The Grisons successfully reintroduced ibex in the early 20th century after it had all but died out from the Alps, except for an area in the Aosta Valley in Italy, Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso. Similarly, it reintroduced the bearded vulture and lynx in the 21st century, which had been extinguished, though the lynx remains rare.
== See also ==
Swiss Alps
Three Leagues
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official Canton website
Canton of the Grisons Tourism website
Short documentary from the cantonal authorities
Official Canton of the Grisons statistics website
"Grisons" in Romansh, German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Coolidge, William Augustus Brevoort (1911). "Grisons" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). pp. 608–610. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lamp_(What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows)#:~:text=The%20djinn%20will%20grant%2052,English%20so%20he%20can%20understand. | The Lamp (What We Do in the Shadows) | "The Lamp" is the second episode of the fourth season of the American mockumentary comedy horror television series What We Do in the Shadows, set in the franchise of the same name. It is the 32nd overall episode of the series and was written by Wally Baram and Aasia LaShay Bullock, and directed by co-executive producer Yana Gorskaya. It was released on FX on July 12, 2022, airing back-to-back with the previous episode, "Reunited".
The series is set in Staten Island, New York City. Like the 2014 film, the series follows the lives of vampires in the city. These consist of three vampires, Nandor, Laszlo, and Nadja. They live alongside Colin Robinson, an energy vampire; and Guillermo, Nandor's familiar. The series explores the absurdity and misfortunes experienced by the vampires. In the episode, Nandor finds a djinn and decides to resurrect his 37 wives to decide which one to marry again. Meanwhile, Laszlo and Nadja try to get the Guide to approve the vampire nightclub.
According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode was seen by an estimated 0.385 million household viewers and gained a 0.15 ratings share among adults aged 18–49. The episode received extremely positive reviews from critics, who praised the humor and character development, although the pacing received criticism.
== Plot ==
Laszlo (Matt Berry) and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) start hiring crew workers to start building the nightclub. The Guide (Kristen Schaal) opposes the decision, so she has the wraiths undo all the progress the workers do. They then start conspiring by turning some of the wraiths against her, but this backfires as they are loyal to her.
Nandor (Kayvan Novak) reveals to the documentary crew that he has kept treasures from his village to make a room and impress women, feeling he hasn't had luck in finding his wife. While checking the items, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) finds a lamp, which Nandor has not been able to rub the right way. When Guillermo suggests a specific approach, Nandor rubs it, releasing a djinn (Anoop Desai). The djinn will grant 52 wishes to Nandor. He decides to resurrect one of his 37 deceased wives, but is unable to remember her name and description (with some of his wives including men). He decides to resurrect them and make them speak English so he can understand. Nandor decides to spend time with each wife and then eventually pick one, with those rejected sent to the Djinn, who sends them back to death.
As a last resort, Laszlo decides to use psychology on the Guide to understand her motives. She reveals that her job is part of a punishment for her past, which includes having sex with Van Helsing. Realizing that she holds feelings for Guillermo, they set her up on a date with him, promising him the position of accountant at the nightclub. Guillermo convinces her in allowing them to open the nightclub, so she decides to start by destroying part of the headquarters. Back at the house, Nandor has settled for his wife, Marwa (Parisa Fakhri).
== Production ==
=== Development ===
In June 2022, FX confirmed that the second episode of the season would be titled "The Lamp", and that it would be written by Wally Baram and Aasia LaShay Bullock, and directed by co-executive producer Yana Gorskaya. This was Baram's first writing credit, Bullock's first writing credit, and Gorskaya's tenth directing credit.
== Reception ==
=== Viewers ===
In its original American broadcast, "Reunited" was seen by an estimated 0.385 million household viewers with a 0.15 in the 18-49 demographics. This means that 0.15 percent of all households with televisions watched the episode. This was a 30% decrease in viewership from the previous episode, which was watched by 0.504 million household viewers with a 0.18 in the 18-49 demographics.
=== Critical reviews ===
"The Lamp" received extremely positive reviews from critics. William Hughes of The A.V. Club gave the episode an "A–" grade and wrote, "Even if 'The Lamp' doesn't quite hit the highs of 'Reunited,' it's still a welcome return for our favorite Staten Island vamps."
Katie Rife of Vulture gave the episode a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "In its earliest episodes, much of the comedy on What We Do in the Shadows came from the contrast between ancient vampires and the mundanity of modern life. [...] But as Shadows' internal mythology has grown more complex, it's shifted toward using these juxtapositions to reveal new sides of the vampires' personalities rather than as absurd jokes in themselves." Tony Sokol of Den of Geek gave the episode a 4 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "'The Lamp' fulfills comic wishes faster than a djinn can click them off his ledger."
Melody McCune of Telltale TV gave the episode a 4.5 star rating out of 5 and wrote, "'The Lamp' finally sheds light on Nandor's enigmatic 37 wives from his homeland of Al Quolindar, and we meet some of them. Even as we enter the fourth season, What We Do in the Shadows still finds new ways to expand its mythos, planting narrative seeds that blossom in this immersive world." Alejandra Bodden of Bleeding Cool gave the episode an 8.5 out of 10 rating and wrote, "Well, we are back together a year later and the home in Staten Island is falling apart... but the series itself continues to build upon some excellent foundations."
== References ==
== External links ==
"The Lamp" at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zbek,_%C5%9Eaban%C3%B6z%C3%BC | Özbek, Şabanözü | Özbek is a village in the Şabanözü District of Çankırı Province in Turkey. Its population is 121 (2021).
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Luke_Prendergast | James Luke Prendergast | James Luke Prendergast (April 7, 1800 – May 13, 1895) was a merchant and political figure in Newfoundland. He represented Conception Bay from 1842 to 1852 and Harbour Grace from 1855 to 1859 and from 1860 to 1861 in the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly as a Liberal.
He was born in Harbour Grace, the son of James Prendergast, and established himself in business there. Prendergast married Margaret Bransfield in 1825. In an 1840 by-election, he ran for a seat in the Newfoundland assembly as an independent Liberal against Edmund Hanrahan. Following widespread violence during the campaign, the governor Henry Prescott set aside the results of the election. Prendergast was first elected when he ran as a Liberal in 1842. He was defeated when he ran again as an independent Liberal in 1852. He served as acting superintendent of fisheries after he was elected again in 1855 as a Liberal. His election in 1859 was overturned but Prendergast was elected in the 1860 by-election that followed. The polls were not opened in Harbour Grace for the general election in 1861 because of the threat of violence and Prendergast was defeated in the by-election held later that year. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the assembly in 1869 as an anti-Confederate. Prendergast later served as sheriff of Harbour Grace and as a justice of the peace. He died in Harbour Grace at the age of 95.
== References ==
Budden, Geoffrey E. (1990). "James Luke Prendergast". Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. Retrieved 2009-10-22. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Luk%C3%A1cs#:~:text=Luk%C3%A1cs%20was%20especially%20influential%20as,(March%E2%80%93August%201919). | György Lukács | György Lukács (born Bernát György Löwinger; Hungarian: Szegedi Lukács György; German: Georg Bernard Lukács; 13 April 1885 – 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Soviet Marxist ideological orthodoxy. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Vladimir Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.
Lukács was especially influential as a critic due to his theoretical developments of literary realism and of the novel as a literary genre. In 1919, he was appointed the Hungarian Minister of Culture of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic (March–August 1919). Lukács has been described as the preeminent Marxist intellectual of the Stalinist era, though assessing his legacy can be difficult as Lukács seemed both to support Stalinism as the embodiment of Marxist thought, and yet also to champion a return to pre-Stalinist Marxism.
== Life and politics ==
Lukács was born Bernát György Löwinger in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, to the investment banker József Löwinger (later Szegedi Lukács József; 1855–1928) and his wife Adele Wertheimer (Wertheimer Adél; 1860–1917), who were a wealthy Jewish family. He had a brother and sister. He and his family converted to Lutheranism in 1907.
His father was knighted by the empire and received a baronial title, making Lukács a baron as well through inheritance. As a writer, he published under the names Georg Lukács and György Lukács. Lukács participated in intellectual circles in Budapest, Berlin, Florence and Heidelberg. He received his doctorate in economic and political sciences (Dr. rer. oec.) in 1906 from the Royal Hungarian University of Kolozsvár. In 1909, he completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Budapest under the direction of Zsolt Beöthy.
=== Pre-Marxist period ===
Whilst at university in Budapest, Lukács was part of socialist intellectual circles through which he met Ervin Szabó, an anarcho-syndicalist who introduced him to the works of Georges Sorel (1847–1922), the French proponent of revolutionary syndicalism. In that period, Lukács's intellectual perspectives were modernist and anti-positivist. From 1904 to 1908, he was part of a theatre troupe that produced modernist, psychologically realistic plays by Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Gerhart Hauptmann.
Between 1906 and 1909 while in his early twenties, he worked on his 1,000 page A modern dráma fejlődésének története (English: History of the Development of the Modern Drama). It was published in Hungary in 1911. He was dismayed when it won a prize in 1908 because he did not think the jury was fit to judge it.
Lukács spent much time in Germany, and studied at the University of Berlin from 1906 to 1907, during which time he made the acquaintance of the philosopher Georg Simmel. Later in 1913 whilst in Heidelberg, he befriended Max Weber, Emil Lask, Ernst Bloch, and Stefan George. The idealist system to which Lukács subscribed at this time was intellectually indebted to neo-Kantianism (then the dominant philosophy in German universities) and to Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Søren Kierkegaard, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In that period, he published Soul and Form (Die Seele und die Formen, Berlin, 1911; tr. 1974) and The Theory of the Novel (1916/1920; tr. 1971).
After the beginning of the First World War, Lukács was exempted from military service. In 1914, he married the Russian political activist Jelena Grabenko.
In 1915, Lukács returned to Budapest, where he was the leader of the "Sunday Circle", an intellectual salon. Its concerns were the cultural themes that arose from the existential works of Dostoyevsky, which thematically aligned with Lukács's interests in his last years at Heidelberg. As a salon, the Sunday Circle sponsored cultural events whose participants included literary and musical avant-garde figures, such as Karl Mannheim, the composer Béla Bartók, Béla Balázs, Arnold Hauser, Zoltán Kodály and Karl Polanyi; some of them also attended the weekly salons. In 1918, the last year of the First World War (1914–1918), the Sunday Circle became divided. They dissolved the salon because of their divergent politics; several of the leading members accompanied Lukács into the Communist Party of Hungary.
=== Pivot to communism ===
In the aftermath of the First World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lukács rethought his ideas. He became a committed Marxist in this period and joined the fledgling Communist Party of Hungary in 1918. Up until at least September 1918, he had intended to emigrate to Germany, but after being rejected from a habilitation in Heidelberg, he wrote on 16 December that he had already decided to pursue a political career in Hungary instead. Lukács later wrote that he was persuaded to this course by Béla Kun. The last publication of Lukács' pre-Marxist period was "Bolshevism as a Moral Problem", a rejection of Bolshevism on ethical grounds that he apparently reversed within days.
=== Communist leader ===
As part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic, Lukács was made People's Commissar for Education and Culture (he was deputy to the Commissar for Education Zsigmond Kunfi).
It is said by József Nádass that Lukács was giving a lecture entitled "Old Culture and New Culture" to a packed hall when the republic was proclaimed, which was interrupted due to the revolution.
During the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Lukács was a theoretician of the Hungarian version of the red terror. In an article in the Népszava, 15 April 1919, he wrote that "The possession of the power of the state is also a moment for the destruction of the oppressing classes. A moment, we have to use". Lukács later became a commissar of the Fifth Division of the Hungarian Red Army, in which capacity he ordered the execution of eight of his own soldiers in Poroszló, in May 1919, which he later admitted in an interview.
After the Hungarian Soviet Republic was defeated, Lukács was ordered by Kun to remain behind with Ottó Korvin, when the rest of the leadership evacuated. Lukács and Korvin's mission was to clandestinely reorganize the communist movement, but this proved to be impossible. Lukács went into hiding, with the help of photographer Olga Máté. After Korvin's capture in 1919, Lukács fled from Hungary to Vienna. He was arrested but was saved from extradition due to a group of writers including Thomas and Heinrich Mann. Thomas Mann later based the character Naphta on Lukács in his novel The Magic Mountain.
He married his second wife, Gertrúd Bortstieber in 1919 in Vienna, a fellow member of the Hungarian Communist Party.
Around the 1920s, while Antonio Gramsci was also in Vienna, though they did not meet each other, Lukács met a fellow communist, Victor Serge, and began to develop Leninist ideas in the field of philosophy. His major works in this period were the essays collected in his magnum opus History and Class Consciousness (Geschichte und Klassenbewußtsein, Berlin, 1923). Although these essays display signs of what Vladimir Lenin referred to as "left communism" (with later Leninists calling it "ultra-leftism"), they provided Leninism with a substantive philosophical basis. In July 1924, Grigory Zinoviev attacked this book along with the work of Karl Korsch at the Fifth Comintern Congress.
In 1925, shortly after Lenin's death, Lukács published in Vienna the short study Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought (Lenin: Studie über den Zusammenhang seiner Gedanken). In 1925, he published a critical review of Nikolai Bukharin's manual of historical materialism.
As a Hungarian exile, he remained active on the left wing of the Hungarian Communist Party, and was opposed to the Moscow-backed programme of Béla Kun. His "Blum theses" of 1928 called for the overthrow of the counter-revolutionary regime of Admiral Horthy in Hungary by a strategy similar to the Popular Fronts that arose in the 1930s. He advocated a "democratic dictatorship" of the proletariat and peasantry as a transitional stage leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat. After Lukács's strategy was condemned by the Comintern, he retreated from active politics into theoretical work.
Lukács left Vienna in 1929, first for Berlin, then for Budapest.
=== Under Stalin and Rákosi ===
In 1930, while residing in Budapest, Lukács was summoned to Moscow. This coincided with the signing of a Viennese police order for his expulsion. Leaving their children to attend their studies, Lukács and his wife went to Moscow in March 1930. Soon after his arrival, Lukács was "prevented" from leaving and assigned to work alongside David Riazanov ("in the basement") at the Marx–Engels Institute.
Lukács returned to Berlin in 1931 and in 1933 he once again left Berlin for Moscow to attend the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During this time, Lukács first came into contact with the unpublished works of the young Marx.
Lukács survived the purges of the Great Terror, but he and his wife were not permitted to leave the Soviet Union until after the Second World War. Shortly after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 29, 1941 Lukács was arrested by the NKVD, but released on August 26. He was then evacuated to Tashkent with a group of German-speaking writers, where he and Johannes Becher became friends. There is much debate among historians concerning the extent to which Lukács accepted Stalinism at this period.
In 1945, Lukács and his wife returned to Hungary. As a member of the Hungarian Communist Party, he took part in establishing the new Hungarian government. From 1945 Lukács was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Between 1945 and 1946, he strongly criticised non-communist philosophers and writers. Lukács has been accused of playing an "administrative" (legal-bureaucratic) role in the removal of independent and non-communist intellectuals such as Béla Hamvas, István Bibó, Lajos Prohászka, and Károly Kerényi from Hungarian academic life. Between 1946 and 1953, many non-communist intellectuals, including Bibó, were imprisoned or forced into menial work or manual labour.
Lukács's personal aesthetic and political positions on culture were always that socialist culture would eventually triumph in terms of quality. He thought it should play out in terms of competing cultures, not by "administrative" measures. In 1948–49, Lukács's position for cultural tolerance was smashed in a "Lukács purge," when Mátyás Rákosi turned his famous salami tactics on the Hungarian Working People's Party.
In the mid-1950s, Lukács was reintegrated into party life. The party used him to help purge the Hungarian Writers' Union in 1955–1956. Tamás Aczél and Tibor Méray (former Secretaries of the Hungarian Writers' Union) both believe that Lukács participated grudgingly, and cite Lukács's leaving the presidium and the meeting at the first break as evidence of this reluctance.
=== De-Stalinisation ===
In 1956, Lukács became a minister of the brief communist revolutionary government led by Imre Nagy, which opposed the Soviet Union. At this time, Lukács's daughter led a short-lived party of communist revolutionary youth. Lukács's position on the 1956 revolution was that the Hungarian Communist Party would need to retreat into a coalition government of socialists and slowly rebuild its credibility with the Hungarian people. While a minister in Nagy's revolutionary government, Lukács also participated in trying to reform the Hungarian Communist Party on a new basis. This party, the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, was rapidly co-opted by János Kádár after 4 November 1956.
During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Lukács was present at debates of the anti-party and revolutionary communist Petőfi Society while remaining part of the party apparatus. During the revolution, as mentioned in Budapest Diary, Lukács argued for a new Soviet-aligned communist party. In Lukács's view, the new party could win social leadership only by persuasion instead of force. Lukács envisioned an alliance between the dissident communist Hungarian Revolutionary Youth Party, the revolutionary Hungarian Social Democratic Party and his own Soviet-aligned party as a very junior partner.
Following the defeat of the Revolution, Lukács was deported to the Socialist Republic of Romania with the rest of Nagy's government. Unlike Nagy, he avoided execution, albeit narrowly. Due to his role in Nagy's government, he was no longer trusted by the party apparatus. Lukács's followers were indicted for political crimes throughout the 1960s and '70s, and a number fled to the West. Lukács's books The Young Hegel (Der junge Hegel, Zurich, 1948) and The Destruction of Reason (Die Zerstörung der Vernunft, Berlin, 1954) have been used to argue that Lukács was covertly critical of Stalinism as a distortion of Marxism. In this reading, these two works are attempts to reconcile the idealism of Hegelian-dialectics with the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, and position Stalinism as a philosophy of irrationalism.
He returned to Budapest in 1957. Lukács publicly abandoned his positions of 1956 and engaged in self-criticism. Having abandoned his earlier positions, Lukács remained loyal to the Communist Party until his death in 1971. In his last years, following the uprisings in France and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Lukács became more publicly critical of the Soviet Union and the Hungarian Communist Party.
In an interview just before his death, Lukács remarked:
Without a genuine general theory of society and its movement, one does not get away from Stalinism. Stalin was a great tactician... But Stalin, unfortunately, was not a Marxist... The essence of Stalinism lies in placing tactics before strategy, practice above theory... The bureaucracy generated by Stalinism is a tremendous evil. Society is suffocated by it. Everything becomes unreal, nominalistic. People see no design, no strategic aim, and do not move..." Thus Lukács concludes "we must learn to connect the great decisions of popular political power with personal needs, those of individuals.
== Work ==
=== History and Class Consciousness ===
Written between 1919 and 1922 and published in 1923, Lukács's collection of essays History and Class Consciousness contributed to debates concerning Marxism and its relation to sociology, politics and philosophy. With this work, Lukács initiated the current of thought that came to be known as "Western Marxism". At Lukács' direction, there was no reprinting in his lifetime, making it rare and hard to acquire before 1968. Its return to prominence was aided by the social movements of the 1960s.
The most important essay in Lukács's book introduces the concept of "reification". In capitalist societies, human properties, relations and actions are transformed into properties, relations and actions of human-produced things, which become independent of them and govern their life. These human-created things are then imagined to be originally independent of the human. Moreover, human beings are transformed into thing-like beings that do not behave in a human way but according to the laws of the thing-world. This essay is notable for reconstructing aspects of Marx's theory of alienation before the publication of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 — the work in which Marx most clearly expounds the theory.
Lukács also develops the Marxist theory of class consciousness - the distinction between the objective situation of a class and that class's subjective awareness of this situation. Lukács proffers a view of a class as an "historical imputed subject". An empirically existing class can successfully act only when it becomes conscious of its historical situation, i.e. when it transforms from a "class in itself" to a "class for itself". Lukács's theory of class consciousness has been influential within the sociology of knowledge.
In his later career, Lukács repudiated the ideas of History and Class Consciousness, in particular the belief in the proletariat as a "subject-object of history" (1960 Postface to French translation). As late as 1925–1926, he still defended these ideas, in an unfinished manuscript, which he called Tailism and the Dialectic. It was not published until 1996 in Hungarian and English in 2000 under the title A Defence of History and Class Consciousness.
==== What is Orthodox Marxism? ====
Lukács argues that methodology is the only thing that distinguishes Marxism: even if all its substantive propositions were rejected, it would remain valid because of its distinctive method:
Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx's investigations. It is not the 'belief' in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders.
He criticises Marxist revisionism by calling for the return to this Marxist method, which is fundamentally dialectical materialism. Lukács conceives "revisionism" as inherent to the Marxist theory, insofar as dialectical materialism is, according to him, the product of class struggle:
For this reason the task of orthodox Marxism, its victory over Revisionism and utopianism can never mean the defeat, once and for all, of false tendencies. It is an ever-renewed struggle against the insidious effects of bourgeois ideology on the thought of the proletariat. Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process.
According to him, "The premise of dialectical materialism is, we recall: 'It is not men's consciousness that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.' ...Only when the core of existence stands revealed as a social process can existence be seen as the product, albeit the hitherto unconscious product, of human activity." (§5). In line with Marx's thought, he criticises the individualist bourgeois philosophy of the subject, which founds itself on the voluntary and conscious subject. Against this ideology, he asserts the primacy of social relations. Existence – and thus the world – is the product of human activity; but this can be seen only if the primacy of social process on individual consciousness is accepted. Lukács does not restrain human liberty for sociological determinism: to the contrary, this production of existence is the possibility of praxis.
He conceives the problem in the relationship between theory and practice. Lukács quotes Marx's words: "It is not enough that thought should seek to realise itself; reality must also strive towards thought." How does the thought of intellectuals relate to class struggle, if theory is not simply to lag behind history, as it is in Hegel's philosophy of history ("Minerva always comes at the dusk of night...")? Lukács criticises Friedrich Engels's Anti-Dühring, saying that he "does not even mention the most vital interaction, namely the dialectical relation between subject and object in the historical process, let alone give it the prominence it deserves." This dialectical relation between subject and object is the basis of Lukács's critique of Immanuel Kant's epistemology, according to which the subject is the exterior, universal and contemplating subject, separated from the object.
For Lukács, "ideology" is a projection of the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie, which functions to prevent the proletariat from attaining consciousness of its revolutionary position. Ideology determines the "form of objectivity", thus the very structure of knowledge. According to Lukács, real science must attain the "concrete totality" through which only it is possible to think the current form of objectivity as a historical period. Thus, the so-called eternal "laws" of economics are dismissed as the ideological illusion projected by the current form of objectivity ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?", §3). He also writes: "It is only when the core of being has shown itself as social becoming, that the being itself can appear as a product, so far unconscious, of human activity, and this activity, in turn, as the decisive element of the transformation of being." ("What is Orthodoxical Marxism?", §5) Finally, "orthodoxical Marxism" is not defined as an interpretation of Capital as if it were the Bible or an embrace of "Marxist thesis", but as fidelity to the "Marxist method", dialectics.
==== Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat ====
Drawing from the insights of Max Weber and Georg Simmel, Lukács introduces the concept of reification to describe the mystified consciousness of capitalist society, where human relations and activities are objectified as commodities. This idea builds on Marx's analysis of "commodity fetishism" in Capital. Under capitalism, human qualities are subordinated to the demands of production and exchange, reducing individuals to mere units of labor power. Rationalization — manifesting in legal systems, technology, and labor organization — fragments human activity and diminishes individuality. This specialization creates a society where holistic understanding becomes impossible, and bourgeois philosophy reinforces this fragmentation by prioritizing calculable, empirical facts over any unifying vision of reality.
For Lukács, bourgeois rationalism, with its reliance on abstract mathematics and calculability, excludes any meaningful engagement with the whole. It either confines itself to empirical reality or ventures into utopian speculation, neither of which can address the systemic contradictions of capitalism. The idealist dialectic, in its attempt to restore unity by emphasizing the subject’s creativity, fails to grasp the revolutionary potential of human praxis.
Reification cannot be overcome within the limits of bourgeois consciousness. Only the proletariat, through its unique position as both a commodity and the creator of social reality, can grasp the totality of the social mechanism. When the proletariat achieves class consciousness, it recognizes and rebels against the pervasive reification of social life. This awakening is not mere awareness but a revolutionary act that liberates humanity from objectification. For the proletariat, truth is not a passive reflection of an external reality but part of a historical process of emancipation.
Lukács saw the destruction of society as a proper solution to the "cultural contradiction of the epoch". In 1969, he cited:“Even though my ideas were confused from a theoretical point of view, I saw the revolutionary destruction of society as the one and only solution to the cultural contradictions of the epoch. Such a worldwide overturning of values cannot take place without the annihilation of the old values.
=== Literary and aesthetic work ===
In addition to his standing as a Marxist political thinker, Lukács was an influential literary critic of the twentieth century. His important work in literary criticism began early in his career, with The Theory of the Novel, a seminal work in literary theory and the theory of genre. The book is a history of the novel as a form, and an investigation into its distinct characteristics. In The Theory of the Novel, he coins the term "transcendental homelessness", which he defines as the "longing of all souls for the place in which they once belonged, and the 'nostalgia… for utopian perfection, a nostalgia that feels itself and its desires to be the only true reality'". Lukács maintains that "the novel is the necessary epic form of our time."
Lukács later repudiated The Theory of the Novel, writing a lengthy introduction that described it as erroneous, but nonetheless containing a "romantic anti-capitalism" which would later develop into Marxism. (This introduction also contains his famous dismissal of Theodor Adorno and others in Western Marxism as having taken up residence in the "Grand Hotel Abyss".)
Lukács's later literary criticism includes the well-known essay "Kafka or Thomas Mann?", in which Lukács argues for the work of Thomas Mann as a superior attempt to deal with the condition of modernity, and criticises Franz Kafka's brand of modernism. Lukács steadfastly opposed the formal innovations of modernist writers like Kafka, James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett, preferring the traditional aesthetic of realism.
During his time in Moscow in the 1930s, Lukács worked on Marxist views of aesthetics while belonging to the group around an influential Moscow magazine "The Literary Critic" (Literaturny Kritik). The editor of this magazine, Mikhail Lifshitz, was an important Soviet author on aesthetics. Lifshitz's views were very similar to Lukács's insofar as both argued for the value of traditional art; despite the drastic difference in age (Lifschitz was much younger), both Lifschitz and Lukács indicated that their working relationship at that time was a collaboration of equals. Lukács contributed frequently to this magazine, which was also followed by Marxist art theoreticians around the world through various translations published by the Soviet government.
The collaboration between Lifschitz and Lukács resulted in the formation of an informal circle of the like-minded Marxist intellectuals connected to the journal Literaturnyi Kritik [The Literary Critic], published monthly starting in the summer of 1933 by the Organisational Committee of the Writers' Union. ... A group of thinkers formed around Lifschitz, Lukács and Andrei Platonov; they were concerned with articulating the aesthetical views of Marx and creating a kind of Marxist aesthetics that had not yet been properly formulated.
Lukács famously argued for the revolutionary character of the novels of Sir Walter Scott and Honoré de Balzac. Lukács felt that both authors' nostalgic, pro-aristocratic politics allowed them accurate and critical stances because of their opposition (albeit reactionary) to the rising bourgeoisie. This view was expressed in his later book The Historical Novel (published in Russian in 1937, then in Hungarian in 1947), as well as in his essay "Realism in the Balance" (1938).
The Historical Novel is probably Lukács's most influential work of literary history. In it, he traces the development of the genre of historical fiction. While prior to 1789, he argues, people's consciousness of history was relatively underdeveloped, the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars that followed brought about a realisation of the constantly changing, evolving character of human existence. This new historical consciousness was reflected in the work of Sir Walter Scott, whose novels use 'representative' or 'typical' characters to dramatise major social conflicts and historical transformations, for example, the dissolution of feudal society in the Scottish Highlands and the entrenchment of mercantile capitalism. Lukács argues that Scott's new brand of historical realism was taken up by Balzac and Tolstoy, and enabled novelists to depict contemporary social life not as a static drama of fixed, universal types, but rather as a moment of history, constantly changing, open to the potential of revolutionary transformation. For this reason, he sees these authors as progressive and their work as potentially radical, despite their own personal conservative politics.
For Lukács, this historical realist tradition began to give way after the 1848 revolutions, when the bourgeoisie ceased to be a progressive force and their role as agents of history was usurped by the proletariat. After this time, historical realism begins to sicken and lose its concern with social life as inescapably historical. He illustrates this point by comparing Flaubert's historical novel Salammbô to that of the earlier realists. For him, Flaubert's work marks a turning away from relevant social issues and an elevation of style over substance. Why he does not discuss Sentimental Education, a novel much more overtly concerned with recent historical developments, is not clear. For much of his life Lukács promoted a return to the realist tradition that he believed had reached its height with Balzac and Scott, and bemoaned the supposed neglect of history that characterised modernism.
The Historical Novel has been hugely influential in subsequent critical studies of historical fiction, and no serious analyst of the genre fails to engage at some level with Lukács's arguments.
==== Critical and socialist realism ====
Lukács defined realistic literature as literature capable of relating human life to the totality. He distinguishes between two forms of realism, critical and socialist. Lukács argued that it was precisely the desire for a realistic depiction of life that enabled politically reactionary writers such as Balzac, Walter Scott and Tolstoy to produce great, timeless and socially progressive works. According to Lukács, there is a contradiction between worldview and talent among such writers. He greatly valued the comments made in that direction by Lenin on Tolstoy and especially by Engels on Balzac, where Engels describes the "triumph of realism":
Balzac boldly exposed the contradiction of nascent capitalist society and hence his observation of reality constantly clashed with his political prejudices. But as an honest artist he always depicted only what he himself saw, learned and underwent, concerning himself not at all whether his-true-to-life description of the things he saw contradicted his pet ideas.
Critical realists include writers who could not rise to the communist worldview, but despite this, tried to truthfully reflect the conflicts of the era, not content with the direct description of single events. A great story speaks through individual human destinies in their work. Such writers are not naturalists, allegorists and metaphysicians. They do not flee from the world into the isolated human soul and do not seek to raise its experiences to the rank of timeless, eternal and irresistible properties of human nature. Balzac, Tolstoy, Anatole France, Romain Rolland, George Bernard Shaw, Lion Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann are the brightest writers from the gallery of critical realists.
Lukács notes that realistic art is usually found either in highly developed countries or in countries undergoing a period of rapid socio-economic development, yet it is possible that backward countries often give rise to advanced literature precisely because of their backwardness, which they seek to overcome by artistic means. Lukács (together with Lifshitz) polemicized against the "vulgar sociological" thesis then dominant in Soviet literary criticism. The "vulgar sociologists" (associated with the former RAPP) prioritized class origin as the most important determinant for an artist and his work, categorizing artists and artistic genres as "feudal", "bourgeois", "petty-bourgeois" etc. Lukács and Lifshitz sought to prove that such great artists as Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe or Tolstoy were able to rise above their class worldview by grasping the dialectic of individual and society in its totality and depicting their relations truthfully.
All modernist art – avant-garde, naturalism, expressionism, surrealism, etc. – is the opposite of realism. This is decadent art, examples of which are the works of Kafka, Joyce, Musil, Beckett, etc. The main shortcoming of modernism, which predicts its inevitable defeat, is the inability to perceive the totality and carry out the act of mediation. One cannot blame the writer for describing loneliness, but one must show it in such a way that it is clear to everyone: human loneliness is an inevitable consequence of capitalist social relations. Whereas in Kafka, we meet with "ontological solitariness", depicted as a permanent situation of man and a universal value. In this regard, Kafka stops at the description of the phenomenon, given directly; he is not able to rise to the totality, which alone can reveal the meaning of loneliness. Therefore, Kafka acts like the naturalists. In order for the image of chaos, confusion and fear of the modern world and man to be realistic, the writer must show the social roots that generate all these phenomena. And if, like Joyce, one depicts the spiritual world and the sense of time of a person in a state of absolute decay, without bothering to search for reasons and prospects for a way out, then the writer gives a false image of the world, and his works must be recognized as immature.
So, modernism is deprived of a historical perspective, tying the person to positions and situations that are not really historically and socially determined. Modernism transforms such situations into transcendental qualities. The great images of great literature, Achilles and Werther, Oedipus and Tom Joad, Antigone and Anna Karenina, are social beings, for Aristotle already noted that man is a social being. And the heroes of modernist literature are torn out of their ties with society and history. Narrative becomes purely "subjective", the animal in man is opposed to the social in him, which corresponds to Heidegger's denial and condemnation of society as something impersonal. He wrote:
Literary and art history is a mass graveyard where many artists of talent rest in deserved oblivion because they neither sought nor found any association to the problems of advancing humanity and did not set themselves on the right side in the vital struggle between health and decay.
Barbara Stackman maintains that, for Lukács, decadents are decadent not because they depict illness and decay, but because they do not recognize the existence of health, of the social sphere that would reunite the alienated writer to the progressive forces of history. Sickness, then, is a reactionary mode of insertion into the class struggle; sickness, writes Lukács, "produces a complete overturning of values." Though "sick art" may have its dialectical moment in the sun (Lukács cites only Antigone as an example where that which is declining may even appear as human greatness and purity), it is destined for the dust heap of history, while "healthy art" is a "reflection of the lasting truth of human relationships."
On the other hand, socialist realism is recognized as the highest stage in the development of literature:
The prospect of socialist realism is, of course, the struggle for socialism. Socialist realism differs from critical realism not only in that it is based on a specific socialist perspective, but also in that it uses this perspective to describe from within the forces that work in favor of socialism. Critical realists have more than once described the political struggle of our time and depicted heroes – socialists and communists. But only socialist realists describe such heroes from the inside, thus identifying them with the forces of progress. The greatness of socialist realism lies in the fact that the historical totality, directed towards communism, becomes clear as daylight in any fragment of a given work.
In 1938, in his work Realism in the Balance, a polemic against Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Bertolt Brecht and Theodor Adorno, Lukács explained the lack of modernism in the Soviet Union in this way:
The more the domination of the proletariat strengthened, the more deeply and comprehensively socialism penetrated the economy of the Soviet Union, the wider and deeper the cultural revolution embraced the working masses, the stronger and more hopelessly "avant-garde" art was pushed out by an ever more conscious realism. The decline of expressionism is ultimately a consequence of the maturity of the revolutionary masses.
No less typical is his article "Propaganda or Partisanship?", in which he polemicizes against the definition of socialist art as "tendentious." Literature, in his opinion, should not be biased, but only "party-spirited" in the essence of taking the side of the class that is objectively progressive in the given historical moment. Tendentious literature eclectically connects "pure art" with politically alien elements brought in from outside. But such a program, which Franz Mehring once defended, means "the primacy of form over content" and contrasts the aesthetic and political elements of the work. This understanding of art, Lukács says, is Trotskyist.
Lukács' defense of socialist realism contained a critique of Stalinism and a condemnation of most of the party-propagandistic Soviet literature of the 1930s and 1940s (which was based on Andrei Zhdanov's doctrine of "conflictless art" and which Lukács dismissively called "illustrative" literature) as a distortion of true socialist realism. He acknowledged that Stalinism suffered from a lack of "mediation" in the field of cultural policy. Instead of describing the real conflicts of the life of a socialist society, Stalinist literature turned into bare schemes and abstractions, describing the general truths of theory and in no way "mediating" them with images taken from reality. The specificity of art was forgotten, and it turned into an instrument of agitation. Schematic optimism has spread in place of the historical. The heroes did not represent any of the typical qualities of the new society. Lenin's article "Party Organization and Party Literature", which, as Nadezhda Krupskaya said, dealt only with political literature, turned into a rule of artistic activity and its evaluation.
Despite all this criticism, Lukács never changed his basic conviction: socialist realism represents a "fundamentally" and "historically" higher stage in the development of art than all its predecessors.
The most surprising product of Lukács' discourse on socialist realism is his articles on Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom he considered to be the greatest "plebeian realist" writer of the twentieth century. Lukács welcomed the appearance of the writer's short stories and novellas as the first sign of the renaissance of socialist realism, since Solzhenitsyn, in describing camp life in A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, depicts everyday events as a symbol of an entire era. Nor is Solzhenitsyn a naturalist, since he refers the events described to the socio-historical totality and does not seek to restore capitalism in Russia. According to Lukács, Solzhenitsyn criticizes Stalinism from a plebeian, and not from a communist point of view. And if he does not overcome this weakness, then his artistic talent will decrease.
=== Ontology of social being ===
Later in life, Lukács undertook a major exposition on the ontology of social being, which has been partly published in English in three volumes. The work is a systematic treatment of dialectical philosophy in its materialist form.
== Bibliography ==
History and Class Consciousness (1972). ISBN 0-262-62020-0.
The Theory of the Novel (1974). ISBN 0-262-62027-8.
Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought (1998). ISBN 1-85984-174-0.
A Defense of History and Class Consciousness (2000). ISBN 1-85984-747-1.
The culture of people's democracy : Hungarian essays on literature, art, and democratic transition, 1945-1948 (2013). ISBN 9789004217270
== See also ==
Lajos Jánossy, Lukács's adopted son
Marx's notebooks on the history of technology
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Sources ===
== Further reading ==
Fekete, Eva and Karadi, Eva (ed.), Gyorgy Lukacs : his life in pictures and documents. Budapest : Corvina Kiado, 1981.
Furner, James. "Commodity Form Philosophy," in Marx on Capitalism: The Interaction-Recognition-Antinomy Thesis. (Leiden: Brill, 2018). pp. 85–128.
Gerhardt, Christina. "Georg Lukács," The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 to the Present. 8 vols. Ed. Immanuel Ness (Malden: Blackwell, 2009). 2135–2137.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe. "The Scholar, The Intellectual, And The Essay: Weber, Lukács, Adorno, And Postwar Germany," German Quarterly 70.3 (1997): 217–231.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe "Art Work And Modernity: The Legacy of Georg Lukács," New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies 42.(1987): 33–49.
Hohendahl, Peter Uwe, and Blackwell Jeanine. "Georg Lukács in the GDR: On Recent Developments in Literary Theory," New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies 12.(1977): 169–174.
Holz, Hans Heinz (et al.), Conversations with Lukács, Cambridge, Mass : MIT Press, 1974.
Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Form: Twentieth-century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
Jay, Martin, Marxism and totality : the adventures of a concept from Lukács to Habermas, Berkeley : University of California Press, 1984.
Kadarkay, Arpad (ed.), The Lukács reader. Oxford : Blackwell, 1995.
Marcus, Judith and Tar, Zoltan (ed.), Georg Lukacs : selected correspondence, 1902-1920 : dialogues with Weber, Simmel, Buber, Mannheim, and others. New York : Columbia University Press, 1986.
Morgan, W. John, 'Political Commissar and Cultural Critic: Georg Lukács'. Chapter 6 in Morgan, W. John, Communists on Education and Culture 1848–1948, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 83–102. ISBN 0-333-48586-6
Morgan, W. John, ‘Georg Lukács: cultural policy, Stalinism, and the Communist International.’ International Journal of Cultural Policy, 12 (3), 2006, pp. 257–271.
Stern, L. "George Lukacs: An Intellectual Portrait," Dissent, vol. 5, no. 2 (Spring 1958), pp. 162–173.
== External links ==
Works by György Lukács at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about György Lukács at the Internet Archive
Georg Lukács Archive, Marxists website
Guide to Literary Theory Archived 1 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine, Johns Hopkins University Press
Georg Lukács, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Petri Liukkonen. "György Lukács". Books and Writers.
Bendl Júlia, "Lukács György élete a századfordulótól 1918-ig"
Lukács and Imre Lakatos
Hungarian biography
Georg Lukács Archive, Libertarian Communist Library
Múlt-kor Történelmi portál (Past-Age Historic Portal): Lukács György was born 120 years ago (in Hungarian)
Levee Blanc, "Georg Lukács: The Antinomies of Melancholy", Other Voices, Vol.1 no.1, 1998.
Michael J. Thompson, "Lukacs Revisited" New Politics, 2001, Issue 30
Realism in the Balance |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Jump_Cannon#:~:text=Pickering%20made%20the%20Catalogue%20a,on%20200%20stars%20an%20hour. | Annie Jump Cannon | Annie Jump Cannon (; December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941) was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. With Edward C. Pickering, she is credited with the creation of the Harvard Classification Scheme, which was the first serious attempt to organize and classify stars based on their temperatures and spectral types. She was nearly deaf throughout her career after 1893, as a result of scarlet fever. She was a suffragist and a member of the National Women's Party.
== Personal life ==
Cannon was born on December 11, 1863, in Dover, Delaware. She was the eldest of three daughters born to Wilson Cannon, a Delaware shipbuilder and state senator, and his second wife, Mary Jump. Cannon's mother was the first person to teach her the constellations and she encouraged her to follow her own interests, suggesting that she pursue studies in mathematics, chemistry, and biology at Wellesley College. Cannon and her mother used an old astronomy textbook to identify stars seen from their attic. Cannon's mother also taught her daughter household economics, which Cannon would later use to organize her research.
Cannon took her mother's advice and pursued her love of astronomy. She lost most of her hearing sometime during her early adult years. Sources vary on the time frame and actual cause, although it is often attributed to scarlet fever. Cannon's personality has been described as "ebullient". She chose not to marry or have children.
== Education, 1880–1896 ==
At Wilmington Conference Academy (later known as Wesley College), Cannon was a promising student, particularly in mathematics. In 1880, Cannon was sent to Wellesley College in Massachusetts, one of the top academic schools for women in the US, where she studied physics and astronomy.
Cannon studied under Sarah Frances Whiting, one of the few women physicists in the United States at the time, and went on to become the valedictorian at Wellesley College. She graduated with a degree in physics in 1884 and returned home to Delaware for a decade.
During these years, Cannon developed her skills in the new art of photography. In 1892, she traveled through Europe taking photographs with her Blair box camera. After she returned home her prose and photos from Spain were published in a pamphlet called "In the Footsteps of Columbus", published by the Blair Company and distributed as a souvenir at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Soon afterward, Cannon was stricken with scarlet fever that rendered her nearly deaf. This hearing loss made it difficult for Cannon to socialize. As a result, she immersed herself in her work. In 1894, Cannon's mother died and life at home grew more difficult. She wrote to her former instructor at Wellesley, professor Sarah Frances Whiting, to see if there was a job opening. Whiting hired her as a junior physics teacher at the college. This opportunity allowed Cannon to take graduate courses at the college in physics and astronomy. Whiting also inspired Cannon to learn about spectroscopy.
In order to gain access to a better telescope, Cannon enrolled at Radcliffe College in 1894 as a "special student", continuing her studies of astronomy. Radcliffe was set up near Harvard College for Harvard professors to repeat their lectures to the young Radcliffe women. This relationship gave Cannon access to the Harvard College Observatory. In 1896, Edward C. Pickering hired her as his assistant at the Observatory. In 1907, Cannon finished her studies and received her master's degree from Wellesley College.
== Career, 1896–1940 ==
In 1896, Cannon became a member of the Harvard Computers, a group of women hired by Harvard Observatory director Edward C. Pickering to complete the Henry Draper Catalogue, with the goal of mapping and defining every star in the sky to a photographic magnitude of about 9. In her notes, she referred to brightness as "Int" which was short for "intensity". In 1927, Pickering said that she was able to classify stars very quickly, "Miss Cannon is the only person in the world—man or woman—who can do this work so quickly." Mary Anna Draper, the widow of wealthy physician and amateur astronomer Henry Draper, had set up a fund to support the work. Men at the laboratory did the labor of operating the telescopes and taking photographs while the women examined the data, carried out astronomical calculations, and cataloged those photographs during the day. Pickering made the Catalogue a long-term project to obtain the optical spectra of as many stars as possible and to index and classify stars by spectra.
When Cannon first started cataloging the stars, she was able to classify 1,000 stars in three years, but by 1913, she was able to work on 200 stars an hour. Cannon could classify three stars a minute just by looking at their spectral patterns and, if using a magnifying glass, could classify stars down to the ninth magnitude, around 16 times fainter than the human eye can see. Her work was also highly accurate.
Not long after work began on the Draper Catalogue, a disagreement developed as to how to classify the stars. The analysis was first started by Nettie Farrar, who left a few months later to be married. This left the problem to the ideas of Henry Draper's niece Antonia Maury (who insisted on a complex classification system) and Williamina Fleming (who was overseeing the project for Pickering, and wanted a much more simple, straightforward approach). Cannon negotiated a compromise: she started by examining the bright southern hemisphere stars. To these stars, she applied a third system, a division of stars into the spectral classes O, B, A, F, G, K, M. Her scheme was based on the strength of the Balmer absorption lines. After absorption lines were understood in terms of stellar temperatures, her initial classification system was rearranged to avoid having to update star catalogs.
In 1901, Cannon published her first catalog of stellar spectra.
Cannon and the other women at the observatory, including Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Antonia Maury, and Florence Cushman, were criticized at first for being "out of their place" and not being housewives. Women did not commonly rise beyond the level of assistant in this line of work at the time and many were paid only 25 cents an hour to work seven hours a day, six days a week. Leavitt, another woman in the observatory who made significant contributions, shared with Cannon the experience of being deaf. Cannon dominated this field because of her "tidiness" and patience for the tedious work and even helped the men in the observatory gain popularity. Cannon helped broker partnerships and exchanges of equipment between men in the international community and assumed an ambassador-like role outside of it.
In 1911 she was made the Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard. In 1914, she was admitted as an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1921, she became one of the first women to receive an honorary doctorate from a European university when she was awarded an honorary doctor's degree in math and astronomy from Groningen University.
On May 9, 1922, the International Astronomical Union passed the resolution to formally adopt Cannon's stellar classification system; with only minor changes, it is still being used for classification today. Also in 1922, Cannon spent six months in Arequipa, Peru, to photograph stars in the Southern hemisphere.
In 1925, she became the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate of science from Oxford University.
In 1933, she represented professional women at the World's Fair in Chicago (Century of Progress).In 1935, she created the Annie J. Cannon Prize for "the woman of any country, whose contributions to the science of astronomy are the most distinguished."
In 1938, she became the William C. Bond Astronomer at Harvard University.
The astronomer Cecilia Payne collaborated with Cannon and used Cannon's data to show that the stars were composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.
== Later life and death, 1940–1941 ==
Annie Jump Cannon's career in astronomy lasted for more than 40 years, until her retirement in 1940. After retirement she continued to actively work on astronomy in the observatory up until a few weeks before she died. During her career, Cannon helped women gain acceptance and respect within the scientific community. Her calm and hardworking attitude and demeanor helped her gain respect throughout her lifetime and paved the path for future women astronomers.
Cannon died on April 13, 1941, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 77. She died in a hospital after being ill for more than a month. The American Astronomical Society presents the Annie Jump Cannon Award annually to female astronomers for distinguished work in astronomy.
== Work ==
Cannon manually classified more stars in a lifetime than anyone else, with a total of around 350,000 stars. She discovered 300 variable stars, five novas, and one spectroscopic binary, creating a bibliography that included about 200,000 references.
== Awards and honors ==
1921, honorary doctorate from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands
1925, first woman recipient of an honorary doctorate from Oxford University
1925, elected to the American Philosophical Society
1929, chosen as one of the "greatest living American women" by the League of Women Voters.
1931, first woman to receive the Henry Draper Medal
1932, won the Ellen Richards prize from the Association to Aid Scientific Research by Woman
1935, received an honorary degree from Oglethorpe University
First woman elected as officer of the American Astronomical Society
The lunar crater Cannon is named after her.
The asteroid 1120 Cannonia is named after her.
Nicknamed "Census Taker of the Sky" for classifying 300,000 stellar bodies, more than any other person
The Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy named in her honor; awarded since 1934 (now annually) to a woman astronomer in North America.
Cannon Hall, a residence dormitory at the University of Delaware, named in her honor.
The Annie Jump Cannon House, was the residence of the President of Wesley College in Dover, Delaware, before the college's acquisition by Delaware State University in July 2021.
Named Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard.
Member of the Royal Astronomical Society in Europe.
Honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Wellesley College
Charter member of the Maria Mitchell Association
She is among the list of women in the Heritage Floor as part of Judy Chicago's art installation The Dinner Party.
1994, Cannon is inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
In 2014, a Google Doodle honoring her and her work appeared.
In 2019, she was depicted on Delaware's American Innovation $1 Coin.
== Bibliography ==
Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). Henry Draper Catalogue. Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. LCCN 18018382. OCLC 809461762.
Available in an "updated, corrected, and extended machine-readable version" at "Henry Draper Catalogue and Extension (Cannon+ 1918–1924; ADC 1989)". VizieR archives. Strasbourg, France: Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg [Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center]. Retrieved January 8, 2015.
Online from Harvard University at "The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System".; abstracts link to GIF and PDF formats.
Cannon, Annie J.; Pickering, Edward C. (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue 0h, 1h, 2h, and 3h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 91: 1. Bibcode:1918AnHar..91....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 4h, 5h and 6h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 92: 1. Bibcode:1918AnHar..92....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 7h and 8h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 93: 1. Bibcode:1919AnHar..93....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 9h, 10h, and 11h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 94: 1. Bibcode:1919AnHar..94....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 12h, 13h, and 14h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 95: 1. Bibcode:1920AnHar..95....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 15h and 16h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 96: 1. Bibcode:1921AnHar..96....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 17h and 18h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 97: 1. Bibcode:1922AnHar..97....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 19h and 20h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 98: 1. Bibcode:1923AnHar..98....1C.
Cannon, Annie Jump; Pickering, Edward Charles (1918). "The Henry Draper catalogue : 21h, 22h, and 23h". Annals of Harvard College Observatory. 99: 1. Bibcode:1924AnHar..99....1C.
—— (1923). "The spectrum of Nova Aquilae". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 81 (3): 179. Bibcode:1923AnHar..81..179C. OCLC 786374390.
—— (1916). "Spectra having bright lines". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 76 (3): 19. Bibcode:1916AnHar..76...19C. OCLC 786374401.
—— (1912). "Comparison of objective prism and slit spectrograms". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 56 (8): 251. Bibcode:1912AnHar..56..251C. OCLC 786374385.
—— (1912). "The spectra of 745 double stars". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 56 (7): 227. Bibcode:1912AnHar..56..227C. OCLC 786374368.
—— (1912). "Classification of 1,688 southern stars by means of their spectra". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 56 (5): 115. Bibcode:1912AnHar..56..115C. OCLC 786363259.
—— (1912). "Classification of 1,477 stars by means of their photographic spectra". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 56 (4): 65. Bibcode:1912AnHar..56...65C. OCLC 786374355.
——; Pickering, Edward Charles (1909). "Maxima and minima of variable stars of long period". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 55 (pt. 2): 95. Bibcode:1909AnHar..55...95C. OCLC 786370272.
——; Pickering, Edward Charles (1907). "Second catalogue of variable stars". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 55 (pt. 1): 1. Bibcode:1907AnHar..55....1C. OCLC 603459862.
—— (1903). "A provisional catalogue of variable stars". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 48 (3): 91. Bibcode:1903AnHar..48...91P. OCLC 786370792.
——; Pickering, Edward Charles (1901). "Spectra of bright southern stars photographed with the 13-inch Boyden telescope as a part of the Henry Draper Memorial". Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. 28 (pt. 2): 129. Bibcode:1901AnHar..28..129C. OCLC 786363059.
== See also ==
Harvard Computers
Henry Draper Catalogue
"Sisters of the Sun", eighth episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, 2014 American science documentary television series
Deaf in STEM fields
== References ==
== Sources ==
Des Jardins, Julie (2010). The Madame Curie Complex—The Hidden History of Women in Science. New York, NY, US: Feminist Press. ISBN 9781558616554. OCLC 618891417.
Dvorak, John (August 1, 2013). "The Women Who Created Modern Astronomy". Sky and Telescope. 126 (2): 28–33. Bibcode:2013S&T...126b..28D. ISSN 0037-6604. OCLC 907890766.
Mack, Pamela (1990). "Straying from their orbits: Women in astronomy in America". In Kass-Simon, G.; Farnes, Patricia; Nash, Deborah (eds.). Women of Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington, IN, US: Indiana University Press. p. 91. ISBN 9780253208132. OCLC 28112853. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
Reynolds, Moira Davison (2004). American Women Scientists: 23 Inspiring Biographies, 1900–2000. Jefferson, NC, US: McFarland. ISBN 9780786421619. OCLC 60686608.
Sobel, Dava (2016). The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. Penguin. ISBN 9780670016952.
Welther, Barbara L. (October 1978). "Highlights of an Exhibit to Honor Annie Jump Cannon". The Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. 7 (2): 85–87. Bibcode:1978JAVSO...7...85W.
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Annie Jump Cannon audio talk with colleagues from 365DaysOfAstronomy.Org
Wellesley College Astronomy Department: Annie Jump Cannon Archived December 12, 2012, at archive.today from Wellesley College
Bibliography on Women in Astronomy from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Annie Jump Cannon: Theorist of Star Spectra, from the San Diego Supercomputer Center
"In the footsteps of Columbus" by Annie Jump Cannon (souvenir photo book handed out at the 1893 Worlds Fair by the Blair Camera Company)
Google Doodle celebrating Annie Jump Cannon's 151st Birthday
Project Continua: Biography of Annie Jump Cannon Project Continua is a web-based multimedia resource dedicated to the creation and preservation of women's intellectual history from the earliest surviving evidence into the 21st Century.
Papers of Annie Jump Cannon, 1863–1978 at Harvard University.
Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy at American Astronomical Society
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Annie Jump Cannon", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
Annie Jump Cannon – Delaware Almanac on YouTube |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Rising_Sun_(anthem) | Land of the Rising Sun (anthem) | Land of the Rising Sun was the proclaimed national anthem of the secessionist African state of Biafra, formerly known as Eastern Region, Nigeria. The lyrics were written by Nnamdi Azikiwe, and the tune was adopted from Jean Sibelius' "Finlandia", as Biafran president Emeka Ojukwu enjoyed the musical works of Sibelius.
== Lyrics ==
Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish,
Beloved homeland of our brave heroes;
We must defend our lives or we shall perish,
We shall protect our hearth from all our foes;
But if the price is death for all we hold dear,
Then let us die without a shred of fear.
Hail to Biafra, consecrated nation,
O fatherland, this be our solemn pledge:
Defending thee shall be a dedication,
Spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege;
The waving standard which emboldens the free
Shall always be our flag of liberty.
We shall emerge triumphant from this ordeal,
And through the crucible unscathed we’ll pass;
When we are poised the wounds of battle to heal,
We shall remember those who died in mass;
Then shall our trumpets peal the glorious song
Of victory we scored o’er might and wrong.
Oh God, protect us from the hidden pitfall,
Guide all our movements lest we go astray;
Give us the strength to heed the humanist call:
To give and not to count the cost’ each day;
Bless those who rule to serve with resoluteness,
To make this clime a land of righteousness.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_Theorist#:~:text=Logic%20Theorist%20is%20a%20computer,the%20first%20artificial%20intelligence%20program%22. | Logic Theorist | Logic Theorist is a computer program written in 1956 by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon, and Cliff Shaw. It was the first program deliberately engineered to perform automated reasoning, and has been described as "the first artificial intelligence program". Logic Theorist proved 38 of the first 52 theorems in chapter two of Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica, and found new and shorter proofs for some of them.
== History ==
In 1955, when Newell and Simon began to work on the Logic Theorist, the field of artificial intelligence did not yet exist; the term "artificial intelligence" would not be coined until the following summer.
Simon was a political scientist who had previously studied the way bureaucracies function as well as developing his theory of bounded rationality (for which he would later win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978). He believed the study of business organizations requires, like artificial intelligence, an insight into the nature of human problem solving and decision making. Simon has stated that when consulting at RAND Corporation in the early 1950s, he saw a printer typing out a map, using ordinary letters and punctuation as symbols. This led him to think that a machine that could manipulate symbols could simulate decision making and possibly even the process of human thought.
The program that printed the map had been written by Newell, a RAND scientist studying logistics and organization theory. For Newell, the decisive moment was in 1954 when Oliver Selfridge came to RAND to describe his work on pattern matching. Watching the presentation, Newell suddenly understood how the interaction of simple, programmable units could accomplish complex behavior, including the intelligent behavior of human beings. "It all happened in one afternoon," he would later say. It was a rare moment of scientific epiphany.
"I had such a sense of clarity that this was a new path, and one I was going to go down. I haven't had that sensation very many times. I'm pretty skeptical, and so I don't normally go off on a toot, but I did on that one. Completely absorbed in it—without existing with the two or three levels consciousness so that you're working, and aware that you're working, and aware of the consequences and implications, the normal mode of thought. No. Completely absorbed for ten to twelve hours."
Newell and Simon began to talk about the possibility of teaching machines to think. Their first project was a program that could prove mathematical theorems like the ones used in Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. They enlisted the help of computer programmer Cliff Shaw, also from RAND, to develop the program. (Newell says "Cliff was the genuine computer scientist of the three".)
The first version was hand-simulated: they wrote the program onto 3x5 cards and, as Simon recalled:In January 1956, we assembled my wife and three children together with some graduate students. To each member of the group, we gave one of the cards, so that each one became, in effect, a component of the computer program ... Here was nature imitating art imitating nature.
They succeeded in showing that the program could successfully prove theorems as well as a talented mathematician. Eventually Shaw was able to run the program on the computer at RAND's Santa Monica facility.
In the summer of 1956, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Claude Shannon and Nathan Rochester organized a conference on the subject of what they called "artificial intelligence" (a term coined by McCarthy for the occasion). Newell and Simon proudly presented the group with the Logic Theorist. It was met with a lukewarm reception. Pamela McCorduck writes "the evidence is that nobody save Newell and Simon themselves sensed the long-range significance of what they were doing." Simon confides that "we were probably fairly arrogant about it all" and adds:
They didn't want to hear from us, and we sure didn't want to hear from them: we had something to show them! ... In a way it was ironic because we already had done the first example of what they were after; and second, they didn't pay much attention to it.
Logic Theorist soon proved 38 of the first 52 theorems in chapter 2 of the Principia Mathematica. The proof of theorem 2.85 was actually more elegant than the proof produced laboriously by hand by Russell and Whitehead. Simon was able to show the new proof to Russell himself who "responded with delight". They attempted to publish the new proof in The Journal of Symbolic Logic, but it was rejected on the grounds that a new proof of an elementary mathematical theorem was not notable, apparently overlooking the fact that one of the authors was a computer program.
Newell and Simon formed a lasting partnership, founding one of the first AI laboratories at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and developing a series of influential artificial intelligence programs and ideas, including the General Problem Solver, Soar, and their unified theory of cognition.
== Architecture ==
The Logic Theorist is a program that performs logical processes on logical expressions. The Logic Theorist operates on the following principles:
=== Expressions ===
An expression is made of elements.
There are two kinds of memories: working and storage.
Each working memory contains a single element. The Logic Theorist usually uses 1 to 3 working memories.
Each storage memory is a list representing a full expression or a set of elements. In particular, it contains all the axioms and proven logical theorems.
An expression is an abstract syntax tree, each node being an element with up to 11 attributes.
For example, the logical expression
¬
P
→
(
Q
∧
¬
P
)
{\displaystyle \neg P\to (Q\wedge \neg P)}
is represented as a tree with a root element representing
→
{\displaystyle \to }
. Among the attributes of the root element are pointers to the two elements representing the subexpressions
¬
P
{\displaystyle \neg P}
and
Q
∧
¬
P
{\displaystyle Q\wedge \neg P}
.
=== Processes ===
There are four kinds of processes, from the lowest to the highest level.
Instruction: These are similar to assembly code. They may either perform a primitive operation on an expression in working memory, or perform a conditional jump to another instruction. An example is "put the right sub-element of working-memory 1 to working-memory 2"
Elementary process: These are similar to subroutines. A sequence of instructions that can be called.
Method: A sequence of elementary processes. There are 4 methods:
substitution: given an expression, it attempts to transform it to a proven theorem or axiom by substitutions of variables and logical connectives.
detachment: given expression
B
{\displaystyle B}
, it attempts to find a proven theorem or axiom of form
A
→
B
′
{\displaystyle A\to B'}
, where
B
′
{\displaystyle B'}
yields
B
{\displaystyle B}
after substitution, then attempts to prove
A
{\displaystyle A}
by substitution.
chaining forward: given expression
A
→
C
{\displaystyle A\to C}
, it attempts to find for a proven theorem or axiom of form
A
→
B
{\displaystyle A\to B}
, then attempt to prove
B
→
C
{\displaystyle B\to C}
by substitution.
chaining backward: given expression
A
→
C
{\displaystyle A\to C}
, it attempts to find for a proven theorem or axiom of form
B
→
C
{\displaystyle B\to C}
, then attempt to prove
A
→
B
{\displaystyle A\to B}
by substitution.
executive control method: This method applies each of the 4 methods in sequence to each theorem to be proved.
== Logic Theorist's influence on AI ==
Logic Theorist introduced several concepts that would be central to AI research:
Reasoning as search
Logic Theorist explored a search tree: the root was the initial hypothesis, each branch was a deduction based on the rules of logic. Somewhere in the tree was the goal: the proposition the program intended to prove. The pathway along the branches that led to the goal was a proof – a series of statements, each deduced using the rules of logic, that led from the hypothesis to the proposition to be proved.
Heuristics
Newell and Simon realized that the search tree would grow exponentially and that they needed to "trim" some branches, using "rules of thumb" to determine which pathways were unlikely to lead to a solution. They called these ad hoc rules "heuristics", using a term introduced by George Pólya in his classic book on mathematical proof, How to Solve It. (Newell had taken courses from Pólya at Stanford). Heuristics would become an important area of research in artificial intelligence and remains an important method to overcome the intractable combinatorial explosion of exponentially growing searches.
List processing
To implement Logic Theorist on a computer, the three researchers developed a programming language, IPL, which used the same form of symbolic list processing that would later form the basis of McCarthy's Lisp programming language, an important language still used by AI researchers.
== Philosophical implications ==
Pamela McCorduck writes that the Logic Theorist was "proof positive that a machine could perform tasks heretofore considered intelligent, creative and uniquely human". And, as such, it represents a milestone in the development of artificial intelligence and our understanding of intelligence in general.
Simon told a graduate class in January 1956, "Over Christmas, Al Newell and I invented a thinking machine,"
and would write:
[We] invented a computer program capable of thinking non-numerically, and thereby solved the venerable mind-body problem, explaining how a system composed of matter can have the properties of mind.
This statement, that machines can have minds just as people do, would be later named "Strong AI" by philosopher John Searle. It remains a serious subject of debate up to the present day.
Pamela McCorduck also sees in the Logic Theorist the debut of a new theory of the mind, the information processing model (sometimes called computationalism or cognitivism). She writes that "this view would come to be central to their later work, and in their opinion, as central to understanding mind in the 20th century as Darwin's principle of natural selection had been to understanding biology in the nineteenth century." Newell and Simon would later formalize this proposal as the physical symbol systems hypothesis.
== Notes ==
== Citations ==
== References ==
Crevier, Daniel (1993). AI: The Tumultuous Search for Artificial Intelligence. New York, NY: BasicBooks. ISBN 0-465-02997-3., pp. 44–46.
McCorduck, Pamela (2004), Machines Who Think (2nd ed.), Natick, Massachusetts: A. K. Peters, ISBN 1-5688-1205-1, pp. 161–170.
Russell, Stuart J.; Norvig, Peter. (2021). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th ed.). Hoboken: Pearson. ISBN 9780134610993. LCCN 20190474.
== External links ==
Newell and Simon's RAND Corporation report on the Logic Theorist
Full length version of Newell and Simon's RAND Corporation report on the Logic Theorist
CMU Libraries: Human and Machine Minds
Source code as PDF on Github |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Thompson#:~:text=Thompson%20was%20given%20an%20Inkpot%20Award%20in%202001. | Kim Thompson | Kim Thompson (September 25, 1956 – June 19, 2013) was an American comic book editor, translator, and publisher, best known as vice president and co-publisher of Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books. Along with co-publisher Gary Groth, Thompson used his position to further the cause of alternative comics in the American market. In addition, Thompson made it his business to bring the work of European cartoonists to American readers.
== Early life ==
Kim Thompson was born in Denmark in 1956. Child of a government contractor father, Thompson spent much of his youth in Europe, living in West Germany and the Netherlands. His mother was Danish, and Thompson grew up speaking the language, a skill which aided his later career as a translator of European comic books. (He was also fluent in French.)
Thompson developed an interest in comics early in life, some of his favorites being the works of André Franquin, Maurice Tillieux,Jacques Tardi, and Jean "Mœbius" Giraud. As a young man, Thompson was a frequent contributor to American superhero comic book letter columns, with letters published in (among others) Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Conan the Barbarian, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Marvel Spotlight, and Marvel-Two-in-One. Early writing work by Thompson was published in the comics fanzine Omniverse fanzine in 1979.
== Career ==
=== Fantagraphics ===
Thompson moved to the United States in 1977, and soon met Groth through a mutual friend. He joined Fantagraphics' staff in that year, and soon became a co-owner with Groth. In 1978, Thompson saved Fantagraphics from bankruptcy by pouring his inheritance into the company's financial coffers.
Thompson was a regular contributor to the industry magazine The Comics Journal (which is published by Fantagraphics) since 1977. Although soft-spoken in person, as a writer Thompson did not shy from controversy. Even though he personally reviewed Dave Sim's long-running self-published comic Cerebus in early issues of The Comics Journal, Thompson (along with Groth) later took Sim to task in its pages for Sim's controversial statements about feminism and self-publishing.
Thompson was also a regular contributor to the (now defunct) Fantagraphics-published magazine Amazing Heroes, writing for that journal from 1981 to 1987.
Since Fantagraphics began publishing comics in 1982, Thompson edited many of the company's most popular titles, including Peter Bagge's Hate, Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library, Joe Sacco's Palestine, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Linda Medley's Castle Waiting, and anthologies like Critters and Zero Zero.
Thompson's last major Fantagraphics release was a remastered and expanded new edition of Guy Peellaert's landmark graphic novel The Adventures of Jodelle (1966) for which Thompson also provided a new translation from the French.
==== Translator ====
A long-time champion of European comics, Thompson translated the work of a number of international cartoonists published by Fantagraphics, as well as material used in The Comics Journal. He was also the regular translator of the Ignatz Series co-published by Fantagraphics. Thompson described his translation work for Fantagraphics this way:
I translate pretty much every European foreign-language cartoonist we publish except for Matti Hagelberg who is Finnish (Finnish is well outside of my area of expertise). ... A more or less complete list of cartoonists whose comics I've worked on in the last couple years would be Nikoline Werdelin (Danish); Joost Swarte (Dutch); David B., Emile Bravo, Killoffer, Jacques Tardi, and Lewis Trondheim (French); Nicolas Mahler (German); Gabriella Giandelli, Igort, Leila Marzocchi, and Sergio Ponchione (Italian); Jason (Norwegian or French); Max (Spanish); and Martin Kellerman (Swedish). ... In case you're wondering, I don't actually speak all of those languages, but I can read them, more or less in some cases. ... Danish is my native language. Swedish and Norwegian are so close to Danish ... that with a little work any Dane can read them pretty well, as I do. I learned Spanish in high school and kept up with it. I lived for six years in Germany and also studied German in high school, so that stuck with me too. I lived for three years in Holland. Italian is my weakest language, I sort of plow my way through that thanks to French and Spanish and use of a dictionary — but all my Italian translations I always check with the authors anyway.
=== Illness and death ===
On March 6, 2013, Thompson announced he had lung cancer and was taking a leave of absence from Fantagraphics to pursue treatment. He died on June 19, 2013, at his home, at the age of 56, survived by his wife, Lynn Emmert, as well as his mother, father, and brother.
== Awards ==
Thompson was given an Inkpot Award in 2001.
He was a 1996 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards nominee for Best Editor for The Acme Novelty Library, Palestine, and Zero Zero.
In early October 2021, Kim was posthumously awarded the inaugural Tom Spurgeon Award at the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus’ (CXC) seventh festival. Fellow awardees (both also posthumous) included syndicate manager Mollie Slott and All-Negro Comics founder and publisher Orrin C. Evans. The Tom Spurgeon Award is aimed at recognizing the role of non-cartoonists — living and deceased — in supporting the broader medium.
== Tributes ==
Comics journalist Tom Spurgeon:
. . . Thompson has worked the last several years transforming the longtime alternative comics company he co-owns into a small but potent comics, art book, and graphic novel publishing house. . . . [H]e has been one of North America's most effective advocates for translated books from the rich French-language tradition. He is also a talented editor, a fine interviewer . . . and generally informed and involved when it comes to all aspects of how that company functions. If Fantagraphics were a car, Kim would be the guy in the jumpsuit and dirty fingernails constantly poking around under its hood.
Comics critic R. Fiore:
If he had told you 36 years ago that he would one day be the publisher of Robert Crumb, Charles Schulz, Walt Kelly, Carl Barks, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Hergé, Jacques Tardi, and EC Comics, together with much of the Mount Rushmore of a comics era yet undreamed of, you would have said, "Will this be before or after you've laid all the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders?" ... And yet it all came to pass.
Above all, creatively speaking, his loss will be a terrible blow to French comics in English. ... Where even the best translations of comics French, up to and including the renowned work of Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge on Asterix, will come out somewhat stilted, Kim's come off as idiomatic and natural English. If you were Fantagraphics this skill was just there, like water in the tap.
== Bibliography ==
"Devoured By His Own Fantasies", introduction to Optimism of Youth: The Underground Work of Jack Jackson, Fantagraphics, 1991. (with Gary Groth)
"Introduction". in Mézières, Jean-Claude and Christin, Pierre. Valerian: The New Future Trilogy. New York: iBooks (2004). pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-7434-8674-9.
=== Translated works ===
B, David, 2011. The armed garden and other stories. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
B, David, 2006a. Babel. 2 2. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
B, David, 2006b. Epileptic. Pantheon Books, New York.
B, David, MacOrlan, P., 2010. The littlest pirate king. Fantagraphics; Turnaround [distributor], Seattle, Wash.; London.
Blanquet, 2010. Toys in the basement. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Corona, M., 2007a. Reflections. 2. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Corona, M., 2007b. Reflections. 3. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Corona, M., 2006. Reflections. 1. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Forest, J.-C., Tardi, J., Kusa, B., Lees, G., 2009. You are There. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Franquin, A., 2013. Franquin's Last Laugh. Fantagraphics Books.
Franquin, Jidéhem, Greg, M., 1995. Z is for Zorglub. Fantasy Flight Pub., [United States].
Ghermandi, F., 2005. Grenuord. 1 1. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Ghermandi, F., 2003. The wipeout. Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA.
Giandelli, G., 2012. Interiorae, 1 edition. ed. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.; London.
Gipi, 2006. They found the car. Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA.
Gipi, 2005. Wish you were here. 1, 1,. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Igort, 2008. Baobab 3. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Igort, 2006. Baobab 2. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna].
Igort, 2005. Baobab 1. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle, WA; [Bologna, Italy?].
Jason, 2013. Lost Cat.
Jason, 2011. Athos in America.
Jason, 2010. What I did. Fantagraphics Books; Distributed in the U.S. by W.W. Norton, Seattle, WA; [New York].
Jason, 2009a. Almost silent. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle.
Jason, 2009b. Low moon. Fantagraphics Books; Distributed in the U.S. by W.W. Norton, Seattle, WA; [New York].
Jason, 2008a. Pocket full of rain: and other stories. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash.
Jason, 2008b. The Left Bank gang. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash. - Winner of the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material Award in 2007 "The Eisner Awards". Comic Con San Diego. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
Jason, 2007. The last musketeer. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA. - Winner of the Eisner Best U.S. Edition of International Material Award in 2009 "The Eisner Awards". Comic Con San Diego. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
Jason, 2006a. Meow, baby! Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Jason, 2006b. The Living and the Dead.
Jason, 2005. Why are you doing this? Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Jason, 2004. You can't get there from here. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle.
Jason, 2001. Hey, wait--. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Jason, Elvestad, S., 2003. The iron wagon. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash.
Kellerman, M., 2005a. Rocky 1. Fantagraphics; Turnaround [distributor], Seattle, Wash.; London.
Kellerman, M., 2005b. Rocky 2. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Kellerman, M., 2005c. Rocky 3. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Kellerman, M., 2005d. Rocky 4. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Lehmann, M., 2006. Hwy 115. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Lopez, F.S., Lopez, G.S., 1991. Ana. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash.
Macherot, R., 2011. Sibyl-Anne vs. Ratticus. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash.
Mahler, 2012. Angelman: fallen angel. Fantagraphics; Turnaround [distributor], Seattle, Wash.; London.
Manara, M., Fellini, F., Pisu, S., 2012a. The Manara library. Volume 3. Dark Horse Books, Milwaukie, Or.
Manara, M., Orzechowski, T., Buhalis, L., 2013. The Manara library. Volume 4. Dark Horse; Diamond [distributor], Milwaukie, Or.; London.
Manara, M., Pratt, H., 2011. The Manara library. Volume 1. Dark Horse Books, Milwaukie, Or. - Winner of the Eisner Best U.S. Edition of International Material Award in 2012 "The Eisner Awards". Comic Con San Diego. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
Manara, M., Pratt, H., Milani, M., 2012b. The Manara library. Volume 2. Dark Horse Books, Milwaukie, Or.
Martí, 2007. Calvario Hills. 1 1. Fantagraphics Books : Coconino Press, Seattle.
Marzocchi, L., 2007. Niger # 2. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Wash.
Marzocchi, L., 2006. Niger. Fantagraphics Books; Coconino Press, Seattle; [Bologna, Italy?].
Mattotti, L., Piersanti, C., 2010. Stigmata. Fantagraphics; Turnaround [distributor], Seattle, WA; London.
Mattotti, L., Zentner, J., 2012. The Crackle of the Frost, 1 edition. ed. Fantagraphics, Seattle, Wash.
Max, 2006. Bardín the Superrealist: his deeds, his utterances, his exploits, and his perambulations. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Peellaert, G., Bartier, P., Sterckx, P., 2013. The adventures of Jodelle.
Schultheiss, M., 1992. Talk dirty. Eros Comix, Seattle, WA.
Sokal, 1989. Shaggy dog story: from the files of Inspector Carnado. Rijperman / Fantagraphics, [France].
Tardi, J., 2011. The Arctic Marauder. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle.
Tardi, J., 2010a. It was the war of the trenches. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle. - Winner of the Eisner Best U.S. Edition of International Material Award in 2011 "The Eisner Awards". Comic Con San Diego. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
Tardi, J., 2010b. The extraordinary adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec. [Volume] 1, [Volume] 1,. Fantagraphics Books; Distributed ... by W.W. Norton, Seattle, WA; [New York].
Tardi, J., Legrand, B., Grange, D., 2012. New York Mon Amour, 1 edition. ed. Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA.
Tardi, J., Malet, L., 2015. Fog over Tolbiac Bridge.
Tardi, J., Manchette, J.-P., 2011. Like a sniper lining up his shot. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Tardi, J., Manchette, J.-P., 2009. West coast blues. Fantagraphics Books; Distributed in the U.S. by W.W. Norton, Seattle, WA; [New York?].
Tardi, J., Thompson, K., 2011. The extraordinary adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec. The Mad Scientist and Mummies on Parade [Vol.] 2 [Vol.] 2. Fantagraphics Books; Distributed to bookstores in the U.S. by W.W. Norton, Seattle, Wash.; [New York].
Tardi, J., Verney, J.-P., Dascher, H., 2013. Goddamn this war! Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA. - Winner of the Eisner Best U.S. Edition of International Material Award in 2014 "The Eisner Awards". Comic Con San Diego. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
Trondheim, L., 2012. Ralph Azham. Volume 1. Fantagraphics; Turnaround [distributor], Seattle, Wash.; London.
Trondheim, L., 1998. The Hoodoodad. Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA.
Trondheim, L., 1997. Harum scarum. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
Vehlmann, F., Jason, Hubert, 2011. Isle of 100,000 graves. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, WA.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Kim Thompson at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
Interview, David Anthony Kraft's Comics Interview #14 (1984), (16 p.)
== External links ==
Thompson's Fantagraphics blog
"The Infinite Kim Thompson," A photo comic written by and starring Kim Thompson
Inkstuds: One-hour podcast interview with Gary Groth and Thompson
Spurgeon, Tom. "A Short Interview with Thompson and Gary Groth", Comics Reporter, (December 31, 1999)
Netzer, Michael. "Thinking of Kim Thompson," If Life was a Comic Book blog (May 8, 2013) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Rawlings#Education_and_military_career | Jerry Rawlings | Jerry John Rawlings (22 June 1947 – 12 November 2020) was a Ghanaian military officer, aviator, and politician who led the country briefly in 1979 and then from 1981 to 2001. He led a military regime until 1993 and then served two terms as the democratically elected president of Ghana. He was the longest-serving leader in Ghana's history, presiding over the country for 19 years.
Rawlings came to power in Ghana as a flight lieutenant of the Ghana Air Force following a coup d'état in 1979. Before that, he led an unsuccessful coup attempt against the ruling military government on Tuesday, 15 May 1979, just five weeks before scheduled democratic elections were due. After handing power over to a civilian government, he overthrew the democratically elected Government through a military coup on Thursday, 31 December 1981, as the chairman of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC).
In 1992, Rawlings resigned from the military, founded the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and successfully ran for president in that year's election, becoming the first president of the Fourth Republic. Rawlings brokered a ceasefire in 1995 during the First Liberian Civil War. He was re-elected in 1996 to serve four more years. After two terms in office, the limit according to the Ghanaian Constitution, Rawlings endorsed his vice-president John Atta Mills as a presidential candidate in 2000. Rawlings served as the African Union envoy to Somalia. He died in 2020 at age 73 and was accorded a state funeral.
Rawlings is seen as a transformative leader in the history of Ghana, and is credited with leading the country through economic recovery and returning national pride to the country, along with turning Ghana into a multi-party democracy. Rawlings has been described as one of Ghana's greatest leaders, and as the "transcendent African political figure of his generation".
== Background ==
Rawlings was born as Jerry Rawlings John on Sunday, 22 June 1947, in Accra, Ghana, to Victoria Agbotui, an Anlo Ewe from Dzelukope, Keta, and James Ramsey John, a British chemist from Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. His father, who never lived with him and his mother, went back to Britain in 1959. Rawlings attended Achimota School and a military academy at Teshie. Rawlings was married to Nana Konadu Agyeman, whom he met while at Achimota College. They had three daughters: Zanetor Rawlings, Yaa Asantewaa Rawlings, and Amina Rawlings, and a son, Kimathi Rawlings. Junior Agogo was the nephew of Rawlings.
=== Education and military career ===
Rawlings finished his secondary education at Achimota College in 1967. He joined the Ghana Air Force shortly afterwards. On his application, the military switched his surname John and his middle name Rawlings to John Rawlings. In March 1968, he was posted to Takoradi in Ghana's Western Region, to continue his studies. He graduated in January 1969 and was commissioned as a pilot officer, winning the coveted "Speed Bird Trophy" as the best cadet in flying the Su-7 ground attack supersonic jet aircraft as he was skilled in aerobatics. He earned the rank of flight lieutenant in April 1978. During his service with the Ghana Air Force, Rawlings perceived a deterioration in discipline and morale due to corruption in the Supreme Military Council (SMC). As promotion brought him into contact with the privileged classes and their social values, his view of the injustices in society hardened. He was thus regarded with some unease by the SMC. After the 1979 coup, he involved himself with the student community of the University of Ghana, where he developed a more leftist ideology through reading and discussion of social and political ideas.
== 1979 coup and purges ==
Rawlings grew discontented with Ignatius Kutu Acheampong's government, which had come to power through a coup in January 1972. Acheampong was accused not only of corruption but also of maintaining Ghana's dependency on pre-colonial powers, in a situation which led to economic decline and impoverishment.
Rawlings was part of the Free Africa Movement, an underground movement of military officers who wanted to unify Africa through a series of coups. On Tuesday, 15 May 1979, five weeks before civilian elections, Rawlings and six other soldiers staged a coup against the government of General Fred Akuffo, but failed and were arrested by the military. Rawlings was publicly sentenced to death in a General Court Martial and imprisoned, although his statements on the social injustices that motivated his actions won him civilian sympathy. While awaiting execution, Rawlings was sprung from custody on Monday, 4 June 1979, by a group of soldiers. Claiming that the government was corrupt beyond redemption and that new leadership was required for Ghana's development, he led the group in a coup to oust the Akuffo Government and Supreme Military Council. Shortly afterwards, Rawlings established and became the Chairman of a 15-member Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), primarily composed of junior officers. He and the AFRC ruled for 112 days and arranged the execution by firing squad of eight military officers, including Generals Kotei, Joy Amedume, Roger Felli, and Utuka, as well as the three former Ghanaian heads of state: Acheampong, Akuffo, and Akwasi Afrifa.
These executions were dramatic events in the history of Ghana, which had previously suffered few instances of political violence. Rawlings later implemented a much wider "house-cleaning exercise" involving the killings and abduction of over 300 Ghanaians. Elections were held on time shortly after the coup. On Monday, 24 September 1979, power was peacefully handed over by Rawlings to President Hilla Limann, whose People's National Party (PNP) had the support of Nkrumah's followers. Two years later, on 31 December 1981, Rawlings ousted President Hilla Limann in a coup d'état, claiming that civilian rule was weak and the country's economy was deteriorating. The killings of the Supreme Court justices Cecilia Koranteng-Addow, Frederick Sarkodie, and Kwadjo Agyei Agyepong), military officers Major Sam Acquah and Major Dasana Nantogmah also occurred during the second military rule of Rawlings. However, unlike the 1979 executions, these persons were abducted and killed in secret, and it is unclear who was behind their murders, though Joachim Amartey Kwei and four others, namely Lance Corporal Amedeka, Michael Senyah, Tekpor Hekli and Johnny Dzandu, were convicted of murdering the Justices and Acquah and were executed in 1982 with the exception of Corporal Amedaka, who was able to escape from the country in a prison break.
== 1981 coup and reforms ==
Believing the Limann administration was unable to resolve Ghana's neocolonial economic dependency, Rawlings led a second coup against Limann and indicted the entire political class on 31 December 1981. In place of Limann's People's National Party, Rawlings established the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) military junta as the official government.
Rawlings hosted state visits from "revolutionaries" from other countries, including Dési Bouterse (Suriname), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), and Sam Nujoma (Namibia). More famously, Rawlings reversed Limann's boycott of Gaddafi's Libya, allowing the Black Stars to compete in the 1982 African Cup of Nations. The team won the AFCON trophy for the fourth time, their last win as of 2022.
Although the PNDC claimed to be representative of the people, it lacked experience in the creation and implementation of clear economic policies. Rawlings, like many of his predecessors, attributed current economic and social problems to the "trade malpractices and other anti-social activities" of a few business people. In December 1982, the PNDC announced its four-year economic program of establishing a state monopoly on export-import trade to eliminate corruption surrounding import licenses and shifting trade away from dependency on Western markets. Unrealistic price controls were imposed on the market and enforced through coercive acts, especially against business people. This resolve to employ state control over the economy which is best demonstrated by the destruction of the Makola No.1 Market. The PNDC established Workers' Defence Committees (WDCs) and People's Defence Committees (PDCs) to mobilize the population to support radical changes to the economy. Price controls on the sale of food were beneficial to urban workers but placed undue burden on 70% of the rural population whose income largely depended on the prices of agricultural products. Rawlings' economic policies led to economic crisis in 1983, forcing him to undertake structural adjustment and submit himself to an election to retain power. Elections were held in January 1992, leading Ghana back to multiparty democracy.
== 1992 elections ==
Rawlings established the National Commission on Democracy (NCD) shortly after the 1982 coup, and employed it to survey civilian opinion and make recommendations that would facilitate the process of democratic transition. In March, 1991, the NCD released a report recommending the election of an executive president, the establishment of a national assembly, and the creation of the post of prime minister. The PNDC used NCD recommendations to establish a committee for the drafting of a new constitution based on past Ghanaian Constitutions that lifted the ban on political parties in May 1992 after it was approved by referendum.
On Friday, 3 November 1992, election results compiled by the INEC from 200 constituencies showed that Rawlings' NDC had won 60% of the votes and had obtained the majority needed to prevent a second round of voting. More specifically, the NDC won 62% in the Brong-Ahafo region, 93% in the Volta region, and the majority votes in the Upper West, Upper East, Western, Northern, Central, and Greater Accra regions. His opponents, Professor Adu Boahen, won 31% of the votes, former President Hilla Limann won 6.8%, Kwabena Darko won 2.9%, and Emmanuel Erskine won 1.7%. Voter turnout was 50%.
The ability of opposition parties to compete was limited by the vast advantages Rawlings possessed. Rawlings' victory was aided by the various party structures that were integrated into society during his rule, called the "organs of the revolution". These structures included the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs), Commando Units, 31 December Women's Organization, the 4 June movement, Peoples Militias, and Mobisquads, and operated on a system of popular control through intimidation. Rawlings held a monopoly over national media and was able to censor print and electronic media through a PNDC newspaper licensing decree, PNDC Law 221. Moreover, Rawlings imposed a 20,000 Cedis (about $400) cap on campaign contributions, which made national publicity of opposition parties virtually impossible. Rawlings himself began campaigning before the official unbanning of political parties and had access to state resources and was able to effectively meet all monetary demands required of a successful campaign. Rawlings travelled across the country, initiating public-works projects and giving public employees a 60% pay rise prior to election day.
Opposition parties objected to the election results, citing incidences of vote stuffing in regions where Rawlings was likely to lose and rural areas with scant populations, as well as a bloated voters' register and a partisan electoral commission. However, the Commonwealth Observer Group, led by Sir Ellis Clarke, approved of the election as "free and fair", as there were very few issues at polling stations and no major incidences of voter coercion. In contrast, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) issued a report supporting claims that erroneous entries in voter registration could have affected election results. The Carter Center did acknowledge minor electoral issues but did not see these problems as indicative of systematic electoral fraud.
Opposition parties boycotted subsequent Ghana parliamentary and presidential elections, and the unicameral National Assembly, of which NDC officials won 189 of 200 seats and essentially established a one-party parliament that lacked legitimacy and only had limited legislative powers. After the disputed election, the PNDC was transformed into the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Rawlings took office on Thursday, 7 January 1993, the same day that the new constitution came into effect, and the government became known as the Fourth Republic of Ghana.
== Policies and reforms ==
Rawlings established the Economic Recovery Program (ERP) suggested by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1982 due to the poor state of the economy after 18 months of attempting to govern it through administrative controls and mass mobilization. The policies implemented caused a dramatic currency devaluation, the removal of price controls, and social-service subsidies which favored farmers over urban workers, and privatization of some state-owned enterprises, and restraints on government spending. Funding was provided by bilateral donors, reaching US$800 million in 1987 and 1988, and US$900 million in 1989.
Between 1992 and 1996, Rawlings eased control over the judiciary and civil society, allowing a more independent Supreme Court and the publication of independent newspapers. Opposition parties operated outside of parliament and held rallies and press conferences.
== 1996 elections ==
Given the various issues with the 1992 elections, the 1996 elections were a great improvement in terms of electoral oversight. Voter registration was re-compiled, with close to 9.2 million voters registering at nearly 19,000 polling stations, which the opposition had largely approved after party agents had reviewed the lists. The emphasis on transparency led Ghanaian non-governmental organizations to create the Network of Domestic Election Observers (NEDEO), which trained nearly 4,100 local poll watchers. This organization was popular across political parties and civic groups. On the day of the election, more than 60,000 candidate agents monitored close to all polling sites, and were responsible for directly reporting results to their respective party leaders. The parallel vote-tabulation system allowed polling sites to compare their results to the official ones released by the Electoral commission. The Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) was established to discuss election preparations with all parties and the Electoral Commission, as well as establish procedures to investigate and resolve complaints. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held on the same day and see-through boxes were used in order to further ensure the legitimacy of the elections. Despite some fears of electoral violence, the election was peaceful and had a 78% turnout rate, and was successful with only minor problems such as an inadequate supply of ink and parliamentary ballots.
The two major contenders of the 1996 election were Rawlings' NDC, and John Kufuor's Great Alliance, an amalgamation of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the People's Convention Party (PCP). The Great Alliance based their platform on ousting Rawlings, and attacked the incumbent government for its poor fiscal policies. However, they were unable to articulate a clear positive message of their own, or plans to change the current economic policy. As Ghana was heavily dependent on international aid, local leaders had minimal impact on the economy. The Electoral Commission reported that Rawlings had won by 57%, with Kufuor obtaining 40% of the vote. Results by district were similar to those in 1992, with the opposition winning the Ashanti Region and some constituencies in Eastern and Greater Accra, and Rawlings winning in his ethnic home, the Volta Region, and faring well in every other region. The NDC took 134 seats in the Assembly compared to the opposition's 66, and the NPP took 60 seats in the parliament.
== Post-military ==
The 1992 constitution limits a president to two terms, even if they are nonconsecutive. Rawlings did not attempt to amend the document to allow him to run for a third term in 2000. He retired in 2001 and was succeeded by John Kufuor, his main rival and opponent in 1996. It was the first time in Ghanaian history that a sitting government peacefully transferred power to an elected member of the opposition.
Kufuor won the presidency after defeating Rawlings' vice-president John Atta Mills in a runoff in 2000. In 2004, Mills conceded to Kufuor after another election between the two.
== Post-presidency ==
In November 2000, Rawlings was named the first International Year of Volunteers 2001 Eminent Person by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, attending various events and conferences to promote volunteerism.
In October 2010, Rawlings was named as the African Union envoy to Somalia. In November 2010, he attended the inauguration of Dési Bouterse as President of Suriname, and took a tour of the country. He was especially interested in the Ghanaian origins of the Maroon people.
Rawlings delivered lectures at universities, including Oxford University in England. Rawlings continued his heavy support for NDC. In July 2019, he went on a three-day working trip to Burkina Faso in the capacity of Chairman of the Thomas Sankara Memorial Committee.
In September 2019, he led the Ghanaian governmental delegation to the funeral of Robert Mugabe, the late former president of Zimbabwe.
== Death and state funeral ==
Rawlings died on 12 November 2020 at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, a week after having been admitted for a "short term illness". According to some reports, his death was caused by complications from COVID-19. His death came nearly two months after that of his mother, Victoria Agbotui, on 24 September 2020. President Nana Akufo-Addo declared a seven-day period of mourning in his honor and flags flown at half-mast. His family members appealed to the Government of Ghana to bury him in Keta in the Volta Region. A schedule for the signing of a book of condolence was opened in his memory. His funeral, originally planned for 23 December 2020, was postponed at the request of his family.
=== State burial ===
From 24 to 27 January 2021, funeral ceremonies were organised at Accra in Rawlings' memory. A requiem mass for Jerry John Rawlings was held at the Holy Spirit Cathedral on 24 January 2021, followed by a vigil at the Air Force Officers' Mess in Accra later that evening. His body was laid in state in the foyer of the Accra International Conference Centre from 25 to 26 January 2021. There were also traditional rites performed by the Anlo Ewe people of his maternal ancestry. On 27 January 2021, a state funeral, attended by national and international political leaders, paramount chiefs, diplomats and other dignitaries, was held at the Black Star Square before his burial service at the Military Cemetery at Burma Camp, with full military honours, including a slow march by the funeral cortège, a flypast of a Ghana Air Force helicopter, the sounding of the Last Post by army buglers and a 21-gun salute.
== Awards and honours ==
July 1984: the Order of Jose Marti by the Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
October 2013: Honorary degree (Doctorate of Letters) from the University for Development Studies in northern Ghana.
This award recognised Rawlings's contribution to the establishment of the university. In 1993, he used his US$50,000 Hunger Project cash prize as seed money to sponsor the establishment of the state-owned university (founded in May 1992), the first of its kind in the three Northern regions of Ghana.
October 2013: the Global Champion for People's Freedom award bestowed the Mkiva Humanitarian Foundation.
August 2014: Doctor of Letters, Honoris Causa.
August 2018: Marcus Garvey Awards.
December 2018: Enstooled as the Togbuiga Nutifafa I of Anlo, a development chief in the Ghanaian chieftaincy system.
December 2021: the book, 'J.J RAWLINGS: MEMORIES AND MEMENTOS' written to honor him by the Pan-African Writers Association.
== Legacy ==
President Nana Akufo-Addo proposed to the Governing Council of UDS to rename the institution after Jerry Rawlings, who used his US$50,000 Hunger Project prize as seed money to establish the university. This suggestion was accepted by his family.
A foundation called the JJ Rawlings Foundation was named after him led by his children, Madam Yaa Asantewaa Agyeman-Rawlings and Madam Amina Agyeman-Rawlings.
In May 2025, the government of Burkina Faso named a street in Ouagadougou after him. The signage on the road reads "Avenue Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, Ancien President du Ghana, ne le 22/06/1947 - dcd le 12/11/2020". The naming of the street was done on the same day a monument was unveiled in memory of his assassinated friend and former Burkinabe leader, Thomas Sankara.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
The following are physical books relevant to Jerry Rawlings, which may not be available online, but are added in case of looking for more information.
Danso-Boafo, Kwaku (2012). J. J. Rawlings and the Democratic Transition in Ghana. Accra: Ghana Universities Press. ISBN 978-996430384-6.
Ahwoi, Kwamena (2020). Working with Rawlings. Tema: Digibooks Ghana Limited. ISBN 9789988892999.
Nugent, Paul (1996). Big men, small boys and politics in Ghana. London: Frances Pinter. ISBN 9781855673731
See also, Shipley, Jesse Weaver. "Alternative Histories of Global Sovereignty: Ghana's Lost Revolution" Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Vol. 42, No. 2, 2022, pp. 532–537. DOI 10.1215/1089201X09988009.
== External links ==
Flight Lieutenant Jeremiah John Rawlings at ghana-pedia.org |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farooq_Abdullah#:~:text=4%20References-,Early%20life%20and%20education,from%20SMS%20Medical%20College%2C%20Jaipur. | Farooq Abdullah | Farooq Abdullah (born 21 October 1937) is an Indian politician who serves as current president of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference. He has served as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on several occasions since 1982 till 2002, and as the union minister for New and Renewable Energy between 2009 and 2014. His father Sheikh Abdullah was the 1st elected chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, while his son Omar Abdullah is the current chief minister.
== Early life and education ==
Farooq Abdullah was born to the veteran statesman and National Conference leader Sheikh Abdullah and Begum Akbar Jehan Abdullah. He studied at Tyndale Biscoe School, and subsequently received his MBBS degree from SMS Medical College, Jaipur. He subsequently travelled to the UK to practice medicine.
== Family ==
He is married to Molly, a nurse of British origin. They have a son, Omar, and three daughters, Safia, Hinna, and Sara. Their son Omar Abdullah is also involved in state and national politics, and is the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Sara was married to Congress leader Sachin Pilot, but they divorced in late 2023.
== Political career ==
=== Entry into politics ===
At that time his father Sheikh Abdullah was serving as the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Farooq
Abdullah was elected to the Lok Sabha unopposed as a founding party member of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference from Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency in the 1980 General Election.
=== Chief Minister, 1982–1984 ===
Abdullah was a novice in the political arena of Jammu and Kashmir when he was appointed president of the National Conference in August 1981. His main qualification was that he was the son of Sheikh Abdullah. After his father's death in 1982, Farooq Abdullah became the chief minister of the state. In 1984, a faction of the National conference led by his brother-in-law Ghulam Mohammad Shah broke away, leading to the collapse of his government and his dismissal. Shah subsequently became the Chief Minister with the support of the Congress.
=== 1984–1996 ===
In 1986, G.M. Shah's government was dismissed after the communal 1986 Kashmir riots in South Kashmir, and a new National Conference–Congress government was sworn in with Abdullah as the chief minister, after the Rajiv-Farooq accord.
A new election was held in 1987 and the National Conference–Congress alliance won the election amid allegations of fraud and widespread election rigging by the National Conference. This period saw a rise in militancy in the state, with the return of trained militants in J&K and incidents that included the kidnapping of the daughter of the Home Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. The period also witnessed the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Kashmir Valley. Subsequently, Farooq Abdullah resigned in protest after Jagmohan was appointed the governor, and the state's assembly was dismissed.
He subsequently moved to the United Kingdom.
=== Chief Minister, 1996–2002 ===
After returning to India, and winning the Legislative Assembly elections in 1996, Abdullah was once again sworn in as chief minister of the state, his fifth time. His government lasted for a full six-year term. In 1999, the National Conference joined the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led National Democratic Alliance, and his son Omar Abdullah was subsequently appointed a union minister of state for External Affairs.
=== Subsequent political career ===
In the 2002 Legislative Assembly elections, Omar Abdullah was chosen to lead the National Conference, while Farooq Abdullah intended to continue his political career at the Central level. The National Conference lost the election and a coalition government headed by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took office. On that year Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002 promised to make Abdullah the vice-president, but later reneged on his promise because of Abdul Kalam's nomination to President and Krishan Kant's disagree.
Farooq Abdullah was subsequently elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2002 from Jammu and Kashmir and re-elected in 2009. He resigned from the Rajya Sabha in May 2009 and won a seat in the Lok Sabha from Srinagar. Abdullah joined the United Progressive Alliance government as a Cabinet Minister of New and Renewable Energy.
Abdullah contested the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat again in the 2014 General Election, but was defeated by the People's Democratic Party candidate Tariq Hameed Karra. In 2017, Tariq Hameed Karra resigned from the position, leading to a by-election for the Srinagar parliamentary seat. Abdullah got 48,555 votes and defeated PDP candidate Nazir Ahmed Khan by 10,700 votes.
On 16 September 2019, Abdullah became the first mainstream politician to be detained under the Public Safety Act. Prior to this, Abdullah was under house arrest since the scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution of India. He was released from house detention under the PSA after seven and a half months on 13 March 2020.
In 2022, before the election of the President of India, Mamata Bannerjee along with several other opposition leaders had proposed Abdullah's name as the Opposition's candidate. But Abdullah declined the offer stating that he wanted to remain in active politics for more years and concentrated on the Kashmir Union Territory issue.
=== 370 Hearing ===
After his son Omar Abdullah, Farooq Abdullah made his presence in the Supreme court of India in relation to Article 370 hearing.
== References ==
== External links == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHK_Hall | NHK Hall | The NHK Hall is a concert hall located at the NHK Broadcasting Center, the main headquarters of Japan's public broadcaster NHK. The hall is the main venue for the NHK Symphony Orchestra, but it has also played host to other events, such as the 1979 Japan Music Awards and NHK's annual New Year's Eve special Kōhaku Uta Gassen.
== History ==
The original NHK Hall opened in 1955 at a location in Tokyo's Uchisaiwai-cho district. Several live programmes were broadcast from the hall, such as Song Plaza, Kōhaku Uta Gassen, and Personal Secrets. In 1973, a new NHK Hall was established in Shibuya, Tokyo, at the site of NHK's new headquarters, the NHK Broadcasting Center.
The acoustics for the hall were designed by Minoru Nagata, later of Nagata Acoustics, while TOA Corporation provided the hall's sound equipment.
On April 9, 2019, it was announced that it will be closed from March 2021 to June 2022 due to seismic retrofitting, construction, renovation and reopening. The 72nd Kōhaku Uta Gassen, broadcast on 31 December 2021, was held at the Tokyo International Forum. It was held outside the NHK Hall for the first time in 49 years since the 23rd edition in 1972 and for the first time since the hall started operation.
== Gallery ==
== See also ==
NHK Osaka Hall
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website (in Japanese) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supramolecular_Chemistry_Award | Supramolecular Chemistry Award | The RSC Supramolecular Chemistry Award was a prestigious award that was made by the Royal Society of Chemistry for studies leading to the design of functionally useful supramolecular species. The first award was made in 2001 and the final award in 2020 following a review of the RSC Awards structure. It was awarded biennially.
In 2022 the award was revived by the RSC Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry interest group as the MASC Supramolecular Chemistry Award sponsored by Chem from Cell Press and is awarded annually.
== Recipients ==
2001 (2001): David Parker
2003 (2003): David A. Leigh
2005 (2005): Harry L. Anderson
2010 (2010): Neil Champness
2012 (2012): Jerry L. Atwood
2014 (2014): Philip A. Gale
2016 (2016): Michael D. Ward
2018 (2018): Sijbren Otto
2020 (2020): Christopher A. Hunter
2022 (2022): Jonathan L. Sessler
2023 (2023): Kate Jolliffe
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References ==
== External links ==
Event data as RDF |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_World_1958#:~:text=The%20ten%20judges%20for%20the,Cynthia%20Oberholzer%20%E2%80%93%20South%20African%20model | Miss World 1958 | Miss World 1958 was the eighth edition of the Miss World pageant, held at the Lyceum Ballroom in London, United Kingdom, on 13 October 1958.
At the conclusion of the event, Charles Eade and Bob Russell crowned Penelope Coelen of South Africa as Miss World 1958. This is the first victory of South Africa and the second victory of Africa in the history of the pageant.
Contestants from twenty countries participated in this year's pageant. The pageant was hosted by Bob Russell.
== Background ==
=== Selection of participants ===
Twenty contestants were selected to compete in the pageant. One contestant was appointed to represent her country in this edition after contracting an illness from the previous edition.
==== Replacements ====
Miss Belgium 1958, Michele Gouthals was scheduled to represent her country in this edition. However, she was unable to participate in the competition because her organization appointed Miss Belgium 1957, Jeanne Chandelle to represent Belgium once again because she contracted the Asian Flu during the Miss World 1957 pageant and only showed up on the day of the coronation.
==== Debuts, returns and withdrawals ====
This edition marked the debut of Brazil, and the returns of Turkey, which last competed in 1953, and Norway last competed in 1954.
Hanni Ehrenstrasser of Austria withdrew after winning Miss Europe 1958, making her ineligible to compete at Miss World. Elisabeth Schubel-Auer was set to replace Ehrenstrasser, but did not push through for undisclosed reasons. Leila Saas of Egypt withdrew for financial reasons. Pirkko Mannola of Finland, Hjördís Sigurvinsdóttir of Iceland, Lydie Schmit of Luxembourg, and Denise Orlando of Tunisia withdrew for undisclosed reasons. Australia withdrew after their organization failed to hold a national competition or appoint a candidate.
Janet Ohene-Agyei Boateng of Ghana was supposed to compete, but withdrew due to financial constraints. Krystyna Żyła of Poland was supposed to compete as well, but was barred by her government from competing. She was eventually found dead in December 1958.
== Results ==
== Pageant ==
=== Format ===
The number of placements in this edition has been reduced to six from seven in the previous edition. The six finalists were selected through a preliminary competition held on the day of the final competition consisting of a swimsuit and an evening gown competition.
=== Selection committee ===
Claude Berr – Member of the Miss Europe committee
Cowan Dobson – Scottish portrait artist
Charles Eade – British newspaper editor; Member of the Council of the British Commonwealth Press Union
Taina Elg – Finnish-American actress
Barbara Goalen – British fashion model
Charles Jacobs – American photographer
Stirling Moss – English Formula One racer
Cynthia Oberholzer – South African model
Oscar Santa Maria – former Brazilian politician
Shakuntala Sharma – Indian Princess and fashion designer
== Contestants ==
Twenty contestants competed for the title.
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Miss World official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Communist_Party | Italian Communist Party | The Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (Italian: Partito Comunista d'Italia, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), under the leadership of Amadeo Bordiga, Antonio Gramsci, and Nicola Bombacci. Outlawed during the Italian fascist regime, the party continued to operate underground and played a major role in the Italian resistance movement. The party's peaceful and national road to socialism, or the Italian road to socialism, the realisation of the communist project through democracy, repudiating the use of violence and applying the Constitution of Italy in all its parts, a strategy inaugurated under Palmiro Togliatti but that some date back to Gramsci, would become the leitmotif of the party's history.
Having changed its name in 1943, the PCI became the second largest political party of Italy after World War II, attracting the support of about a third of the vote share during the 1970s. At the time, it was the largest Communist party in the Western world, with peak support reaching 2.3 million members in 1947, and peak share being 34.4% of the vote (12.6 million votes) in the 1976 Italian general election. The PCI was part of the Constituent Assembly of Italy and the Italian government from 1944 to 1947, when the United States ordered a removal from government of the PCI and PSI. The PCI–PSI alliance lasted until 1956; the two parties continued to govern at the local and regional level until the 1990s. Apart from the 1944–1947 years and occasional external support to the organic centre-left (1960s–1970s), which included the PSI, the PCI always remained at the opposition in the Italian Parliament, with more accommodation as part of the Historic Compromise of the 1970s, which ended in 1980, until its dissolution in 1991, not without controversy and much debate among its members.
The PCI included Marxist–Leninists and Marxist revisionists, with a notable social-democratic faction being the miglioristi. Under the leadership of Enrico Berlinguer and the influence of the miglioristi in the 1970s and 1980s, Marxism–Leninism was removed from the party statute and the PCI adhered to the Eurocommunist trend, seeking independence from the Soviet Union and moving into a democratic socialist direction. In 1991, it was dissolved and re-launched as the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), which joined the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists. The more radical members of the organisation formally seceded to establish the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC).
== History ==
=== Early years ===
The roots of the PCI date back to 1921, when the I Congress of the Communist Party of Italy was held in Livorno on 21 January, following a split in the XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party. The split occurred after the Congress of Livorno refused to expel the reformist group as required by the Communist International (Comintern). The main factions of the new party were L'Ordine Nuovo, based in Turin and led by Antonio Gramsci, and the Maximalist faction led by Nicola Bombacci. Amadeo Bordiga was elected secretary of the new party.
The party was officially founded as the Communist Party of Italy – Section of the Communist International (Partito Comunista d'Italia – Sezione dell'Internazionale Comunista), since the Comintern was structured as a single world party according to Vladimir Lenin's vision. In the 1921 Italian general election, the party obtained 4.6% of the vote and 15 seats in the country's Chamber of Deputies. At the time, it was an active yet small faction within the Italian political left, which was strongly led by the PSI, while on the international level it was Soviet-led.
During its 2nd Congress in 1922, the new party registered 43,000 members. This was in part due to the entrance of almost the whole Socialist Youth Federation (Federazione Giovanile Socialista). The party adopted a slim structure headed by a Central Committee of 15 members, five of whom were also in the Executive Committee (EC), namely Ambrogio Belloni, Nicola Bombacci, Amadeo Bordiga (EC), Bruno Fortichiari (EC), Egidio Gennari, Antonio Gramsci, Ruggero Grieco (EC), Anselmo Marabini, Francesco Misiano, Giovanni Parodi, Luigi Polano, Luigi Repossi (EC), Cesare Sessa, Ludovico Tarsia, and Umberto Terracini (EC).
Since its formation, the party strived to organise itself on some bases that were not a mere reproduction of the traditional parties' bases. It then took again some arguments that distinguished the battle within the PSI, namely the idea that it is necessary to form an environment fiercely hostile to bourgeois society and that is an anticipation of the future socialist society. The purpose of this was not considered utopian because already in this society, especially in production, some structures are born on future results. In the first years of the PCd'I, there was no official leader; the accepted leader, first of the faction/tendency and then of the party, was Bordiga (Left) of the communist left current. Leaders of the minority currents were Angelo Tasca (Right) and Gramsci (Centre).
=== Conflict between factions ===
As a territorial section of Comintern, the PCd'I adopted the same program, the same conception of the party and the same tactics adopted by the II Congress in Moscow of 1920. The official program, drawn up in ten points, began with the intrinsically catastrophic nature of the capitalist system and terminated with the extinction of the state. It follows in a synthetic way the model outlined by Lenin for the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). For a while, this identity resisted, but the fast progress of the reaction in Europe produced a change of tactics in a democratic direction within the Bolshevik party and consequently within the Comintern. This happened in particular regarding the possibility, previously opposed, of an alliance with the social democratic and bourgeois parties. This provoked a tension in the party between the majority (Left) and the minority factions (the Right and the Centre) supported by the Comintern. The proposals of the Left were no longer accepted and the conflict between the factions became irremediable.
=== Bolshevisation ===
In 1923, some members of the party were arrested and put on trial for "conspiracy against the State". This allowed the intense activity of the Communist International to deprive the party's left-wing of authority and give control to the minority centre which had aligned with Moscow. In 1924–1925, the Comintern began a campaign of Bolshevisation, which forced each party to conform to the discipline and orders of Moscow. During the clandestine conference held in Como to ratify the party leadership in May 1924, 35 of the 45 federation secretaries, plus the secretary of the youth federation, voted for Bordiga's Left, four for Gramsci's Centre, and five for Tasca's Right.
Before the Lyon Congress in 1926, the Centre won almost all the votes in the absence of much of the Left, who were unable to attend as a result of fascist controls and lack of Comintern support. Recourse to the Comintern against this evident manoeuvre had little effect. The PCd'I as conceived by the Left terminated. The organisation continued with the support of the Comintern and a new structure and leadership. In 1922, the newspaper L'Ordine Nuovo was closed and in 1924 a new Centre newspaper, l'Unità, edited by Gramsci, was founded. The Left continued as a faction, principally functioning in exile. It published the newspaper Bilan, a monthly theoretical bulletin.
In 1926, Bordiga and Gramsci were arrested and imprisoned on the island of Ustica. In 1927, Palmiro Togliatti was elected secretary in place of Gramsci. In 1930, Bordiga was expelled from the Comintern and accused of Trotskyism. After Joseph Stalin dissolved the Communist International in 1943, the exiled members of the PCd'I in Moscow changed the party's name to the PCI on 15 May. Under this name, it reorganised in Italy and became a parliamentary party after the fall of Fascism.
=== Resistance to fascism ===
The party and its militants were actively involved in the resistance to Benito Mussolini's regime through clandestine action. They were well prepared for clandestine activity because of the structure of their organisation, and the fact that they had been victims of systematic repression by the authorities; more than three quarters of the political prisoners between 1926 and 1943 were communists. Throughout the dictatorship, the party was able to maintain and feed a clandestine network, distribute propaganda leaflets and newspapers, and infiltrate fascist unions and youth organisations. In 1935, the party led a campaign against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The party and communist partisans, among others, then went on to play a major role in the resistance movement that led to the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy.
On 15 May 1943, the party changed its official name to the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano), often shortened to PCI. This change was not surprising as PCI started being used as the party's acronym around 1924–1925. This name change also reflected a change in the Comintern's role—it increasingly became a federation of national communist parties. This trend accelerated after Lenin's death and its new name emphasised the party's shift from an international focus to an Italian one. At the time, it was a hotly contested issue for the two major factions of the party. On one side, the Leninist preferred the single world party as it was internationalist and strongly centralised, while on the other side the Italians wanted a party more tailored to their nation's peculiarities and more autonomy.
After the fall of Fascist Italy on 25 July 1943, the PCI returned to a formally legal status, playing a major role during the national liberation, known in Italy as Resistenza (Resistance) and forming many partisan groups. In April 1944, after the Svolta di Salerno (Salerno's turning point), Togliatti, who had returned to Italy the month prior after 18 years of exile, agreed to cooperate with King Victor Emmanuel III and his prime minister of Italy, the Marshal Pietro Badoglio. After the turn, the PCI took part in every government during the national liberation and constitutional period from June 1944 to May 1947. Their contribution to the new Italian democratic constitution was decisive. The Gullo decrees of 1944, named after Fausto Gullo, sought to improve social and economic conditions in the countryside. During Badoglio and Ferruccio Parri's cabinets, Togliatti served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Italy. During the Resistance, the PCI became increasingly popular, as the majority of partisans were communists. The Garibaldi Brigades, promoted by the PCI, were among the more numerous partisan forces.
=== Post-war years ===
The PCI took part in the 1946 Italian general election and the 1946 Italian institutional referendum, campaigning for a republic. In the election, the PCI was third, behind Christian Democracy (DC) and the PSI, gaining almost 19% of votes and electing 104 members of the Constituent Assembly of Italy. The popular referendum resulted in the replacement of the monarchy with a republic, after 54% of the votes were in favour and 46% against. Luciano Canfora saw the Salerno Turn and 1944 as a rebirth of the PCI, and said "the PCI had gradually followed a path which required it, as a historical task, to occupy the space of social democracy in the Italian political panorama."
As part of the May 1947 crises, the PCI was excluded from government. Alcide De Gasperi, the DC leader and prime minister of Italy, was losing popularity, and feared that the leftist coalition would take power. While the PCI was growing particularly fast due to its organising efforts supporting sharecroppers in Sicily, Tuscany, and Umbria, movements that were also bolstered by the reforms of Fausto Gullo, the Italian Minister of Agriculture. On 1 May, the nation was thrown into crisis by the Portella della Ginestra massacre, in which eleven leftist peasants (including four children) were murdered at an International Workers' Day parade in Palermo by Salvatore Giuliano and his gang. In the political chaos that ensued, the United States government engineered the expulsion of all left-wing ministers from the cabinet on 31 May. The PCI would not have a national position in government again. De Gasperi did this under pressure from the United States Secretary of State, George Marshall, who had informed him that anti-communism was a pre-condition for receiving American aid, and Ambassador James Clement Dunn, who had directly asked de Gasperi to dissolve the parliament and remove the PCI.
In the 1948 Italian general election, the party joined the PSI in the Popular Democratic Front (FDP) but was defeated by the DC. The United States government provided support to anti-PCI groups in the election, and argued that should the PCI win, the Marshall Plan and other aids could be terminated. It spent $10–20 million on anti-communist propaganda and other covert operations, much of it through the Economic Cooperation Administration of the Marshall Plan, and then laundered through individual banks. Fearful of the possible FDP's electoral victory, the British and American governments also undermined their campaign for legal justice by tolerating the efforts made by Italy's top authorities to prevent any of the alleged Italian war criminals from being extradited and taken to court. The denial of Italian war crimes was backed up by the Italian state, academe, and media, re-inventing Italy as only a victim of Nazism and the post-war Foibe massacres.
The party gained considerable electoral success during the following years and occasionally supplied external support to the Organic centre-left governments, although it never directly joined a government. It successfully lobbied Fiat to set up the AvtoVAZ (Lada) car factory in the Soviet Union (1966). The party did best in Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and Umbria, where it regularly won the local administrative elections, and in some of the industrialised cities of Northern Italy. At the city government level during the course of the post-war period, the PCI demonstrated in cities like Bologna and Florence their capacity for uncorrupt, efficient and clean government. After the 1975 Italian local elections, the PCI was the strongest force in nearly all of the municipal councils of the great cities.
=== From the 1950s to the 1960s ===
The Soviet Union's brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 created a split within the PCI. The party leadership, including Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano (who in 2006 became President of Italy), regarded the Hungarian insurgents as counter-revolutionaries as reported at the time in l'Unità, the official PCI newspaper. Giuseppe Di Vittorio, chief of the communist trade union Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), repudiated the leadership position, as did prominent party member Antonio Giolitti and Italian Socialist Party national secretary Pietro Nenni, a close ally of the PCI. Napolitano later hinted at doubts over the propriety of his decision. He would eventually write in From the Communist Party to European Socialism. A Political Autobiography (Dal Pci al socialismo europeo. Un'autobiografia politica) that he regretted his justification of the Soviet intervention but quieted his concerns at the time for the sake of party unity and the international leadership of Soviet Communism. Giolitti and Nenni went on to split with the PCI over this issue. Napolitano became a leading member of the miglioristi faction within the PCI that promoted a social-democratic direction in party policy.
In the mid-1960s, the United States Department of State estimated the party membership to be approximately 1,350,000, or 4.2% of the working age population, making it the largest Communist party in per capita terms in the capitalist world at the time and the largest party at all in the whole of Western Europe with the Social Democratic Party of Germany. United States government sources said that the party was receiving $40–50 million per year from the Soviets when their investment in Italy was $5–6 million. Although the PCI relied on Soviet financial assistance more than any other Communist party supported by Moscow, declassified information shows this to be exaggerated.
According to the former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, Longo and other PCI leaders became alarmed at the possibility of a coup in Italy after the Athens Colonel coup in April 1967 that led to the Greek junta. These fears were not completely unfounded as there had been two attempted coups in Italy, Piano Solo in 1964 and Golpe Borghese in 1970, by military and neo-fascist groups. The PCI's Giorgio Amendola formally requested Soviet assistance to prepare the party in case of such an event. The KGB drew up and implemented a plan to provide the PCI with its own intelligence and clandestine signal corps. From 1967 through 1973, PCI members were sent to East Germany and Moscow to receive training in clandestine warfare and information gathering techniques by both the Stasi and the KGB. Shortly before the 1972 Italian general election, Longo personally wrote to Leonid Brezhnev asking for and receiving an additional $5.7 million in funding. This was on top of the $3.5 million that the Soviet Union gave the PCI in 1971. The Soviets also provided additional funding through the use of front organisations providing generous contracts to PCI members.
=== Leadership of Enrico Berlinguer ===
In 1969, Enrico Berlinguer, the PCI deputy national secretary and later secretary general, took part in the international conference of the communist parties in Moscow, where his delegation disagreed with the official political line and refused to support the final report. Unexpectedly to his hosts, his speech challenged the communist leadership in Moscow. He refused to excommunicate the Chinese Communist Party and directly told Brezhnev that the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, which he called "the tragedy in Prague", had made clear the considerable differences within the communist movement on fundamental questions, such as national sovereignty, socialist democracy, and the freedom of culture. At the time, the PCI, which had absorbed the PSI's left-wing, the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity, so strengthening its leadership over the Italian left, was the largest communist party in a capitalist state, garnering 34.4% of the vote in the 1976 Italian general election.
Relationships between the PCI and the Soviet Union gradually fell apart as the party moved away from Soviet obedience and Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy in the 1970s and 1980s and toward Eurocommunism and the Socialist International. The PCI sought a collaboration with the socialist and Christian democracy parties, a policy known the Historic Compromise. The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the DC leader, by the Red Brigades in May 1978 put an end to any hopes of such a compromise. The compromise was largely abandoned as a PCI policy in 1981. The Proletarian Unity Party merged into the PCI in 1984.
During the Years of Lead, the PCI strongly opposed the terrorism and the Red Brigades, who in turn murdered or wounded many PCI members or trade unionists close to the PCI. According to Mitrokhin, the party asked the Soviets to pressure the StB, Czechoslovakia's State Security, to withdraw their support to the group, which Moscow was unable or unwilling to do. This, along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, led to a complete break with Moscow in 1979. In 1980, the PCI refused to participate in the international conference of Communist parties in Paris; cash payments to the PCI continued until 1984.
=== Dissolution ===
Achille Occhetto became general secretary of the PCI in 1988. At a 1989 conference in a working-class section of Bologna, Occhetto stunned the party faithful with a speech heralding the Revolutions of 1989, a move now referred to in Italian politics as the svolta della Bolognina (Bolognina turning point). The collapse of the Communist governments in the Eastern Europe led Occhetto to conclude that the era of Eurocommunism was over. Under his leadership, the PCI dissolved and refounded itself as the Democratic Party of the Left, which branded itself as a progressive left-wing and democratic socialist party. A third of the PCI membership, led by Armando Cossutta, refused to join the PDS, and instead seceded to form the Communist Refoundation Party.
== Popular support ==
In all its history, the PCI was particularly strong in Central Italy, in the Red Regions of Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Tuscany, and Umbria, as well as in the industrialised cities of Northern Italy. The party's municipal showcase was Bologna, which was held continuously by the PCI from 1945 onwards. Amongst other measures, the local PCI administration tackled urban problems with successful programmes of health for the elderly, nursery education and traffic reform, while also undertaking initiatives in housing and school meal provisions.
Communist administrations at a local level helped to aid new businesses while also introducing innovative social reforms. From 1946 to 1956, the Communist city council built 31 nursery schools, 896 flats, and 9 schools. Health care improved substantially, street lighting was installed, new drains and municipal launderettes were built and 8,000 children received subsidised school meals. In 1972, the then-mayor of Bologna, Renato Zangheri, introduced a new and innovative traffic plan with strict limitations for private vehicles and a renewed concentration on cheap public transport. Bologna's social services continued to expand throughout the early and mid-1970s. The city centre was restored, centres for the mentally sick were instituted to help those who had been released from recently closed psychiatric hospitals, handicapped persons were offered training and found suitable jobs, afternoon activities for schoolchildren were made less mindless than the traditional doposcuola (after-school activities), and school programming for the whole day helped working parents.
The electoral results of the PCI in general (Chamber of Deputies) and European Parliament elections since 1946 are shown in the chart above.
== Election results ==
=== Italian Parliament ===
=== European Parliament ===
=== Regional elections ===
== Leadership ==
Secretary: Antonio Gramsci (1926), Camilla Ravera (1927–1930), Palmiro Togliatti (1930–1934), Ruggero Grieco (1934–1938), Palmiro Togliatti (1938–1964), Luigi Longo (1964–1972), Enrico Berlinguer (1972–1984), Alessandro Natta (1984–1988), Achille Occhetto (1988–1991)
President: Luigi Longo (1972–1980), Alessandro Natta (1989–1990), Aldo Tortorella (1990–1991)
Leader in the Chamber of Deputies: Luigi Longo (1946–1947), Palmiro Togliatti (1947–1964), Pietro Ingrao (1964–1972), Alessandro Natta (1972–1979), Fernando Di Giulio (1979–1981), Giorgio Napolitano (1981–1986), Renato Zangheri (1986–1990), Giulio Quercini (1990–1991)
Leader in the Senate: Mauro Scoccimarro (1948–1958), Umberto Terracini (1958–1973), Edoardo Perna (1973–1986), Gerardo Chiaromonte (1983–1986), Ugo Pecchioli (1986–1991)
Leader in the European Parliament: Giorgio Amendola (1979–1980), Guido Fanti (1980–1984), Giovanni Cervetti (1984–1989), Luigi Alberto Colajanni (1989–1991)
== Symbols ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Aldo Agosti, "The Comintern and the Italian Communist Party in Light of New Documents," in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe (eds.), International Communism and the Communist International, 1919–43. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.
Luigi Cortesi, Le origini del PCI. Laterza, 1972.
Franco Livorsi, Amadeo Bordiga. Editori Riuniti, 1976.
Paolo Spriano, Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano, vol. I Da Bordiga a Gramsci, Einaudi, 1967.
La nascita del Partito Comunista d'Italia (Livorno 1921), ed. L'Internazionale, Milano 1981.
La liquidazione della sinistra del P.C.d'It. (1925), L'Internazionale, Milano 1991.
La lotta del Partito Comunista d'Italia (Strategia e tattica della rivoluzione, 1921–1922), ed. L'Internazionale, Milano 1984.
Il partito decapitato (La sostituzione del gruppo dirigente del P.C.d'It., 1923–24), L'Internazionale, Milano 1988.
Partito Comunista d'Italia, Secondo Congresso Nazionale – Relazione del CC, Reprint Feltrinelli, 1922.
== External links ==
Historical Archive of the Communist Left with hundreds of documents of PCd'I
Communist Party of Italy Archive at marxists.org
sinistra.net Online Archive of the Communist Left
Website on the history of the Italian Communist Party
Biography of Arrigo Cervetto
The Italian Road to Socialism, an interview by Eric Hobsbawm with Giorgio Napolitano; translated by John Cammett and Victoria DeGrazia |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson | Rachel Carson | Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose sea trilogy (1941–1955) and book Silent Spring (1962) are credited with advancing marine conservation and the global environmental movement.
Carson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Its success prompted the republication of her first book, Under the Sea Wind (1941), in 1952, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955 — both were also bestsellers. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths.
Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially some problems she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was the book Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Although Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, which led to a nationwide ban on DDT and other pesticides. It also inspired a grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Carson was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.
== Early life and education ==
Carson was born on May 27, 1907, on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania, located by the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Maria Frazier (McLean) and Robert Warden Carson, an insurance salesman. She spent a lot of time exploring around her family's 65-acre (26 ha) farm. An avid reader, she began writing stories, often involving animals, at age eight. At age ten, she had her first story published. She enjoyed reading St. Nicholas Magazine, which carried her first published stories, the works of Beatrix Potter, the novels of Gene Stratton-Porter, and in her teen years, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The natural world, particularly that of the ocean, was the common thread of her favorite literature. Carson attended Springdale's small school through tenth grade, and then completed high school in nearby Parnassus, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1925 at the top of her class of 44 students. In high school, Carson was said to have been somewhat of a loner.
Carson gained admission to Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, in Pittsburgh, where she originally studied English but switched her major to biology in January 1928. She continued contributing to the school's student newspaper and literary supplement.
She was admitted to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1928, but was forced to remain at the Pennsylvania College for Women for her senior year due to financial difficulties. In 1929, she graduated magna cum laude. After a summer course at the Marine Biological Laboratory, she continued her studies in zoology and genetics at Johns Hopkins in the fall of 1929. After her first year of graduate school, Carson became a part-time student, taking an assistantship in Raymond Pearl's laboratory, where she worked with rats and Drosophila, to earn money for tuition. After false starts with pit vipers and squirrels, she completed a dissertation on the embryonic development of the pronephros (urinary organ) in fish.
In June 1932, she earned a master's degree in zoology. She had intended to continue for a doctorate, however in 1934 Carson was forced to leave Johns Hopkins to search for a full-time teaching position to help support her family during the Great Depression. In 1935, Carson's father died suddenly, worsening their already critical financial situation and leaving Carson to care for her aging mother.
== Career ==
At the urging of Mary Scott Skinker, her undergraduate biology mentor, Carson secured a temporary position with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, where she wrote radio copy for a series of weekly educational broadcasts called Romance Under the Waters. The series of 52 seven-minute programs focused on aquatic life and was intended to generate public interest in fish biology and the bureau's work, a task that several writers before Carson had not managed. Carson also began submitting articles on marine life in the Chesapeake Bay, based on her research for the series, to local newspapers and magazines. Carson earned extra money as a lecturer at the University of Maryland's Dental and Pharmacy Schools and Johns Hopkins University.
Carson's supervisor, pleased with the success of the radio series, asked her to write the introduction to a public brochure about the fisheries bureau; he also worked to secure her the first full-time position that became available. Sitting for the civil service exam, she outscored all other applicants and, in 1936, became the second woman hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full-time professional position, as a junior aquatic biologist.
Using her research and consultations with marine biologists as starting points, she wrote a steady stream of articles for The Baltimore Sun and other newspapers. However, her family responsibilities further increased in January 1937 when her older sister died, leaving Carson as the sole breadwinner for her mother and two nieces.
In July 1937, the Atlantic Monthly accepted a revised version of an essay, The World of Waters, that she originally wrote for her first fisheries bureau brochure. Her supervisor had deemed it too good for that purpose. The essay, published as Undersea, was a vivid narrative of a journey along the ocean floor. It marked a major turning point in Carson's writing career. Publishing house Simon & Schuster, impressed by Undersea, contacted Carson and suggested that she expand it into a book. Several years of writing resulted in Under the Sea Wind (1941), which received excellent reviews but sold poorly. In the meantime, Carson's article-writing success continued with her features appearing in Sun Magazine, Nature, and Collier's. Carson attempted to leave the Bureau (by then transformed into the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) in 1945. However, few jobs for naturalists were available, since most money for science was focused on technical fields in the wake of the Manhattan Project.
In mid-1945, Carson first encountered the subject of DDT, a revolutionary new pesticide—lauded as the "insect bomb" after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—that was only beginning to undergo tests for safety and ecological effects. DDT was one of Carson's many writing interests at the time, but editors found the subject unappealing; she published nothing on DDT until 1962.
Carson rose within the Fish and Wildlife Service, and in 1945 was supervising a small writing staff. In 1949, she was appointed chief editor of publications, which allowed her increased opportunities for fieldwork and freedom in choosing her writing projects; however, it also entailed increasingly tedious administrative responsibilities. By 1948, Carson was working on material for a second book and decided to begin a transition to writing full-time. That year, she took on a literary agent, Marie Rodell; they formed a close professional relationship that would last the rest of Carson's career.
Oxford University Press expressed interest in Carson's book proposal for a life history of the ocean, spurring her to complete by early 1950 the manuscript of what would become The Sea Around Us. Chapters appeared in Science Digest and The Yale Review, which published a chapter, "The Birth of an Island," which won the American Association for the Advancement of Science's George Westinghouse Science Writing Prize. Beginning in June 1951, nine chapters were serialized in The New Yorker.
On July 2, 1951, the book was published by Oxford University Press. The Sea Around Us remained on The New York Times Bestseller List for 86 weeks, was abridged by Reader's Digest, won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the John Burroughs Medal, and resulted in Carson being awarded two honorary doctorates. She licensed a documentary film based on it, The Sea, whose success led to republication of Under the Sea Wind, which became a bestseller. With success came financial security; in 1952, Carson was able to give up her job in order to concentrate on writing full-time.
Carson was inundated with requests for speaking engagements, fan mail and other correspondence regarding The Sea Around Us, along with work on the script that she had secured the right to review. She was very unhappy with the final version of the script by writer, director, and producer Irwin Allen; she found it untrue to the atmosphere of the book and scientifically embarrassing, describing it as "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue." However, she discovered that her right to review the script did not extend to any control over its content. This led to many scientific inconsistencies inside the film. Despite Carson's requests to resolve these problems, Allen went forward with the script. He succeeded in producing a very successful documentary. It went on to win the 1953 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. However, Carson was so embittered by the experience that she never again sold film rights to her work.
=== Relationship with Dorothy Freeman ===
Carson met Dorothy M. Freeman in the summer of 1953 on Southport Island, Maine. Freeman had written to Carson welcoming her to the area when she had heard that the famous author was to become her neighbor. It was the beginning of a devoted friendship that lasted the rest of Carson's life. Their relationship was conducted mainly through letters and during summers spent together in Maine. Over 12 years, they exchanged around 900 letters. Many of these were published in the book Always, Rachel, published in 1995 by Beacon Press.
Carson's biographer, Linda J. Lear, writes that "Carson sorely needed a devoted friend and kindred spirit who would listen to her without advising and accept her wholly, the writer as well as the woman." She found this in Freeman. The two women had common interests, nature chief among them, and began exchanging letters regularly while apart. They shared summers for the remainder of Carson's life and met whenever else their schedules permitted.
Concerning the depth of their relationship, commentators have said: "the expression of their love was limited almost wholly to letters and very occasional farewell kisses or holding of hands". Freeman shared parts of Carson's letters with her husband to help him understand the relationship, but much of their correspondence was carefully guarded. Some believe Freeman and Carson's relationship was romantic in nature. One of the letters from Carson to Freeman reads: "But, oh darling, I want to be with you so terribly that it hurts!", while in another, Freeman writes: "I love you beyond expression... My love is boundless as the Sea." Carson's last letter to Freeman before her death ends with: "Never forget, dear one, how deeply I have loved you all these years."
Shortly before Carson's death, she and Freeman destroyed hundreds of letters. The surviving correspondence was published in 1995 as Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman, 1952–1964: An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, edited by Martha Freeman, Dorothy's granddaughter, who wrote at publication: "A few comments in early letters indicate that Rachel and Dorothy were initially cautious about the romantic tone and terminology of their correspondence. I believe this caution prompted their destruction of some letters within the first two years of their friendship..." According to one reviewer, the pair "fit Carolyn Heilbrun's characterization of a strong female friendship, where what matters is 'not whether friends are homosexual or heterosexual, lovers or not, but whether they share the wonderful energy of work in the public sphere.'"
According to her biographer, Linda Lear, there was a disagreement about the final arrangements for Rachel. Her brother, Robert Carson, insisted that her cremated remains be buried beside their mother in Maryland. This was against her wishes to be buried in Maine. In the end, a compromise was reached. Carson's wishes were carried out by an organizing committee, including her agent (Marie Rodell), her editor (Paul Brooks), and Dorothy Freeman. In the spring of 1964, Dorothy received half of Rachel's ashes in the mail sent to her by Robert Carson. In the summer of that year, Dorothy carried out Rachel's final wishes, scattering her ashes along the rocky shores of Sheepscot Bay in Maine.
=== The Edge of the Sea and transition to conservation work ===
Early in 1953, Carson began library and field research on the ecology and organisms of the Atlantic shore. In 1955, she completed the third volume of her sea trilogy, The Edge of the Sea, which focuses on life in coastal ecosystems, particularly along the Eastern Seaboard. It appeared in The New Yorker in two condensed installments shortly before its October 26 book release by Houghton Mifflin (again a new publisher). By this time, Carson's reputation for clear and poetical prose was well established; The Edge of the Sea received highly favorable reviews, if not quite as enthusiastic as for The Sea Around Us.
Through 1955 and 1956, Carson worked on several projects—including the script for an Omnibus episode, "Something About the Sky"—and wrote articles for popular magazines. Her plan for the next book was to address evolution. However, the publication of Julian Huxley's Evolution in Action—and her own difficulty in finding a clear and compelling approach to the topic—led her to abandon the project. Instead, her interests were turning to conservation. She considered an environment-themed book project tentatively titled Remembrance of the Earth and became involved with The Nature Conservancy and other conservation groups. She also made plans to buy and preserve from development an area in Maine she and Freeman called the "Lost Woods."
In early 1957, a family tragedy struck for the third time when one of her nieces she had cared for since the 1940s died at the age of 31, leaving her 5-year-old son, Roger Christie, an orphan. Carson took on the responsibility for Roger when she adopted him, along with caring for her aging mother. Carson moved to Silver Spring, Maryland to care for Roger and spent much of 1957 putting together a new living situation and studying specific environmental threats.
By late 1957, Carson was closely following federal proposals for widespread pesticide spraying; the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) planned to eradicate fire ants. Other spraying programs involving chlorinated hydrocarbons and organophosphates were on the rise. For the rest of her life, Carson's main professional focus would be the dangers of pesticide overuse.
=== Silent Spring ===
Silent Spring, Carson's most influential book, was published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962. The book described the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment, and is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement. Carson was not the first or the only person to raise concern about DDT, but her combination of "scientific knowledge and poetic writing" reached a broad audience and helped to focus opposition to DDT use. The book's publication as a mass-market paperback by Fawcett Crest in January 1964 spread Carson's message to a wider audience. In 1994, an edition of Silent Spring was published with an introduction written by Vice President Al Gore. In 2012 Silent Spring was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society for its role in the development of the modern environmental movement.
==== Research and writing ====
Starting in the mid-1940s, Carson had become concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides, many of which had been developed through the military funding of science since World War II. However, the United States federal government's 1957 gypsy moth, now called spongy moth, eradication program prompted Carson to devote her research and her next book to pesticides and environmental poisons. The gypsy moth program involved aerial spraying of DDT and other pesticides mixed with fuel oil, including the spraying of private land. Landowners on Long Island filed a lawsuit to have the spraying stopped, and many in affected regions followed the case closely. Though the suit was lost, the Supreme Court granted petitioners the right to gain injunctions against potential environmental damage in the future; this laid the basis for later successful environmental actions.
The Audubon Naturalist Society also actively opposed such spraying programs and recruited Carson to help make public the government's exact spraying practices and the related research. Carson began the four-year project of what would become Silent Spring by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT. She also attempted to enlist others to join the cause, such as essayist E. B. White and several journalists and scientists. By 1958, Carson had arranged a book deal, with plans to co-write with Newsweek science journalist Edwin Diamond. However, when The New Yorker commissioned a long and well-paid article on the topic from Carson, she began considering writing more than simply the introduction and conclusion as planned; soon, it was a solo project. (Diamond would later write one of the harshest critiques of Silent Spring).
As her research progressed, Carson found a sizable community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects of pesticides. She also took advantage of her connections with many government scientists, who supplied her with confidential information. From reading the scientific literature and interviewing scientists, Carson found two scientific camps when it came to pesticides: those who dismissed the possible danger of pesticide spraying barring conclusive proof, and those who were open to the possibility of harm and willing to consider alternative methods such as biological pest control.
She also found significant support and extensive evidence from a group of biodynamic agriculture organic market gardeners, their adviser, Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, other contacts, and their suite of legal actions (1957–1960) against the U.S. Government. According to recent research by Paull (2013), this may have been the primary and (for strategic reasons) uncredited source for Carson's book. Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards of Long Island, New York, contested the aerial spraying of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). They compiled their evidence and shared it with Carson, who used it, their extensive contacts, and the trial transcripts as a primary input for Silent Spring. Carson wrote of the content as "a gold mine of information" and says, "I feel guilty about the mass of your material I have here" and makes multiple references to Pfeiffer and his correspondence.
By 1959, the USDA's Agricultural Research Service responded to the criticism by Carson and others with a public service film, Fire Ant on Trial; Carson characterized it as "flagrant propaganda" that ignored the dangers that spraying pesticides (especially dieldrin and heptachlor) posed to humans and wildlife. That spring, Carson wrote a letter, published in The Washington Post, that attributed the recent decline in bird populations—in her words, the "silencing of birds"—to pesticide overuse. That was also the year of the "Great Cranberry Scandal": the 1957, 1958, and 1959 crops of U.S. cranberries were found to contain high levels of the herbicide aminotriazole (which caused cancer in laboratory rats), and the sale of all cranberry products was halted. Carson attended the subsequent FDA hearings on revising pesticide regulations; she came away discouraged by the aggressive tactics of the chemical industry representatives, which included expert testimony that was firmly contradicted by the bulk of the scientific literature she had been studying. She also wondered about the possible "financial inducements behind certain pesticide programs."
Research at the Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health brought Carson into contact with medical researchers investigating the gamut of cancer-causing chemicals. Of particular significance was the work of National Cancer Institute researcher and environmental cancer section founding director Wilhelm Hueper, who classified many pesticides as carcinogens. Carson and her research assistant Jeanne Davis, with the help of NIH librarian Dorothy Algire, found evidence to support the pesticide-cancer connection; to Carson, the evidence for the toxicity of a wide array of synthetic pesticides was clear-cut, though such conclusions were very controversial beyond the small community of scientists studying pesticide carcinogenesis.
By 1960, Carson had more than enough research material, and the writing was progressing rapidly. In addition to the thorough literature search, she had investigated hundreds of individual incidents of pesticide exposure and the human sickness and ecological damage that resulted. However, in January, a duodenal ulcer followed by several infections kept her bedridden for weeks, greatly delaying the completion of Silent Spring. As she was nearing full recovery in March (just as she was completing drafts of the two cancer chapters of her book), she discovered cysts in her left breast, one of which necessitated a mastectomy. Though her doctor described the procedure as precautionary and recommended no further treatment, by December, Carson discovered that the tumor was malignant and the cancer had metastasized. Her research was also delayed by revision work for a new edition of The Sea Around Us and by a collaborative photo essay with Erich Hartmann. Most of the research and writing was done by the fall of 1960, except for the discussion of recent research on biological pest controls and investigations of a handful of new pesticides. However, further health troubles slowed the final revisions in 1961 and early 1962. While writing the book, Carson chose to hide her illness so that the pesticide companies could not use it against her (she worried that if the companies knew, they would use it as ammunition to make her book look untrustworthy and biased).
Finding a title for the book proved difficult; "Silent Spring" was initially suggested as a title for the chapter on birds. By August 1961, Carson finally agreed to the suggestion of her literary agent Marie Rodell: Silent Spring would be a metaphorical title for the entire book, suggesting a bleak future for the whole natural world, rather than a single chapter title about the literal absence of birdsong. With Carson's approval, editor Paul Brooks at Houghton Mifflin arranged for illustrations by Louis and Lois Darling, who also designed the cover. The final writing was the first chapter, A Fable for Tomorrow, which Carson intended as a gentle introduction to what might otherwise be a forbiddingly serious topic. By mid-1962, Brooks and Carson had essentially finished the editing and were laying the groundwork for promoting the book by sending the manuscript out to select individuals for final suggestions.
==== Content ====
Biographer Mark Hamilton Lytle writes that Carson "quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined post-war American culture." The overriding theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often adverse—effect humans have on the natural world.
Carson's main argument is that pesticides have detrimental effects on the environment; they are more properly termed biocides, she argues, because their effects are rarely limited to the target pests. DDT is a prime example, but other synthetic pesticides come under scrutiny, many of which are subject to bioaccumulation. Carson also accuses the chemical industry of intentionally spreading disinformation and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically. Most of the book is devoted to pesticides' effects on natural ecosystems. However, four chapters also detail cases of human pesticide poisoning, cancer, and other illnesses attributed to pesticides. Regarding DDT and cancer, the subject of so much subsequent debate, Carson only briefly mentions the topic:
In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them but felt there was some "justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas." Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a "chemical carcinogen."
Carson predicted increased consequences in the future, especially as targeted pests develop pesticide resistance. At the same time, weakened ecosystems fall prey to unanticipated invasive species. The book closes with a call for a biotic approach to pest control as an alternative to chemical pesticides.
Regarding DDT, Carson never called for an outright ban. Part of the argument she made in Silent Spring was that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counter-productive because it would create insect resistance, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:
No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease by controlling insect vectors of infection. However, it has heard little of the other side of the story—the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.
Carson further noted that "Malaria programmes are threatened by resistance among mosquitoes" and emphasized the advice given by the director of Holland's Plant Protection Service: "Practical advice should be 'Spray as little as you possibly can' rather than 'Spray to the limit of your capacity' ... Pressure on the pest population should always be as slight as possible."
==== Promotion and reception ====
Carson and the others involved with the publication of Silent Spring expected fierce criticism. They were particularly concerned about the possibility of being sued for libel. Carson was also undergoing radiation therapy to combat her spreading cancer and expected to have little energy to devote to defending her work and responding to critics. In preparation for the anticipated attacks, Carson and her agent attempted to amass as many prominent supporters as possible before the book's release.
Most of the book's scientific chapters were reviewed by scientists with relevant expertise, among whom Carson found strong support. Carson attended the White House Conference on Conservation in May 1962; Houghton Mifflin distributed proof copies of Silent Spring to many of the delegates and promoted the upcoming New Yorker serialization. Among many others, Carson also sent a proof copy to Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, a longtime environmental advocate who had argued against the court's rejection of the Long Island pesticide spraying case (and who had provided Carson with some of the material included in her chapter on herbicides).
Though Silent Spring had generated a relatively high level of interest based on pre-publication promotion, this became much more intense with the serialization in The New Yorker, which began on June 16, 1962, issue. This brought the book to the attention of the chemical industry and its lobbyists and a wide swath of the American populace. Around that time, Carson also learned that Silent Spring had been selected as the Book of the Month for October; as she put it, this would "carry it to farms and hamlets all over that country that don't know what a bookstore looks like—much less The New Yorker." Other publicity included a positive editorial in The New York Times and excerpts of the serialized version in Audubon magazine, with another round of publicity in July and August as chemical companies responded. The story of the birth defect-causing drug thalidomide broke just before the book's publication as well, inviting comparisons between Carson and Frances Oldham Kelsey, the Food and Drug Administration reviewer who had blocked the drug's sale in the United States.
Following the publication of Silent Spring, Carson as a woman in science faced personal attacks. Linda Lear, Carson's biographer, describes in the Introduction to Silent Spring how critics sought to undermine Carson's arguments by calling her a "bird and bunny lover." In the eyes of the chemical industry, Carson was a "woman out of control," going outside the bounds of her gender by making claims about an industry within the scientific community.
In the weeks leading up to the September 27, 1962, publication, there was strong opposition to Silent Spring from the chemical industry. DuPont (a high market-share manufacturer of DDT and 2,4-D) and Velsicol Chemical Corporation (exclusive manufacturer of chlordane and heptachlor) were among the first to respond. DuPont compiled an extensive report on the book's press coverage and estimated impact on public opinion. Velsicol threatened legal action against Houghton Mifflin and The New Yorker and Audubon unless the planned Silent Spring features were canceled. Chemical industry representatives and lobbyists also lodged a range of non-specific complaints, some anonymously. Chemical companies and associated organizations produced a number of their own brochures and articles promoting and defending pesticide use. However, Carson's and the publishers' lawyers were confident in the vetting process Silent Spring had undergone. The magazine and book publications proceeded as planned, as did the large Book-of-the-Month printing (which included a pamphlet endorsing the book by William O. Douglas).
American Cyanamid biochemist Robert White-Stevens and former Cyanamid chemist Thomas Jukes were among the most aggressive critics, especially of Carson's analysis of DDT. According to White-Stevens, "If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth." Others went further, attacking Carson's scientific credentials (because her training was in marine biology rather than biochemistry) and her character. White-Stevens labeled her "...a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature," while former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, in a letter to former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, reportedly concluded that because she was unmarried despite being physically attractive, she was "probably a Communist."
Many critics repeatedly asserted that she was calling for the elimination of all pesticides. However, Carson had made it clear she was not advocating the banning or complete withdrawal of helpful pesticides but was instead encouraging responsible and carefully managed use with an awareness of the chemicals' impact on the entire ecosystem. In fact, she concludes her section on DDT in Silent Spring not by urging a total ban but with advice for spraying as little as possible to limit the development of resistance.
The academic community, including prominent defenders such as H. J. Muller, Loren Eiseley, Clarence Cottam, and Frank Egler, by and large, backed the book's scientific claims; public opinion soon turned Carson's way as well. The chemical industry campaign backfired, as the controversy greatly increased public awareness of potential pesticide dangers, as well as Silent Spring book sales. Pesticide use became a major public issue, especially after the CBS Reports TV special The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson that aired April 3, 1963. The program included segments of Carson reading from Silent Spring and interviews with several other experts, mostly critics (including White-Stevens); according to biographer Linda Lear, "in juxtaposition to the wild-eyed, loud-voiced Dr. Robert White-Stevens in white lab coat, Carson appeared anything but the hysterical alarmist that her critics contended." Reactions from the estimated audience of ten to fifteen million were overwhelmingly positive, and the program spurred a congressional review of pesticide dangers and the public release of a pesticide report by the President's Science Advisory Committee. Within a year or so of publication, the attacks on the book and Carson had largely lost momentum.
In one of her last public appearances, Carson testified before President John F. Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee. The committee issued its report on May 15, 1963, largely backing Carson's scientific claims. Following the report's release, she also testified before a United States Senate subcommittee to make policy recommendations. Though Carson received hundreds of other speaking invitations, she could not accept the great majority of them. Her health was steadily declining as her cancer outpaced the radiation therapy, with only brief periods of remission. She spoke as much as she was physically able, however, including a notable appearance on The Today Show and speeches at several dinners held in her honor. In late 1963, she received a flurry of awards and honors: the Audubon Medal (from the National Audubon Society), the Cullum Geographical Medal (from the American Geographical Society), and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
== Death ==
Weakened from breast cancer and her treatment regimen, Carson became ill with a respiratory virus in January 1964. Her condition worsened, and in February, doctors found that she had severe anemia from her radiation treatments. In March, they discovered that the cancer had reached her liver. She died of a heart attack on April 14, 1964, in her home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Her body was cremated, and some of her ashes were buried beside her mother at Parklawn Memorial Gardens in Rockville, Maryland. The rest were scattered along the coast of Squirrel Island near Sheepscot River in Maine.
== Legacy ==
=== Collected papers and posthumous publications ===
Carson bequeathed her manuscripts and papers to Yale University to take advantage of the new state-of-the-art preservations facilities of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Her longtime agent and literary executor Marie Rodell spent nearly two years organizing and cataloging Carson's papers and correspondence, distributing all the letters to their senders so that only what each correspondent approved would be submitted to the archive.
In 1965, Rodell arranged for the publication of an essay Carson had intended to expand into a book: The Sense of Wonder. The essay, which was combined with photographs by Charles Pratt and others, exhorts parents to help their children experience the "...lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world ... available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea, and sky and their amazing life."
In addition to the letters in Always Rachel, in 1998, a volume of Carson's previously unpublished work was published as Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, edited by Linda Lear. All of Carson's books remain in print.
=== Grassroots environmentalism and the EPA ===
Carson's work had a powerful impact on the environmental movement. Silent Spring, in particular, was a rallying point for the fledgling social movement in the 1960s. According to environmental engineer and Carson scholar H. Patricia Hynes, "Silent Spring altered the balance of power in the world. No one since would be able to sell pollution as the necessary underside of progress so easily or uncritically." Carson's work, and the activism it inspired, are at least partly responsible for the deep ecology movement and the overall strength of the grassroots environmental movement since the 1960s. It was also influential on the rise of ecofeminism and on many feminist scientists.
While there remains no evidence that Carson was openly a women's rights activist, her work and its subsequent criticisms have left an iconic legacy for the ecofeminist movement. Attacks on Carson's credibility included criticism of her credentials in which she was labeled an "amateur." It was said that her writing was too "emotional." Ecofeminist scholars argue that not only was the dissenting rhetoric gendered to paint Carson as hysterical but was done because her arguments challenged the capitalist production of large agri-business corporations. Others, such as Yaakov Garb, suggest that in addition to not being a women's rights activist, Carson also had no anti-capitalist agenda and that such attacks were unwarranted. Additionally, the way photos of Carson were used to portray her are often questioned because of few representations of her engaging in work typical of a scientist, but instead of her leisure activities.
Carson's most direct legacy in the environmental movement was the campaign to ban DDT in the United States (and related efforts to ban or limit its use throughout the world). Though environmental concerns about DDT had been considered by government agencies as early as Carson's testimony before the President's Science Advisory Committee, the 1967 formation of the Environmental Defense Fund was the first significant milestone in the campaign against DDT. The organization brought lawsuits against the government to "establish a citizen's right to a clean environment," and the arguments employed against DDT largely mirrored Carson's. By 1972, the Environmental Defense Fund and other activist groups had succeeded in securing a phase-out of DDT use in the United States (except in emergency cases).
The creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Nixon Administration in 1970 addressed another concern that Carson had brought to light. Until then, the same agency (the USDA) was responsible both for regulating pesticides and promoting the concerns of the agriculture industry; Carson saw this as a conflict of interest since the agency was not responsible for effects on wildlife or other environmental concerns beyond farm policy. Fifteen years after its creation, one journalist described the EPA as "the extended shadow of Silent Spring." Much of the agency's early work, such as enforcing the 1972 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, was directly related to Carson's work.
In the 1980s, the policies of the Reagan Administration emphasized economic growth, rolling back many of the environmental policies adopted in response to Carson and her work.
=== Posthumous honors ===
Various groups ranging from government institutions to environmental and conservation organizations to scholarly societies have celebrated Carson's life and work since her death. Perhaps most significantly, on June 9, 1980, Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. A 17¢ Great Americans series postage stamp was issued in her honor the following year; several other countries have since issued Carson postage as well. In 1973, Carson was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
The University of California, Santa Cruz, named one of its colleges, formerly known as College Eight, Rachel Carson College in 2016. Rachel Carson College is the first college at the university to bear a woman's name.
Munich's Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society was founded in 2009. An international, interdisciplinary center for research and education in the environmental humanities and social sciences, it was established as a joint initiative of Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and the Deutsches Museum, with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
Carson's birthplace and childhood home in Springdale, Pennsylvania, now known as the Rachel Carson Homestead, became a National Register of Historic Places site and the nonprofit Rachel Carson Homestead Association was created in 1975 to manage it. Her home in Colesville, Maryland, where she wrote Silent Spring, was named a National Historic Landmark in 1991. Near Pittsburgh, a 46.1 miles (74 km) hiking trail, the Rachel Carson Trail and maintained by the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy, was dedicated to Carson in 1975. A Pittsburgh bridge was renamed in Carson's honor as the Rachel Carson Bridge. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection State Office Building in Harrisburg is named in her honor.
Elementary schools in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Sammamish, Washington and San Jose, California middle schools in Beaverton, Oregon Queens, New York City, Rachel Carson Intermediate School, in Herndon, Virginia, Rachel Carson Middle School, and a high school in Brooklyn, New York City were all named in her honor.
Two research vessels have sailed in the United States bearing the name R/V Rachel Carson. One is on the west coast, owned by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and the other is on the east coast, operated by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Another vessel of the name, now scrapped, was a former naval vessel obtained and converted by the United States EPA. It operated on the Great Lakes. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary also operates a mooring buoy maintenance vessel named the Rachel Carson.
The ceremonial auditorium on the third floor of EPA headquarters, the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, is named after Carson. The Rachel Carson Room is close to the EPA Administrator's office. It has been the site of numerous important announcements, including the Clean Air Interstate Rule.
A number of conservation areas have been named for Carson as well. Between 1964 and 1990, 650 acres (263 ha) near Brookeville in Montgomery County, Maryland were acquired and set aside as the Rachel Carson Conservation Park, administered by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. In 1969, the Coastal Maine National Wildlife Refuge became the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge; expansions will bring the size of the refuge to about 9,125 acres (3,693 ha). In 1985, North Carolina renamed one of its estuarine reserves in honor of Carson, in Beaufort.
Carson is also a frequent namesake for prizes awarded by philanthropic, educational and scholarly institutions. The Rachel Carson Prize, founded in Stavanger, Norway in 1991, is awarded to women who have made a contribution in the field of environmental protection. The American Society for Environmental History has awarded the Rachel Carson Prize for Best Dissertation since 1993. Since 1998, the Society for Social Studies of Science has awarded an annual Rachel Carson Book Prize for "a book length work of social or political relevance in the area of science and technology studies." The Society of Environmental Journalists gives an annual award and two honourable mentions for books on environmental issues in Carson's name, such as was awarded to Joe Roman's Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act in 2012. The Sierra Club and its foundation recognize donors who have provided for the club in their estate plans as the Rachel Carson Society. The Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) awards post-doctoral fellowships in the area of the environment and society.
The Rachel Carson sculpture in Woods Hole, Massachusetts was unveiled on July 14, 2013. Google created a Google Doodle for Carson's 107th birthday on May 27, 2014. Carson was featured during the "HerStory" video tribute to notable women on U2's tour in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree during a performance of "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" from the band's 1991 album Achtung Baby. In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose Carson for 1963.
==== Centennial events ====
The centennial of Carson's birth occurred in 2007. On Earth Day (April 22), Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson released as "a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writing." It included 13 essays by environmental writers and scientists.
Democratic Senator Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland had intended to submit a resolution celebrating Carson for her "legacy of scientific rigor coupled with poetic sensibility" on the 100th anniversary of her birth. The resolution was blocked by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
On May 27, 2007, the Rachel Carson Homestead Association held a birthday party and sustainable feast at her birthplace and home in Springdale, Pennsylvania, and the first Rachel Carson Legacy Conference in Pittsburgh with E. O. Wilson as keynote speaker. Both Rachel's Sustainable Feast and the conference continue as annual events.
Also in 2007, American author Ginger Wadsworth wrote a biography of Carson.
== List of works ==
Under the Sea Wind, 1941, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group, 1996, ISBN 0-14-025380-7
"Food From the Sea: Fish and Shellfish of New England" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. 1943.
Carson, Rachel (1943). "Food From Home Waters: Fishes of the Middle West" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.
"Fish and Shellfish of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. 1944.
Carson, Rachel (1945). "Fish and Shellfish of the Middle Atlantic Coast" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.
Carson, Rachel (1947). "Chincoteague: A National Wildlife Refuge" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.
Carson, Rachel (1947). "Mattamuskeet: A National Wildlife Refuge" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.
Carson, Rachel (1947). "Parker River: A National Wildlife Refuge" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office.
Wilson, Vanez; Carson, Rachel (1950). "Bear River: A National Wildlife Refuge" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Publications. United States Government Printing Office. (with Vanez T. Wilson)
The Sea Around Us, Oxford University Press, 1951; Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-19-506997-8
The Edge of the Sea, Houghton Mifflin 1955; Mariner Books, 1998, ISBN 0-395-92496-0
Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin, 1962; Mariner Books, 2002, ISBN 0-618-24906-0
Silent Spring initially appeared serialized in three parts in the June 16, June 23, and June 30, 1962, issues of The New Yorker magazine
The Sense of Wonder, 1965, HarperCollins, 1998: ISBN 0-06-757520-X published posthumously
Always, Rachel: The Letters of Rachel Carson and Dorothy Freeman 1952–1964 An Intimate Portrait of a Remarkable Friendship, Beacon Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8070-7010-6 edited by Martha Freeman (granddaughter of Dorothy Freeman)
Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, Beacon Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8070-8547-2
Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology, edited by Lauret E. Savoy, Eldridge M. Moores, and Judith E. Moores, Trinity University Press, 2006, ISBN 1-59534-022-X
== See also ==
Air pollution
Environmentalist
Environmental history of the United States
Environmental toxicology
Rachel Carson Greenway (three trails in Central Maryland)
Silent Spring Institute
Women and the environment
== References ==
=== Citations ===
=== Works cited ===
Carson, Rachel (1962). Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin.
Hynes, H. Patricia (1989). The Recurring Silent Spring. Athene series. New York: Pergamon Press. ISBN 0-08-037117-5.
Lear, Linda (1997). Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. New York: Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-3428-5.
Lytle, Mark Hamilton (2007). The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-517246-1.
Murphy, Priscilla Coit (2005). What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 978-1-55849-582-1.
== Further reading ==
Brinkley, Douglas. Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening (2022) excerpt
Brooks, Paul (1972). The House of Life: Rachel Carson at Work. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-13517-6. This book is a personal memoir by Carson's Houghton Mifflin editor and close friend Paul Brooks. Brooks' papers are housed at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods Library.
Gottlieb, Robert (2005). Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington D.C.: Island Press. ISBN 978-1-55963-832-6.
Jezer, Marty (1988). Rachel Carson: Biologist and Author. American women of achievement. Chelsea House Publications. ISBN 1-55546-646-X.
Kline, Benjamin (2011). First Along the River. Maryland. Rowman & Littlefield.
Lepore, Jill, "The Shore Bird: Rachel Carson and the rising of the seas", The New Yorker, March 26, 2018, pp. 64–66, 68–72.
Lutts, R (1985). Chemical fallout: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Radioactive Fallout, and the Environmental Movement. Environmental Review.
Matthiessen, Peter, ed. (2007). Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson. Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0-618-87276-3.
Moore, Kathleen Dean; Sideris, Lisa H. (2008). Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-7471-6.
Quaratiello, Arlene (2010). Rachel Carson: A Biography. Amherst, New York: Prometheus. ISBN 978-1-61614-187-5.
Sideris, Lisa H. (Fall–Winter 2009). "Fact and Fiction, Fear and Wonder: The Legacy of Rachel Carson". Soundings. 91 (3–4): 335–69. JSTOR 41179228.
Souder, William (2012). On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson. New York, NY: Crown Publishers. ISBN 978-0-307-46220-6.
Collombat, Isabelle (2021). Rachel Carson : "Non à la destruction de la nature" [Rachel Carson: No to the destruction of nature] (in French). Actes Sud junior. ISBN 978-2-330-15053-2. Archived from the original on January 29, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
Collombat, Isabelle (2023). Rachel Carson - Le monde doit savoir [Rachel Carson - The World Must Know] (in French). Albin Michel Jeunesse. p. 432. ISBN 9782226471611. Archived from the original on March 2, 2024. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
== External links ==
Works by Rachel Carson at the Biodiversity Heritage Library
American Experience documentary about Rachel Carson
A Sense of Wonder : 2010 PBS Documentary / Interviews with Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Works by Rachel Carson at Faded Page (Canada)
New York Times obituary
RachelCarson.org—Web site by Carson biographer Linda J. Lear
Time, Mar. 29, 1999, Environmentalist RACHEL CARSON
Koehn, Nancy, "From Calm Leadership, Lasting Change", The New York Times, October 27, 2012.
Revisiting Rachel Carson—Bill Moyer's Journal, PBS.org, September 21, 2007
A Sense of Wonder—a two-act play about Carson, written and performed by Kaiulani Lee, based on posthumous work of the same name
Clip of Bill Moyers television on Lee's one-woman show on YouTube
"Why Our Winters Are Getting Warmer," November 1951, Popular Science—early article by Rachel Carson about how the ocean's currents affect climate (excerpt from her 1951 book, The Sea Around Us).
(Rachel L. Carson as Interpreted by Irwin Allen—TCM Movie Morlocks on The Sea Around Us)
Silent Spring, A Visual History curated by the Michigan State University Museum
Michals, Debra. "Rachel Carson". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
"For the Birds," episode 6 of The Last Archive podcast by Jill Lepore, released July 9, 2020.
"Roundtable Discussion of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson," 1962-00-00, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 7, 2021.
Carson-related organizations
The Rachel Carson Homestead
Silent Spring Institute
Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy
Rachel Carson Institute Archived June 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Oakley_Dayhoff_Award | Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award | The Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society in Rockville, Maryland, is given to a woman who "holds very high promise or has achieved prominence while developing the early stages of a career in biophysical research". It is "one of the top national honors" in biophysics. The award was established in 1984 in honor of Margaret Dayhoff, a biophysicist associated with the Biophysical Society and the National Biomedical Research Foundation.
== Award recipients ==
Source: Biophysical Society
1984/85: Dagmar Ringe and Bonnie Ann Wallace
1985/86: Barbara A. Lewis
1986/87: Barbara E. Ehrlich
1987/88: Rachel E. Klevit
1988/89: Nancy L. Thompson
1989/90: Anne Walter
1990/91: Jeanne Rudzki Small
1991/92: Hazel M. Holden and Francine R. Smith
1992/93: Carol Vandenberg
1993/94: Jean S. Baum
1994/95: Hillary C. M. Nelson
1995/96: Lynne Regan
1996/97: Susan Marqusee
1997/98: Bonnie Anne Berger
1998/99: Judith R. Mourant
1999: Lydia Gregoret
2000/2001: Millie M. Georgiadis and Ka Yee Christina Lee
2002: Gina MacDonald
2003: Hao Wu
2004: Dorothee Kern
2005: Sarah Keller
2006: Anne Hinderliter
2007: Kalina Hristova
2008: Judith Klein-Seetharaman
2009: Teresa Giraldez, Adrienne L. Fairhall, and Jin Zhang
2010: Crina Nimigean and Maria Spies
2011: Diane Lidke
2012: Lucy R. Forrest
2013: Jennifer L. Ross and Katherine Henzler-Wildman
2014: Sarah Veatch
2015: Antonina Roll-Mecak
2016: Sophie Dumont and Polina Lishko
2017: Julie S. Biteen
2018: Carrie L. Partch
2019: Meytal Landau
2020: Valeria Vásquez
2021: Randy Stockbridge
2022: Gabriela Schlau-Cohen
2023: Elizabeth H. Kellogg
== See also ==
List of biology awards
List of prizes, medals, and awards for women in science
Prizes named after people
== Notes ==
== External links ==
Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award page
Dayhoff Award, NLM |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Turner_(footballer) | Noel Turner (footballer) | Noel Turner (born 9 December 1974) is a Maltese former footballer who played at both professional and international levels as a midfielder. He is married to Amy and he has 6 children. Nicole, Emma, Benjamin, Thomas, Matthew and Timothy.
== Career ==
Born in Sliema, Turner spent his entire professional career with hometown club Sliema Wanderers.
Turner earned 61 caps for Malta, appearing in 14 FIFA World Cup qualifying matches.
== See also ==
List of one-club men
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_annexation_of_Donetsk,_Kherson,_Luhansk_and_Zaporizhzhia_oblasts | Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts | On 30 September 2022, Russia, amid an ongoing invasion of Ukraine, unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Most of Luhansk Oblast and part of Donetsk Oblast had been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, while the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts were invaded by Russia in 2022. The boundaries of the areas to be annexed and their borders were not defined; Russian officials stated that they would be defined later. None of the oblasts were fully under Russian control at the time of the declaration, nor since. If limited to the areas then under Russian control (about 90,000 km2 or 15% of Ukraine's territory, roughly the size of Portugal) the annexation would still be the largest in Europe since World War II.
The move occurred after internationally unrecognized referendums held days prior, which were organized by Russian occupation authorities in territories where hostilities were ongoing and much of the population had fled. It occurred seven months after the start of the invasion and less than a month after the start of the Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive. The signing ceremony was held in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow in the presence of occupation authority heads Leonid Pasechnik, Denis Pushilin, Yevgeny Balitsky and Vladimir Saldo, and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The declared annexation is unrecognized by the international community, with the exception of North Korea and, formerly, also Ba'athist Syria. Ukraine, the European Union, the United States and the United Nations all said that the referendums and the annexation had no legal basis or effect. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in response that Ukraine would apply to join NATO on an expedited basis. On 19 October Russia introduced martial law within the annexed and controlled areas, with legislation allowing for bans on public gatherings and other widespread restrictions on personal liberty.
The Ukrainian Kherson and Kharkiv counteroffensives allowed Ukraine to recapture parts of its territory, including Kherson on 11 November 2022.
== Background ==
Vast regions to the north of the Black Sea were sparsely populated and were known as the Wild Fields (as translated from Polish or Ukrainian). In the 15th century, the entire area of the northern coast of the Black Sea came under the control of the Crimean Khanate, which became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire. The Russian Empire gradually gained control over the area in the 18th century, signing peace treaties with the Cossack Hetmanate and with the Ottoman Empire after the Russo-Turkish Wars. The name Novorossiya entered official usage in 1764. It was further expanded by annexing the Ukrainian Cossack Zaporozhian Sich in 1775.
The four oblasts in southern and eastern Ukraine originated from Yekaterinoslav, Kherson, Taurida and Kharkov Governorates and Don Host Oblast of the Russian Empire. They were reorganized over the years during Communist rule when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The boundaries remained static after Ukraine became independent in 1991. All four regions overwhelmingly voted in favour of Ukrainian independence during the 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum.
In February and March 2014, following the revolution in Ukraine, Russia occupied and subsequently annexed Crimea from Ukraine by way of holding a referendum.The annexation was mostly internationally unrecognized and was condemned by the UN General Assembly. In April 2014, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine proclaimed the independence of the Donetsk People's Republic (in Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast) and the Luhansk People's Republic (in Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast) with unofficial support from Russia.
On 21 February 2022, Russia officially recognized the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic and, three days later, started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, during which they occupied territory in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, with formal military occupations beginning in the first week. On 23 February, Putin in a televised address announced a "special military operation" in Ukraine, launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In his speech, Putin claimed that Russia has no plans to occupy Ukrainian territory, adding: "We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force".
== Annexation referendums ==
On 20 September, the authorities of the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, as well as the occupation regimes of Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, announced referendums on joining Russia on 23–27 September.
On 27 September, Russian officials claimed that the accession "referendum" in Zaporizhzhia Oblast passed, with 93.11% of voters in favor of joining Russia.
== Proclamations of independence of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia ==
Following the annexation referendums in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, the Russian military-civilian administrations of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia proclaimed independence as an intermediate step for Russian annexation. The day after the referendums were held, the KMCA proclaimed the independence of the 'Kherson region'. The ZMCA did the same for Zaporizhzhia, proclaiming independence for the 'Zaporozhye region'.
On 29 September, Russia recognized Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as independent countries, hours before annexing them.
== Annexation proceedings and borders ==
On 30 September, Putin signed accession treaties with the four pro-Russian leaders of the regions, Leonid Pasechnik, Head of the Luhansk People's Republic; Denis Pushilin, Head of the Donetsk People's Republic; Yevgeny Balitsky, governor of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast; and Volodymyr Saldo, governor of the Kherson Oblast. The exact boundaries of the territories declared annexed were, however, not legally defined, with the drafts of final annexation documents recursively referring to territories "on the day of the admission to the Russian Federation" and on the day of "the formation of a new constituent entity within the Russian Federation", both being prospective future events.
Hours after the declared annexation, the Ukrainian army recaptured several towns in Donetsk Oblast as part of the 2022 Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive.
At the time of the annexation proceedings in early October, Russian authorities stated that the Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic (collectively called the Donbas) would maintain their 2014 borders. They also stated that elsewhere, the new Russian border was not clearly defined, and would be defined in consultation with local residents. It was also stated that Russian-held parts of Mykolaiv Oblast would be incorporated into Russian-controlled Kherson Oblast.
Russia did not hold the entirety of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts; at the time, it held about 60% of Donetsk Oblast, most of Luhansk Oblast, almost all of Kherson Oblast, and about 70% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. It held almost none of Mykolaiv Oblast, and had recently lost all but a small part of the areas it had controlled in Kharkiv Oblast; Ukrainian intelligence claimed to have obtained documents indicating that a planned annexation referendum in Kharkiv Oblast was cancelled as a result of these losses.
It was not clear whether Russia was claiming those portions of the named oblasts which it does not hold under military control. Russian authorities did state that all of the Donetsk region would be treated as part of Russia, and that the portion not under Russian control would be "liberated". The areas which were controlled by Russia at the time amount to about 15% of Ukraine's total area, more than 90,000 km2 (35,000 sq mi)—roughly the size of Hungary or Portugal.
On 3 October, Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics will be annexed in "their 2014 borders", while as for the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts Russia will "continue consultations with the residents as to their borders". These comments caused confusion and polemics among supporters of the annexation in Russia, with former Ukrainian parliamentarian and Russian collaborator Oleg Tsaryov arguing "there is no 2014 borders" of DNR and LNR.
Russia's State Duma unanimously rubber stamped the annexations on 3 October. The annexation of each oblast received more "yes" votes than there were lawmakers present. Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin blamed the discrepancies on a "technical failure". The Federation Council approved the annexations not long afterwards and President Putin signed them into law. The annexation was carried out also in violation of Russian law.
== Consequences ==
On 1 October, Russia began requiring Ukrainians wishing to cross into Ukrainian-held areas to fill out exit visas and get permission in advance. The number of people arriving from areas of Russian control slowed to a trickle, with talk of a "new Iron Curtain". Getting permission to leave can take up to two weeks and requires clearances from various Russian security agencies.
On 19 October, President Vladimir Putin declared martial law in the annexed areas.
Newsweek reported in September 2022 that some estimates suggest that the reconstruction of the annexed territories would cost Russia between $100 and $200 billion. A state budget published on 29 September by the Kremlin revealed that 3.3 billion roubles (about US$59 million) had been set aside to rebuild the regions.
In December 2022, Peskov said that any peace plans to end the Russo-Ukrainian War can only proceed from Ukraine's recognition of Russia's annexation of occupied regions in September 2022. In January 2023, Putin cited recognition of Russia's sovereignty over the annexed territories as a condition for peace talks with Ukraine.
In July 2024, Chief of the General Staff of the British Army Roland Walker said that with the current way of fighting, it would take Russia five years to fully control the four annexed regions, and it would cost Russia more than 1.5 million casualties. He said there were "no winners" in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, adding that "it is an utter devastation for both sides and lost generations."
== Speech by Putin ==
Russian president Vladimir Putin delivered a 37-minute-long speech to both chambers of the Russian parliament about the annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts into Russia. He spoke in the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace in the Moscow Kremlin. The tone of the speech was strongly anti-American and anti-Western, to the point where observers described it as his most anti-Western speech to date.
Following the results of recent referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia—which were condemned as shams by independent observers and the international community—Putin said that it was the "will of millions of people" in these territories to become part of Russia and to become Russian citizens "forever". He cited Article 1 of the UN charter as justification for his claims.
Within the speech, Putin spoke about the colonial past of the Western world, denouncing its "totalitarianism, despotism and apartheid", and accused it of attempting to create a neo-colonial and unipolar world order. He said that the West intended to destroy Russia as a nation, and called "the ruling circles of the so-called West" "the enemy" threatening religion and morality, accusing the West of Satanism.
Putin also blamed the recent Nord Stream gas leaks on the "Anglo-Saxons" and said that the use of nuclear weapons by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki "set a precedent".
== Reactions ==
According to Reuters, if Russia "formally annexed a vast additional chunk of Ukraine, Putin would essentially be daring the United States and its European allies to risk a direct military confrontation", and would certainly escalate the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
The UN's Under Secretary General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo rejected the referendum and said, "Unilateral actions aimed to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the attempted acquisition by force by one State of another State's territory while claiming to represent the will of the people, cannot be regarded as legal under international law".
A United Nations Security Council meeting was held on 30 September 2022, to vote on a resolution to condemn Russia for annexing these territories, resulting in ten yes votes, one no vote, and four abstentions. The resolution failed because Russia vetoed it. Brazil, China, Gabon and India abstained from the vote.
On 12 October 2022, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution ES-11/4, titled "Territorial integrity of Ukraine: defending the principles of the Charter of the United Nations", with 143 nations voting in favor, 5 against and 35 abstaining. It condemned the "illegal so-called referendums" and the "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia immediately reverse its decisions and withdraw its forces from Ukraine.
Only North Korea and Syria (then still under the Ba'athist regime, which is a close ally of Russia) have recognized the Russian annexation of the four partially occupied regions of Ukraine.
A YouGov poll showed that in February 2023, 63% of respondents in Sweden wanted to support Ukraine in a war with Russia until Russian troops leave all occupied territories. A Gallup poll conducted in June 2023 found that 62% of respondents in the United States wanted to support Ukraine in regaining territory that Russia had captured, even if it meant prolonging the war between Russia and Ukraine, while 32% wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, even if it meant allowing Russia to keep the territory it conquered in southeastern Ukraine.
On September 9, 2023, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement condemning the "sham 'elections'" held in parts of Ukraine.
=== Ukrainian response ===
On 7 August 2022, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that "if the occupiers proceed along the path of pseudo-referendums they will close for themselves any chance of talks with Ukraine and the free world, which the Russian side will clearly need at some point." Following the annexation ceremony, Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine would not negotiate with Russia "as long as Putin is president", and requested a "fast-track" NATO membership in response.
In the poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) between 13 and 18 May 2022, 82% of Ukrainians said they did not support any territorial concessions to Russia, even if that meant prolonging the war. Another KIIS poll conducted in September 2022 found that 87% of Ukrainians opposed any territorial concessions to Russia.
On 29 September, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelenskyy, said that the Russian plans to annex parts of Ukraine "do not make legal sense" and that the annexation ceremony was a "Kremlin freak show".
The Ukrainian Kherson and Kharkiv counteroffensives allowed Ukraine to recapture parts of its territory, including the city of Kherson on 11 November.
== See also ==
Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine
Crimean speech of Vladimir Putin
Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation
Proposed Russian annexation of Transnistria
Proposed Russian annexation of South Ossetia
Collaboration with Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Post-Soviet states: "Near abroad"
Russian-occupied territories
Russian imperialism
Russian irredentism
Novorossiya (confederation)
Nuclear risk during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
=== Geopolitical aspects ===
List of military occupations
List of national border changes (1914–present)
Timeline of geopolitical changes (2000–present)
Territorial nationalism
== Notes ==
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_God_with_Morgan_Freeman | The Story of God with Morgan Freeman | The Story of God with Morgan Freeman is an American television documentary series that premiered on the National Geographic Channel on April 3, 2016. The series features actor Morgan Freeman who explores various cultures and religions and their take on religion-related topics, particularly their belief in a God or a higher power. The second season began airing on January 16, 2017, and the third on March 5, 2019.
== Episodes ==
=== Series overview ===
=== Season 1 (2016) ===
=== Season 2 (2017) ===
=== Season 3 (2019) ===
== Home releases ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
The Story of God with Morgan Freeman on National Geographic (accessible in select countries)
The Story of God with Morgan Freeman at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tonko#:~:text=2008,-See%20also%3A%202008&text=On%20April%2025%2C%202008%2C%20Tonko,his%20upcoming%20retirement%20from%20Congress. | Paul Tonko | Paul David Tonko ( TONK-oh; born June 18, 1949) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 20th congressional district since 2013. He represented the 21st congressional district from 2009 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Tonko has been called a staunch progressive. After the 2020 redistricting cycle and effective for the 118th Congress, the 20th district will include all of Albany, Saratoga, and Schenectady Counties as well as part of Rensselaer County.
From 1983 to 2007, Tonko represented the 105th district in the New York State Assembly. He was appointed to serve as president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority from 2007 until his resignation in April 2008. Soon afterward, he declared his candidacy for Congress, and was elected in November 2008.
Tonko is the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment in the 119th Congress. Since 2013, he has been the highest-ranking Democrat on the panel, which authorizes, oversees and investigates the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
== Early life, education and early career ==
Tonko is a lifelong resident of Amsterdam, New York, near Schenectady, and is of primarily Polish descent. He graduated from Amsterdam's Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1967, and received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical and industrial engineering from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York in 1971.
An engineer for the New York Public Service Commission, Tonko became active in local politics in the early 1970s and successfully ran for the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors. He was a member of the board from 1976 to 1983, and the board's chairman from 1981 to 1983. Tonko was the youngest person in county history to be elected to the board of supervisors.
== New York State Assembly (1983–2007) ==
In January 1983, Assemblywoman Gail S. Shaffer resigned her 105th district seat to take office as Secretary of State of New York. The Democratic Party, as well as the Liberal Party, nominated Tonko to contest an April 12 special election for the seat against former Schoharie County Clerk Eugene Hallock, the Republican and Conservative nominee. Tonko defeated Hallock in a close race. Tonko was reelected 13 times, serving in the Assembly until 2007.
While in the Assembly, Tonko served as chair of the Energy Committee from 1992 until his departure from the Assembly in 2007. He was also a member of standing committees on Agriculture, Transportation and Education, where he was the original sponsor and a chief proponent of the College Tuition Savings Program that was signed into law in 1997.
Tonko sponsored Timothy's Law, a 2006 law that requires health insurers to cover mental health treatment. He also sponsored the Northeast Dairy Compact, and chaired the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources,
Tonko resigned his Assembly seat in June 2007 to become President and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
== U.S. House of Representatives (2009–present) ==
=== Elections ===
==== 2008 ====
On April 25, 2008, Tonko stepped down from his position at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority after ten-term Democratic Congressman Michael McNulty announced his upcoming retirement from Congress. He subsequently entered the race to succeed McNulty in the 21st district. Tonko won the Democratic primary on September 9, defeating four other candidates.
In the November 4 general election, Tonko defeated Republican Schenectady County Legislator James Buhrmaster by a decisive margin. According to the Times Union, "Tonko's name recognition ... accomplishment in the Legislature, such as the passage of mental health parity legislation, and his record" contributed to his win. He had effectively clinched a seat in Congress in the primary; the 21st had long been the only safe Democratic district in the state outside the New York City, Buffalo and Rochester areas.
==== 2010–present ====
Tonko ran for reelection on the Democratic, Working Families and Independence Party lines. He was challenged by Republican and Conservative Party nominee Ted Danz, a former United States Navy Reservist and small business owner in the cooling and heating business. Tonko raised almost $980,000, and spent almost $780,000 on his campaign; Danz raised about $44,000 and spent about $42,000 on his campaign. The New York Times rated the seat "Solid Democratic", with a "99.8%" to "100% chance" that Tonko would win. The major issues in the 2010 race were Tonko's votes for Obamacare, the Stimulus Package (ARRA), and the Energy Bill. The Albany Times Union endorsed Tonko, citing "a way of thinking and speaking like the engineer that he once was" and his support of the economic stimulus bill and health care bills. Tonko won the November 2 general election, 124,889 votes to 85,752.
Redistricting saw Tonko's district renumbered the 20th district. It lost much of its more rural territory to the west. To make up for the loss in population, it was pushed further into Saratoga County. The new 20th was no less Democratic than the old 21st, and Tonko defeated Bob Dieterich in 2012, Jim Fischer in 2014, and Joe Vitollo in 2016 and 2018. He defeated Liz Joy in 2020 and 2022. He defeated Kevin Waltz in 2024.
=== Tenure ===
Tonko was one of the 19 most liberal House members, according to the National Journal, for 2011. He voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time in the 117th Congress, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.
When he entered Congress, Tonko said he wanted to focus on the issue he said he knows best—energy policy. He sponsored a bill to create an $800 million research program in wind energy technologies, which would benefit GE in his district. He also wanted to create a research program to improve the efficiency of gas turbines used in power generation systems that convert heat into energy. In 2010, Tonko got a provision in a House-passed bill, following the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, to prevent future spills and help small businesses in spill research. In 2011, he sponsored an amendment seeking to protect the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate carbon emissions.
Tonko praised the 2011 State of the Union address, saying, "the President set out a bold agenda for our nation, an agenda that will focus on growing our economy, growing jobs, and growing opportunity for the middle class". He has also often warned of the threat that Obamacare's repeal would pose to small businesses, young people, and seniors.
Tonko has worked to raise awareness about the region's waterways, chiefly the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, and the effects of flooding after Hurricane Irene. Seeking a comprehensive flood mitigation and economic development strategy, Tonko introduced the Hudson-Mohawk Basin Act in 2012.
Tonko became a prominent opponent of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2015, citing American trade deficits and the use of child labor by at least four countries that had already signed the pact as among his reasons for opposing the deal.
In 2017, Tonko was one of three Catholic politicians whom Bishop Edward Bernard Scharfenberger of Albany publicly rebuked for participating in a rally supporting Planned Parenthood.
In January 2019, Tonko—a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee—was named chair of that committee's Subcommittee on the Environment and Climate Change.
On October 1, 2020, Tonko co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that condemned Azerbaijan’s offensive operations against the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, denounced Turkey’s role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and criticized "false equivalence between Armenia and Azerbaijan, even as the latter threatens war and refuses to agree to monitoring along the line of contact."
In 2022, Tonko was instrumental in passing provisions contained in the CHIPS and Science Act (PL 117-167) into law.
==== Syria ====
In 2023, Tonko was among 56 Democrats to vote in favor of H. Con. Res. 21, which directed President Joe Biden to remove U.S. troops from Syria within 180 days.
=== Committee assignments ===
Committee on Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Environment (Ranking Member)
Subcommittee on Energy
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Committee on the Budget
=== Caucus memberships ===
Tonko is a member of more than 65 House caucuses. Below is a small sample of his memberships:
Black Maternal Health Caucus
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
Congressional Progressive Caucus
Congressional Addiction, Treatment and Recovery Caucus (Vice Chair)
Congressional Caucus on Parkinson's Disease
Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's disease
Congressional Army Caucus
Congressional Arts Caucus
Congressional Biomass Caucus
Heritage Corridor Caucus
Congressional Safe Climate Caucus
Congressional Solar Caucus
Congressional Taiwan Caucus
Congressional Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Equality Caucus
Congressional Mental Health Caucus
Congressional Voting Rights Caucus
House Manufacturing Caucus
House Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus
House Baltic Caucus
Medicare for All Caucus
Blue Collar Caucus
Rare Disease Caucus
Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans
== Electoral history ==
=== U.S. House of Representatives ===
== See also ==
Energy law
== References ==
== External links ==
Congressman Paul D. Tonko official U.S. House website
Paul Tonko for Congress
Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
Profile at Vote Smart
Appearances on C-SPAN |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Rock_Township,_Clinton_County,_Iowa#:~:text=Spring%20Rock%20Township%20is%20a,census%2C%20its%20population%20was%201%2C142. | Spring Rock Township, Clinton County, Iowa | Spring Rock Township is a township in Clinton County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2000 census, its population was 1,142.
== History ==
Spring Rock Township was organized in 1844. The township takes its name from a huge rock at found at a spring in Scott County.
== Geography ==
Spring Rock Township covers an area of 36.25 square miles (93.9 km2) and contains one incorporated settlement, Wheatland, along with some unincorporated settlements such as Big Rock. According to the USGS, it contains four cemeteries: Homigrahusen, Pine Hill, Rose Hill and Saint Pauls.
The streams of Calamus Creek, Lizard Creek, Rock Creek and Yankee Run run through this township.
== Notes ==
== References ==
USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
== External links ==
US-Counties.com
City-Data.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill | Deepwater Horizon oil spill | The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an environmental disaster beginning 20 April 2010 off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico, on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. Caused in the aftermath of a blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, the United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels (210,000,000 US gal; 780,000 m3). After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
A massive response ensued to protect beaches, wetlands and estuaries from the spreading oil utilizing skimmer ships, floating booms, controlled burns and 1,840,000 US gal (7,000 m3) of oil dispersant. Due to the months-long spill, along with adverse effects from the response and cleanup activities, extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and fishing and tourism industries was reported. In Louisiana, oil cleanup crews worked four days a week on 55 mi (89 km) of Louisiana shoreline throughout 2013. 4,900,000 lb (2,200 t) of oily material was removed from the beaches in 2013, over double the amount collected in 2012. Oil continued to be found as far from the Macondo site as the waters off the Florida Panhandle and Tampa Bay, where scientists said the oil and dispersant mixture is embedded in the sand. In April 2013, it was reported that dolphins and other marine life continued to die in record numbers with infant dolphins dying at six times the normal rate. One study released in 2014 reported that tuna and amberjack exposed to oil from the spill developed deformities of the heart and other organs which would be expected to be fatal or at least life-shortening; another study found that cardiotoxicity might have been widespread in animal life exposed to the spill.
Numerous investigations explored the causes of the explosion and record-setting spill. The United States Government report, published in September 2011, pointed to defective cement on the well, faulting mostly BP, but also rig operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton. Earlier in 2011, a White House commission likewise blamed BP and its partners for a series of cost-cutting decisions and an inadequate safety system, but also concluded that the spill resulted from "systemic" root causes and "absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur".
In November 2012, BP and the United States Department of Justice settled federal criminal charges, with BP pleading guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, two misdemeanors, and a felony count of lying to the United States Congress. BP also agreed to four years of government monitoring of its safety practices and ethics, and the Environmental Protection Agency announced that BP would be temporarily banned from new contracts with the United States government. BP and the Department of Justice agreed to a record-setting $4.525 billion in fines and other payments. As of 2018, cleanup costs, charges and penalties had cost the company more than $65 billion.
In September 2014, a United States District Court judge ruled that BP was primarily responsible for the oil spill because of its gross negligence and reckless conduct. In April 2016, BP agreed to pay $20.8 billion in fines, the largest environmental damage settlement in United States history.
== Background ==
=== Deepwater Horizon drilling rig ===
Deepwater Horizon was a 10-year-old semi-submersible, mobile, floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig that could operate in waters up to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) deep. Built by South Korean company Hyundai Heavy Industries and owned by Transocean, the rig operated under the Marshallese flag of convenience, and was chartered to BP from March 2008 to September 2013. It was drilling a deep exploratory well, 18,360 ft (5,600 m) below sea level, in approximately 5,100 ft (1,600 m) of water. The well is situated in the Macondo Prospect in Mississippi Canyon Block 253 (MC253) of the Gulf of Mexico, in the United States' exclusive economic zone. The Macondo well is found roughly 41 mi (66 km) off the Louisiana coast. BP was the operator and principal developer of the Macondo Prospect with a 65% share, while 25% was owned by Anadarko Petroleum, and 10% by MOEX Offshore 2007, a unit of Mitsui.
=== Explosion ===
At approximately 7:45 pm CDT, on 20 April 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the marine riser and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform. Eleven missing workers were never found despite a three-day U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) search operation and are believed to have died in the explosion or its aftermath. Ninety-four crew members were rescued by lifeboat or helicopter, 17 of whom were treated for injuries. The Deepwater Horizon sank on the morning of 22 April 2010.
== Volume and extent of oil spill ==
The oil leak was discovered on the afternoon of 22 April 2010 when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. The oil flowed for 87 days. BP originally estimated a flow rate of 1,000 to 5,000 barrels per day [bbl/d] (160 to 790 m3/d). The Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) estimated the initial flow rate was 62,000 bbl/d (9,900 m3/d). The total estimated volume of leaked oil approximated 4.9 million barrels (210,000,000 US gal; 780,000 m3) with plus or minus 10% uncertainty, including oil that was collected, making it the world's largest accidental spill. BP challenged the higher figure, saying that the government overestimated the prefaced volume. Internal emails released in 2013 showed that one BP employee had estimates that matched those of the FRTG, and shared the data with supervisors, but BP continued with their lower number. The company argued that government figures do not reflect over 810,000 bbl (34 million US gal; 129,000 m3) of oil that was collected or burned before it could enter the Gulf waters.
According to the satellite images, the spill directly affected 70,000 sq mi (180,000 km2) of ocean, comparable to the area of Oklahoma. By early June 2010, oil had washed up on 125 mi (201 km) of Louisiana's coast and along the Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama coastlines. Oil sludge appeared in the Intracoastal Waterway and on Pensacola Beach and the Gulf Islands National Seashore. In late June, oil reached Gulf Park Estates, its first appearance in Mississippi. In July, tarballs reached Grand Isle and the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. In September a new wave of oil suddenly coated 16 mi (26 km) of Louisiana coastline and marshes west of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish. In October, weathered oil reached Texas. As of July 2011, about 491 mi (790 km) of coastline in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were contaminated by oil and a total of 1,074 mi (1,728 km) had been oiled since the spill began. As of December 2012, 339 mi (546 km) of coastline remain subject to evaluation and/or cleanup operations. The reported 3.19 million barrels of spilled oil was not the only effect of this disaster. A report detailed the release of thousands of tons of hydrocarbon gases (HC) into the atmosphere.
Concerns were raised about the appearance of underwater, horizontally-extended plumes of dissolved oil. Researchers concluded that deep plumes of dissolved oil and gas would likely remain confined to the northern Gulf of Mexico and that the peak impact on dissolved oxygen would be delayed and long-lasting.
Two weeks after the wellhead was capped on 15 July 2010, the surface oil appeared to have dissipated, while an unknown amount of subsurface oil remained. Estimates of the residual ranged from a 2010 NOAA report that claimed about half of the oil remained below the surface to independent estimates of up to 75%.
That means over 100×10^6 US gal (380 Ml) (2.4 million barrels) remained in the Gulf. As of January 2011, tar balls, oil sheen trails, fouled wetlands marsh grass and coastal sands were still evident. Subsurface oil remained offshore and in fine silts. In April 2012, oil was still found along as much as 200 mi (320 km) of Louisiana coastline and tar balls continued to wash up on the barrier islands. In 2013, some scientists at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference said that as much as one-third of the oil may have mixed with deep ocean sediments, where it risks damage to ecosystems and commercial fisheries.
In 2013, more than 4,600,000 lb (2,100 t) of "oiled material" was removed from the Louisiana coast. Although only "minute" quantities of oil continued to wash up in 2013, patches of tar balls were still being reported almost every day from Alabama and Florida Panhandle beaches. Regular cleanup patrols were no longer considered justified but cleanup was being conducted on an as-needed basis, in response to public reports.
It was first thought that oil had not reached as far as Tampa Bay, Florida; however, a study done in 2013 found that one of the plumes of dispersant-treated oil had reached a shelf 80 mi (130 km) off the Tampa Bay region. According to researchers, there is "some evidence it may have caused lesions in fish caught in that area".
== Efforts to stem the flow of oil ==
=== Short-term efforts ===
First, BP unsuccessfully attempted to close the blowout preventer valves on the wellhead with remotely operated underwater vehicles. Next, it placed a 125-tonne (280,000 lb) containment dome over the largest leak and piped the oil to a storage vessel. While this technique had worked in shallower water, it failed here when gas combined with cold water to form methane hydrate crystals that blocked the opening at the top of the dome. Pumping heavy drilling fluids into the blowout preventer to restrict the flow of oil before sealing it permanently with cement ("top kill") also failed.
BP then inserted a riser insertion tube into the pipe and a stopper-like washer around the tube plugged at the end of the riser and diverted the flow into the insertion tube. The collected gas was flared and oil stored on board the drillship Discoverer Enterprise. Before the tube was removed, it collected 924,000 US gal (22,000 bbl; 3,500 m3) of oil. On 3 June 2010, BP removed the damaged drilling riser from the top of the blowout preventer and covered the pipe by the cap which connected it to another riser. On 16 June, a second containment system connected directly to the blowout preventer began carrying oil and gas to service vessels, where it was consumed in a clean-burning system. The United States government's estimates suggested the cap and other equipment were capturing less than half of the leaking oil. On 10 July, the containment cap was removed to replace it with a better-fitting cap ("Top Hat Number 10"). Mud and cement were later pumped in through the top of the well to reduce the pressure inside it (which did not work either). A final device was created to attach a chamber of larger diameter than the flowing pipe with a flange that bolted to the top of the blowout preventer and a manual valve set to close off the flow once attached. On 15 July, the device was secured and time was taken closing the valves to ensure the attachment under increasing pressure until the valves were closed completing the temporary measures.
=== Well declared "effectively dead" ===
Transocean's Development Driller III started drilling a first relief well on 2 May 2010. GSF Development Driller II started drilling a second relief on 16 May 2010. On 3 August 2010, first test oil and then drilling mud was pumped at a slow rate of approximately 2 bbl (320 L) per minute into the well-head. Pumping continued for eight hours, at the end of which the well was declared to be "in a static condition." On 4 August 2010, BP began pumping cement from the top, sealing that part of the flow channel permanently.
On 3 September 2010, the 300-ton failed blowout preventer was removed from the well and a replacement blowout preventer was installed. On 16 September 2010, the relief well reached its destination and pumping of cement to seal the well began. On 19 September 2010, National Incident Commander Thad Allen declared the well "effectively dead" and said that it posed no further threat to the Gulf.
=== Recurrent or continued leakage ===
In May 2010, BP admitted they had "discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface" during the "top kill" effort.
Oil slicks were reported in March and August 2011, in March and October 2012, and in January 2013. Repeated scientific analyses confirmed that the sheen was a chemical match for oil from the Macondo well.
The USCG initially said the oil was too dispersed to recover and posed no threat to the coastline, but later warned BP and Transocean that they might be held financially responsible for cleaning up the new oil. USGS director Marcia McNutt stated that the riser pipe could hold at most 1,000 bbl (160 m3) because it is open on both ends, making it unlikely to hold the amount of oil being observed.
In October 2012, BP reported that they had found and plugged leaking oil from the failed containment dome, now abandoned about 1,500 ft (460 m) from the main well. In December 2012, the USCG conducted a subsea survey; no oil coming from the wells or the wreckage was found and its source remains unknown. In addition, a white, milky substance was observed seeping from the wreckage. According to BP and the USCG, it is "not oil and it's not harmful."
In January 2013, BP said that they were continuing to investigate possible sources of the oil sheen. Chemical data implied that the substance might be residual oil leaking from the wreckage. If that proves to be the case, the sheen can be expected to eventually disappear. Another possibility is that it is formation oil escaping from the subsurface, using the Macondo well casing as flow conduit, possibly intersecting a naturally occurring fault, and then following that to escape at the surface some distance from the wellhead. If it proves to be oil from the subsurface, then that could indicate the possibility of an indefinite release of oil. The oil slick was comparable in size to naturally occurring oil seeps and was not large enough to pose an immediate threat to wildlife.
== Containment, collection and use of dispersants ==
The fundamental strategies for addressing the spill were containment, dispersal and removal. In summer 2010, approximately 47,000 people and 7,000 vessels were involved in the project. By 3 October 2012, federal response costs amounted to $850 million, mostly reimbursed by BP. As of January 2013, 935 personnel were still involved. By that time cleanup had cost BP over $14 billion.
It was estimated with plus-or-minus 10% uncertainty that 4.9 million barrels (780,000 m3) of oil was released from the well; 4.1 million barrels (650,000 m3) of oil went into the Gulf. The report led by the Department of the Interior and the NOAA said that "75% [of oil] has been cleaned up by Man or Mother Nature"; however, only about 25% of released oil was collected or removed while about 75% of oil remained in the environment in one form or another. In 2012, Markus Huettel, a benthic ecologist at Florida State University, maintained that while much of BP's oil was degraded or evaporated, at least 60% remains unaccounted for.
In May 2010, a local native set up a network for people to volunteer their assistance in cleaning up beaches. Boat captains were given the opportunity to offer the use of their boats to help clean and prevent the oil from further spreading. To assist with the efforts the captains had to register their ships with the Vessels of Opportunity; however, an issue arose when more boats registered than actually participated in the clean-up efforts – only a third of the registered boats. Many local supporters were disappointed with BP's slow response, prompting the formation of The Florida Key Environmental Coalition. This coalition gained significant influence in the clean-up of the oil spill to try to gain some control over the situation.
=== Containment ===
Containment booms stretching over 4,200,000 ft (1,300 km) were deployed, either to corral the oil or as barriers to protect marshes, mangroves, shrimp/crab/oyster ranches or other ecologically sensitive areas. Booms extend 18–48 in (0.46–1.22 m) above and below the water surface and were effective only in relatively calm and slow-moving waters. Including one-time use sorbent booms, a total of 13,300,000 ft (4,100 km) of booms were deployed. Booms were criticized for washing up on the shore with the oil, allowing oil to escape above or below the boom, and for ineffectiveness in more than three- to four-foot (90–120 cm) waves.
The Louisiana barrier island plan was developed to construct barrier islands to protect the coast of Louisiana. The plan was criticised for its expense and poor results. Critics allege that the decision to pursue the project was political with little scientific input. The EPA expressed concern that the booms would threaten wildlife.
For a time, a group called Matter of Trust, citing insufficient availability of manufactured oil absorption booms, campaigned to encourage hair salons, dog groomers and sheep farmers to donate hair, fur and wool clippings, stuffed in pantyhose or tights, to help contain oil near impacted shores, a technique dating back to the Exxon Valdez disaster.
=== Use of Corexit dispersant ===
The spill was also notable for the volume of Corexit oil dispersant used and for application methods that were "purely experimental". Altogether, 1.84×10^6 US gal (7,000 m3) of dispersants were used; of this, 771,000 US gal (2,920 m3) were released at the wellhead. Subsea injection had never previously been tried but, due to the spill's unprecedented nature, BP, together with USCG and EPA, decided to use it. Over 400 sorties were flown to release the product. Although usage of dispersants was described as "the most effective and fast moving tool for minimizing shoreline impact", the approach continues to be investigated.
A 2011 analysis conducted by Earthjustice and Toxipedia showed that the dispersant could contain cancer-causing agents, hazardous toxins and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Environmental scientists expressed concerns that the dispersants add to the toxicity of a spill, increasing the threat to sea turtles and bluefin tuna. The dangers are even greater when poured into the source of a spill, because they are picked up by the current and wash through the Gulf. According to BP and federal officials, dispersant use stopped after the cap was in place; however, marine toxicologist Riki Ott wrote in an open letter to the EPA that Corexit use continued after that date and a GAP investigation stated that "[a] majority of GAP witnesses cited indications that Corexit was used after [July 2010]".
According to a NALCO manual obtained by GAP, Corexit 9527 is an "eye and skin irritant. Repeated or excessive exposure ... may cause injury to red blood cells (hemolysis), kidney or the liver". The manual adds: "Excessive exposure may cause central nervous system effects, nausea, vomiting, anesthetic or narcotic effects". It advises, "Do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing", and "Wear suitable protective clothing". For Corexit 9500, the manual advised, "Do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing", "Avoid breathing vapor", and "Wear suitable protective clothing". According to FOIA requests obtained by GAP, neither the protective gear nor the manual were distributed to Gulf oil spill cleanup workers.
Corexit EC9500A and Corexit EC9527A were the principal variants. The two formulations are neither the least toxic, nor the most effective, among EPA's approved dispersants, but BP said it chose to use Corexit because it was available the week of the rig explosion. On 19 May, the EPA gave BP 24 hours to choose less toxic alternatives to Corexit from the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule and begin applying them within 72 hours of EPA approval or provide a detailed reasoning why no approved products met the standards. On 20 May, BP determined that none of the alternative products met all three criteria of availability, non-toxicity and effectiveness. On 24 May, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson ordered EPA to conduct its own evaluation of alternatives and ordered BP to reduce dispersant use by 75%. BP reduced Corexit use by 25,689 to 23,250 US gal (97,240 to 88,010 L) per day, a 9% decline. On 2 August 2010, the EPA said dispersants did no more harm to the environment than the oil and that they stopped a large amount of oil from reaching the coast by breaking it down faster. However, some independent scientists and EPA's own experts continue to voice concerns about the approach.
Underwater injection of Corexit into the leak may have created the oil plumes which were discovered below the surface. Because the dispersants were applied at depth, much of the oil never rose to the surface. One plume was 22 mi (35 km) long, more than 1 mi (1,600 m) wide and 650 ft (200 m) deep. In a major study on the plume, experts were most concerned about the slow pace at which the oil was breaking down in the cold, 40 °F (4 °C) water at depths of 3,000 ft (900 m).
In late 2012, a study from Georgia Tech and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes in Environmental Pollution journal reported that Corexit used during the BP oil spill had increased the toxicity of the oil by 52 times. The scientists concluded that "Mixing oil with dispersant increased toxicity to ecosystems" and made the gulf oil spill worse.
=== Removal ===
The three basic approaches for removing the oil from the water were: combustion, offshore filtration, and collection for later processing. USCG said 33,000,000 US gal (120,000 m3) of tainted water was recovered, including 5,000,000 US gal (19,000 m3) of oil. BP said 826,800 bbl (131,450 m3) had been recovered or flared. It is calculated that about 5% of leaked oil was burned at the surface and 3% was skimmed. On the most demanding day, 47,849 people were assigned on the response works and over 6,000 Marine vessels, 82 helicopters, and 20 fixed-wing aircraft were involved.
From April to mid-July 2010, 411 controlled in-situ fires remediated approximately 265,000 bbl (11.1 million US gal; 42,100 m3). The fires released small amounts of toxins, including cancer-causing dioxins. According to EPA's report, the released amount is not enough to pose an added cancer risk to workers and coastal residents, while a second research team concluded that there was only a small added risk.
Oil was collected from water by using skimmers. In total, 2,063 various skimmers were used. For offshore, more than 60 open-water skimmers were deployed, including 12 purpose-built vehicles. EPA regulations prohibited skimmers that left more than 15 parts per million (ppm) of oil in the water. Many large-scale skimmers exceeded the limit. Due to use of Corexit, the oil was too dispersed to collect, according to a spokesperson for shipowner TMT. In mid-June 2010, BP ordered 32 machines that separate oil and water, with each machine capable of extracting up to 2,000 bbl/d (320 m3/d). After one week of testing, BP began to proceed and, by 28 June, had removed 890,000 bbl (141,000 m3).
After the well was capped, the cleanup of shore became the main task of the response workers. Two main types of affected coast were sandy beaches and marshes. On beaches, the main techniques were sifting sand, removing tar balls, and digging out tar mats manually or by using mechanical devices. For marshes, techniques such as vacuum and pumping, low-pressure flush, vegetation cutting, and bioremediation were used.
=== Oil-eating microbes ===
Dispersants are said to facilitate the digestion of the oil by microbes but conflicting results have been reported on this in the context of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mixing dispersants with oil at the wellhead would keep some oil below the surface and, in theory, allow microbes to digest the oil before it reached the surface. Various risks were identified and evaluated, in particular, that an increase in microbial activity might reduce subsea oxygen levels, threatening fish and other animals.
Several studies suggest that microbes successfully consumed part of the oil. By mid-September, other research claimed that microbes mainly digested natural gas rather than oil. David L. Valentine, a professor of microbial geochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, said that the capability of microbes to break down the leaked oil had been greatly exaggerated. However, biogeochemist Chris Reddy said natural microorganisms are a big reason why the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was not far worse.
Genetically modified Alcanivorax borkumensis was added to the waters to speed digestion. The delivery method of microbes to oil patches was proposed by the Russian Research and Development Institute of Ecology and the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources.
== Access restrictions ==
On 18 May 2010, BP was designated the lead "Responsible Party" under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which meant that BP had operational authority in coordinating the response.
The first video images were released on 12 May, and further video images were released by members of Congress who had been given access to them by BP.
During the spill response operations, at the request of the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented a 900 sq mi (2,300 km2) temporary flight restriction zone over the operations area. Restrictions were to prevent civilian air traffic from interfering with aircraft assisting the response effort. All flights in the operations' area were prohibited except flight authorized by air traffic control; routine flights supporting offshore oil operations; federal, state, local and military flight operations supporting spill response; and air ambulance and law enforcement operations. Exceptions for these restrictions were granted on a case-by-case basis dependent on safety issues, operational requirements, weather conditions, and traffic volume. No flights, except aircraft conducting aerial chemical dispersing operations, or for landing and takeoff, were allowed below 1,000 m (3,300 ft). Notwithstanding restrictions, there were 800 to 1,000 flights per day during the operations.
Local and federal authorities citing BP's authority denied access to members of the press attempting to document the spill from the air, from boats, and on the ground, blocking access to areas that were open to the public. In some cases photographers were granted access only with BP officials escorting them on BP-contracted boats and aircraft. In one example, the U.S. Coast Guard stopped Jean-Michel Cousteau's boat and allowed it to proceed only after the Coast Guard was assured that no journalists were on board. In another example, a CBS News crew was denied access to the oil-covered beaches of the spill area. The CBS crew was told by the authorities, "This is BP's rules, not ours," when trying to film the area. Some members of Congress criticized the restrictions placed on access by journalists.
The FAA denied that BP employees or contractors made decisions on flights and access, saying those decisions were made by the FAA and Coast Guard. The FAA acknowledged that media access was limited to hired planes or helicopters, but was arranged through the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard and BP denied having a policy of restricting journalists; they noted that members of the media had been embedded with the authorities and allowed to cover response efforts since the beginning of the effort, with more than 400 embeds aboard boats and aircraft to date. They also said that they wanted to provide access to the information while maintaining safety.
== Cleanup ==
On 15 April 2014, BP announced that cleanup along the coast was substantially complete, while the United States Coast Guard work continued using physical barriers such as floating booms, the cleanup workers' objective was to keep the oil from spreading any further. They used skimmer boats to remove a majority of the oil and they used sorbents to absorb any remnant of oil like a sponge. Although that method did not remove the oil completely, chemicals called dispersants were used to hasten the oil's degradation to prevent the oil from doing further damage to the marine habitats below the surface water. For the Deep Horizon oil spill, cleanup workers used 1,400,000 US gal (5,300,000 L; 1,200,000 imp gal) of various chemical dispersants to further breakdown the oil.
The state of Louisiana received funding by BP to do regular testing of fish, shellfish, water, and sand. Initial testing regularly showed detectable levels of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a chemical used in the clean up. Testing over 2019 reported by GulfSource.org, for the pollutants tested have not produced results.
Due to the Deepwater Horizon spill, marine life was suffering. Thousands of animals were visibly covered in oil. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working with the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, rescued animals to help with the spill cleanup, although there were many animals found dead.
== Consequences ==
=== Environmental impact ===
The spill area hosts 8,332 species, including more than 1,270 fish, 604 polychaetes, 218 birds, 1,456 mollusks, 1,503 crustaceans, 4 sea turtles and 29 marine mammals. Between May and June 2010, the spill waters contained 40 times more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) than before the spill. PAHs are often linked to oil spills and include carcinogens and chemicals that pose various health risks to humans and marine life. The PAHs were most concentrated near the Louisiana Coast, but levels also jumped 2–3 fold in areas off Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. PAHs can harm marine species directly and microbes used to consume the oil can reduce marine oxygen levels. The oil contained approximately 40% methane by weight, compared to about 5% found in typical oil deposits. Methane can potentially suffocate marine life and create "dead zones" where oxygen is depleted.
A 2014 study of the effects of the oil spill on bluefin tuna funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Stanford University, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium and published in the journal Science, found that the toxins from oil spills can cause irregular heartbeats leading to cardiac arrest. Calling the vicinity of the spill "one of the most productive ocean ecosystems in the world", the study found that even at very low concentrations "PAH cardiotoxicity was potentially a common form of injury among a broad range of species in the vicinity of the oil." Another peer-reviewed study, released in March 2014 and conducted by 17 scientists from the United States and Australia and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that tuna and amberjack that were exposed to oil from the spill developed deformities of the heart and other organs that would be expected to be fatal or at least life-shortening.
The scientists said that their findings would most likely apply to other large predator fish and "even to humans, whose developing hearts are in many ways similar." BP responded that the concentrations of oil in the study were a level rarely seen in the Gulf, but The New York Times reported that the BP statement was contradicted by the study.
The oil dispersant Corexit, previously only used as a surface application, was released underwater in unprecedented amounts, with the intent of making it more easily biodegraded by naturally occurring microbes. Thus, oil that would normally rise to the surface of the water was emulsified into tiny droplets and remained suspended in the water and on the sea floor. The oil and dispersant mixture permeated the food chain through zooplankton. Signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix were found under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae. A study of insect populations in the coastal marshes affected by the spill also found a significant impact. Chemicals from the spill were found in migratory birds as far away as Minnesota. Pelican eggs contained "petroleum compounds and Corexit". Dispersant and PAHs from oil are believed to have caused "disturbing numbers" of mutated fish that scientists and commercial fishers saw in 2012, including 50% of shrimp found lacking eyes and eye sockets. Fish with oozing sores and lesions were first noted by fishermen in November 2010. Prior to the spill, approximately 0.1% of Gulf fish had lesions or sores. A report from the University of Florida said that many locations showed 20% of fish with lesions, while later estimates reached 50%. In October 2013, Al Jazeera reported that the gulf ecosystem was "in crisis", citing a decline in seafood catches, as well as deformities and lesions found in fish. According to J. Christopher Haney, Harold Geiger, and Jeffrey Short, three researchers with extensive experience in environmental monitoring and post-spill mortality assessments, over one million coastal birds died as a direct result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. These numbers, coupled with the National Audubon Society scientists' observations of bird colonies and bird mortality well after the acute phase, have led scientists to conclude that more than one million birds ultimately succumbed to the lethal effects of the Gulf oil spill.
In July 2010, it was reported that the spill was "already having a 'devastating' effect on marine life in the Gulf". Damage to the ocean floor especially endangered the Louisiana pancake batfish whose range is entirely contained within the spill-affected area. In March 2012, a definitive link was found between the death of a Gulf coral community and the spill. According to NOAA, a cetacean Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been recognized since before the spill began, NOAA is investigating possible contributing factors to the ongoing UME from the Deepwater Horizon spill, with the possibility of eventual criminal charges being filed if the spill is shown to be connected. Some estimates are that only 2% of the carcasses of killed mammals have been recovered.
In the first birthing season for dolphins after the spill, dead baby dolphins washed up along Mississippi and Alabama shorelines at about 10 times the normal number. A peer-reviewed NOAA/BP study disclosed that nearly half the bottlenose dolphins tested in mid-2011 in Barataria Bay, a heavily oiled area, were in "guarded or worse" condition, "including 17 percent that were not expected to survive". BP officials deny that the disease conditions are related to the spill, saying that dolphin deaths actually began being reported before the BP oil spill. By 2013, over 650 dolphins had been found stranded in the oil spill area, a four-fold increase over the historical average. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reports that sea turtles, mostly endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles, have been stranding at a high rate. Before the spill there was an average of 100 strandings per year; since the spill the number has jumped to roughly 500.
NWF senior scientist Doug Inkley notes that the marine death rates are unprecedented and occurring high in the food chain, strongly suggesting there is "something amiss with the Gulf ecosystem". In December 2013, the journal Environmental Science & Technology published a study finding that of 32 dolphins briefly captured from 24-km stretch near southeastern Louisiana, half were seriously ill or dying. BP said the report was "inconclusive as to any causation associated with the spill".
In 2012, tar balls continued to wash up along the Gulf coast and in 2013, tar balls could still be found in on the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts, along with oil sheens in marshes and signs of severe erosion of coastal islands, brought about by the death of trees and marsh grass from exposure to the oil. In 2013, former NASA physicist Bonny Schumaker noted a "dearth of marine life" in a radius 30 to 50 mi (48 to 80 km) around the well, after flying over the area numerous times since May 2010.
In 2013, researchers found that oil on the bottom of the seafloor did not seem to be degrading, and observed a phenomenon called a "dirty blizzard": oil in the water column began clumping around suspended sediments, and falling to the ocean floor in an "underwater rain of oily particles". The result could have long-term effects because oil could remain in the food chain for generations.
A 2014 bluefin tuna study in Science found that oil already broken down by wave action and chemical dispersants was more toxic than fresh oil. A 2015 study of the relative toxicity of oil and dispersants to coral also found that the dispersants were more toxic than the oil.
A 2015 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published in PLOS ONE, links the sharp increase in dolphin deaths to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
On 12 April 2016, a research team reported that 88 percent of about 360 baby or stillborn dolphins within the spill area "had abnormal or under-developed lungs", compared to 15 percent in other areas. The study was published in the April 2016 Diseases of Aquatic Organisms.
=== Health consequences ===
By June 2010, 143 spill-exposure cases had been reported to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals; 108 of those involved workers in the clean-up efforts, while 35 were reported by residents. Chemicals from the oil and dispersant are believed to be the cause; it is believed that the addition of dispersants made the oil more toxic.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services set up the GuLF Study in June 2010 in response to these reports. The study is run by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and will last at least five years.
Mike Robicheux, a Louisiana physician, described the situation as "the biggest public health crisis from a chemical poisoning in the history of this country." In July, after testing the blood of BP cleanup workers and residents in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida for volatile organic compounds, environmental scientist Wilma Subra said she was "finding amounts 5 to 10 times in excess of the 95th percentile"; she said that "the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure." Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist with experience of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, advised families to evacuate the Gulf. She said that workers from the Valdez spill had suffered long-term health consequences.
Following the 26 May 2010 hospitalization of seven fishermen that were working in the cleanup crew, BP requested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health perform a Health Hazard Evaluation. This was to cover all offshore cleanup activities; BP later requested a second NIOSH investigation of onshore cleanup operations. Tests for chemical exposure in the seven fishermen were negative; NIOSH concluded that the hospitalizations were most likely a result of heat, fatigue, and terpenes that were being used to clean the decks. Review of 10 later hospitalizations found that heat exposure and dehydration were consistent findings but could not establish chemical exposure. NIOSH personnel performed air monitoring around cleanup workers at sea, on land, and during the application of Corexit. Air concentrations of volatile organic compounds and PAHs never exceeded permissible exposure levels. A limitation of their methodology was that some VOCs may have already evaporated from the oil before they began their investigation. In their report, they suggest the possibility that respiratory symptoms might have been caused by high levels of ozone or reactive aldehydes in the air, possibly produced from photochemical reactions in the oil. NIOSH did note that many of the personnel involved were not donning personal protective equipment (gloves and impermeable coveralls) as they had been instructed to and emphasized that this was important protection against transdermal absorption of chemicals from the oil. Heat stress was found to be the most pressing safety concern.
Workers reported that they were not allowed to use respirators, and that their jobs were threatened if they did. OSHA said "cleanup workers are receiving "minimal" exposure to airborne toxins...OSHA will require that BP provide certain protective clothing, but not respirators." ProPublica reported that workers were being photographed while working with no protective clothing. An independent investigation for Newsweek showed that BP did not hand out the legally required safety manual for use with Corexit, and were not provided with safety training or protective gear.
A 2012 survey of the health effects of the spill on cleanup workers reported "eye, nose and throat irritation; respiratory problems; blood in urine, vomit and rectal bleeding; seizures; nausea and violent vomiting episodes that last for hours; skin irritation, burning and lesions; short-term memory loss and confusion; liver and kidney damage; central nervous system effects and nervous system damage; hypertension; and miscarriages". Dr. James Diaz, writing for the American Journal of Disaster Medicine, said these ailments appearing in the Gulf reflected those reported after previous oil spills, like the Exxon Valdez. Diaz warned that "chronic adverse health effects, including cancers, liver and kidney disease, mental health disorders, birth defects and developmental disorders should be anticipated among sensitive populations and those most heavily exposed". Diaz also believes neurological disorders should be expected.
Two years after the spill, a study initiated by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found biomarkers matching the oil from the spill in the bodies of cleanup workers. Other studies have reported a variety of mental health issues, skin problems, breathing issues, coughing, and headaches. In 2013, during the three-day "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference", findings discussed included a '"significant percentage" of Gulf residents reporting mental health problems like anxiety, depression and PTSD. These studies also showed that the bodies of former spill cleanup workers carry biomarkers of "many chemicals contained in the oil".
A study that investigated the health effects among children in Louisiana and Florida living less than 10 miles from the coast found that more than a third of the parents reported physical or mental health symptoms among their children. The parents reported "unexplained symptoms among their children, including bleeding ears, nose bleeds, and the early start of menstruation among girls," according to David Abramson, director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness.
A cohort study of almost 2,200 Louisiana women found "high physical/environmental exposure was significantly associated with all 13 of the physical health symptoms surveyed, with the strongest associations for burning in nose, throat or lungs; sore throat; dizziness and wheezing. Women who suffered a high degree of economic disruption as a result of spill were significantly more likely to report wheezing; headaches; watery, burning, itchy eyes and stuffy, itchy, runny nose.
=== Economy ===
The spill had a strong economic impact to BP and also the Gulf Coast's economy sectors such as offshore drilling, fishing and tourism. Estimates of lost tourism dollars were projected to cost the Gulf coastal economy up to $22.7 billion through 2013. In addition, Louisiana reported that lost visitor spending through the end of 2010 totaled $32 million, and losses through 2013 were expected to total $153 million in this state alone. The Gulf of Mexico commercial fishing industry was estimated to have lost $247 million as a result of postspill fisheries closures. One study projects that the overall impact of lost or degraded commercial, recreational, and mariculture fisheries in the Gulf could be $8.7 billion by 2020, with a potential loss of 22,000 jobs over the same time frame. BP's expenditures on the spill included the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid, and federal costs, including fines and penalties. Due to the loss of the market value, BP had dropped from the second to the fourth largest of the four major oil companies by 2013. During the crisis, BP gas stations in the United States reported a sales drop of between 10 and 40% due to backlash against the company.
Local officials in Louisiana expressed concern that the offshore drilling moratorium imposed in response to the spill would further harm the economies of coastal communities as the oil industry directly or indirectly employs about 318,000 Louisiana residents (17% of all jobs in the state). NOAA had closed 86,985 sq mi (225,290 km2), or approximately 36% of Federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, for commercial fishing causing $2.5 billion cost for the fishing industry. The U.S. Travel Association estimated that the economic impact of the oil spill on tourism across the Gulf Coast over a three-year period could exceed approximately $23 billion, in a region that supports over 400,000 travel industry jobs generating $34 billion in revenue annually.
=== Offshore drilling policies ===
On 30 April 2010, President Barack Obama ordered the federal government to hold the issuing of new offshore drilling leases and authorized the investigation of 29 oil rigs in the Gulf in an effort to determine the cause of the disaster. Later a six-month offshore drilling (below 500 ft (150 m) of water) moratorium was enforced by the United States Department of the Interior. The moratorium suspended work on 33 rigs, and a group of affected companies formed the Back to Work Coalition. On 22 June, a United States federal judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana Martin Leach-Cross Feldman when ruling in the case Hornbeck Offshore Services LLC v. Salazar, lifted the moratorium finding it too broad, arbitrary and not adequately justified. The ban was lifted in October 2010.
Prior to the oil spill, on 31 March 2010, Obama ended a ban on oil and gas drilling along the majority of the East Coast of the United States and along the coast of northern Alaska in an effort to win support for an energy and climate bill and to reduce foreign imports of oil and gas.
On 28 April 2010, the National Energy Board of Canada, which regulates offshore drilling in the Canadian Arctic and along the British Columbia Coast, issued a letter to oil companies asking them to explain their argument against safety rules which require same-season relief wells. On 3 May California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger withdrew his support for a proposed plan to allow expanded offshore drilling projects in California. On 8 July, Florida Governor Charlie Crist called for a special session of the state legislature to draft an amendment to the state constitution banning offshore drilling in state waters, which the legislature rejected on 20 July.
In October 2011, the United States Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service was dissolved after it was determined it had exercised poor oversight over the drilling industry. Three new agencies replaced it, separating the regulation, leasing, and revenue collection responsibilities respectively, among the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and Office of Natural Resources Revenue.
In March 2014, BP was again allowed to bid for oil and gas leases.
== Reactions ==
=== U.S. reactions ===
On 30 April, President Obama dispatched the Secretaries of the Department of Interior and Homeland Security, as well as the EPA Administrator and NOAA to the Gulf Coast to assess the disaster. In his 15 June speech, Obama said, "This oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced... Make no mistake: we will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever's necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy." Interior Secretary Ken Salazar stated, "Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum." Some observers suggested that the Obama administration was being overly aggressive in its criticisms, which some BP investors saw as an attempt to deflect criticism of his own handling of the crisis. Rand Paul accused President Obama of being anti-business and "un-American".
Public opinion polls in the U.S. were generally critical of the way President Obama and the federal government handled the disaster and they were extremely critical of BP's response. Across the US, thousands participated in dozens of protests at BP gas stations and other locations, reducing sales at some stations by 10% to 40%. An academic study that assesses government response to the disaster notes that the severity of disruption substantially influences the social construction of the occasion as policy actors are ill-equipped to handle the challenges at all levels of government.
The petroleum industry claimed that disasters are infrequent and that this spill was an isolated incident and rejected claims of a loss of industry credibility. The American Petroleum Institute (API) stated that the offshore drilling industry is important to job creation and economic growth. CEOs from the top five oil companies all agreed to work harder at improving safety. API announced the creation of an offshore safety institute, separate from API's lobbying operation.
The Organization for International Investment, a Washington D.C.-based advocate for overseas investment in the United States, warned that the heated rhetoric was potentially damaging the reputation of British companies with operations in the United States and could spark a wave of U.S. protectionism that would restrict British firms from government contracts, political donations and lobbying.
In July 2010, President Obama issued an executive order, specifically citing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, that adopted recommendations from the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and established the National Ocean Council. The council called together a number of federal committees and departments engaged in ocean issues to work with a newly established committee for conservation and resource management. In June 2018, the executive order establishing the National Ocean Council was revoked by then-U.S. president Donald Trump in an effort to roll back bureaucracy and benefit "ocean industries [that] employ millions of Americans".
=== United Kingdom reactions ===
In the UK, there was anger at the American press and news outlets for the misuse of the term "British Petroleum" for the company – a name which has not been used since British Petroleum merged with the American company Amoco in 1998 to form BP Amoco. It was said that the U.S. was "dumping" the blame onto the British people and there were calls for British Prime Minister David Cameron to protect British interests in the United States. British pension fund managers (who have large holdings of BP shares and rely upon its dividends) accepted that while BP had to pay compensation for the spill and the environmental damage, they argued that the cost to the company's market value from President Obama's criticism was far outweighing the direct clean-up costs.
Initially, BP downplayed the incident; its CEO Tony Hayward called the amount of oil and dispersant "relatively tiny" in comparison with the "very big ocean". Later, he drew an outpouring of criticism when he said that the spill was a disruption to Gulf Coast residents and himself adding, "You know, I'd like my life back." BP's chief operating officer Doug Suttles contradicted the underwater plume discussion noting, "It may be down to how you define what a plume is here… The oil that has been found is in very minute quantities." In June, BP launched a PR campaign and successfully bid for several search terms related to the spill on Google and other search engines so that the first sponsored search result linked directly to the company's website. On 26 July 2010, it was announced that CEO Tony Hayward was to resign and would be replaced by Bob Dudley, who is an American citizen and previously worked for Amoco.
Hayward's involvement in Deepwater Horizon has left him a highly controversial public figure. In May 2013, he was honored as a "distinguished leader" by the University of Birmingham, but his award ceremony was stopped on multiple occasions by jeers and walk-outs and the focus of a protest from People & Planet members.
In July 2013, Hayward was awarded an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University. This was described as a "sick joke" and "a very serious error of judgement" by Friends of the Earth Scotland. The student body president expressed that students would be "very disappointed".
=== International reactions ===
The U.S. government rejected offers of cleanup help from Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations. The U.S. State Department listed 70 assistance offers from 23 countries, all being initially declined, but later, 8 had been accepted. The USCG actively requested skimming boats and equipment from several countries.
== Legal aspects and settlements ==
=== Investigations ===
In the United States the Deepwater Horizon investigation included several investigations and commissions, including reports by:
the USCG National Incident Commander, Admiral Thad Allen,
the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling,
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE),
National Academy of Engineering,
National Research Council,
Government Accountability Office,
National Oil Spill Commission, and
Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands Maritime Administrator conducted a separate investigation on the marine casualty. BP conducted its internal investigation.
An investigation of the possible causes of the explosion was launched on 22 April 2010 by the USCG and the Minerals Management Service. On 11 May the United States administration requested the National Academy of Engineering conduct an independent technical investigation. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling was established on 22 May to "consider the root causes of the disaster and offer options on safety and environmental precautions." The investigation by United States Attorney General Eric Holder was announced on 1 June 2010. Also the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce conducted a number of hearings, including hearings of Tony Hayward and heads of Anadarko and Mitsui's exploration unit. According to the US Congressional investigation, the rig's blowout preventer, built by Cameron International Corporation, had a hydraulic leak and a failed battery, and therefore failed.
On 8 September 2010, BP released a 193-page report on its web site. The report places some of the blame for the accident on BP but also on Halliburton and Transocean. The report found that on 20 April 2010, managers misread pressure data and gave their approval for rig workers to replace drilling fluid in the well with seawater, which was not heavy enough to prevent gas that had been leaking into the well from firing up the pipe to the rig, causing the explosion. The conclusion was that BP was partly to blame, as was Transocean, which owned the rig. Responding to the report, Transocean and Halliburton placed all blame on BP.
On 9 November 2010, a report by the Oil Spill Commission said that there had been "a rush to completion" on the well and criticised poor management decisions. "There was not a culture of safety on that rig," the co-chair said.
The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling released a final report on 5 January 2011. The panel found that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean had attempted to work more cheaply and thus helped to trigger the explosion and ensuing leakage. The report stated that "whether purposeful or not, many of the decisions that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean made that increased the risk of the Macondo blowout clearly saved those companies significant time (and money)." BP released a statement in response to this, saying, that "even prior to the conclusion of the commission's investigation, BP instituted significant changes designed to further strengthen safety and risk management." Transocean, however, blamed BP for making the decisions before the actual explosion occurred and government officials for permitting those decisions. Halliburton stated that it was acting only upon the orders of BP when it injected the cement into the wall of the well. It criticized BP for its failure to run a cement bond log test. In the report, BP was accused of nine faults. One was that it had not used a diagnostic tool to test the strength of the cement. Another was ignoring a pressure test that had failed. Still another was for not plugging the pipe with cement. The study did not, however, place the blame on any one of these events. Rather, it concluded that "notwithstanding these inherent risks, the accident of April 20 was avoidable" and that "it resulted from clear mistakes made in the first instance by BP, Halliburton and Transocean, and by government officials who, relying too much on industry's assertions of the safety of their operations, failed to create and apply a program of regulatory oversight that would have properly minimized the risk of deepwater drilling." The panel also noted that the government regulators did not have sufficient knowledge or authority to notice these cost-cutting decisions.
On 23 March 2011, BOEMRE (former MMS) and the USCG published a forensic examination report on the blowout preventer, prepared by Det Norske Veritas. The report concluded that the primary cause of failure was that the blind shear rams failed to fully close and seal due to a portion of drill pipe buckling between the shearing blocks.
The US government report issued in September 2011 stated that BP is ultimately responsible for the spill, and that Halliburton and Transocean share some of the blame. The report states that the main cause was the defective cement job, and Halliburton, BP and Transocean were, in different ways, responsible for the accident. The report stated that, although the events leading to the sinking of Deepwater Horizon were set into motion by the failure to prevent a well blowout, the investigation revealed numerous systems deficiencies, and acts and omissions by Transocean and its Deepwater Horizon crew, that had an adverse impact on the ability to prevent or limit the magnitude of the disaster. The report also states that a central cause of the blowout was failure of a cement barrier allowing hydrocarbons to flow up the wellbore, through the riser and onto the rig, resulting in the blowout. The loss of life and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico were the result of poor risk management, last‐minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the drilling platform.
=== Spill response fund ===
On 16 June 2010, after BP executives met with President Obama, BP announced and established the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), a $20 billion fund to settle claims arising from the Deepwater Horizon spill. This fund was set aside for natural resource damages, state and local response costs, and individual compensation, but could not be used for fines or penalties. Prior to establishing the GCCF, emergency compensation was paid by BP from an initial facility.
The GCCF was administrated by attorney Kenneth Feinberg. The facility began accepting claims on 23 August 2010. On 8 March 2012, after BP and a team of plaintiffs' attorneys agreed to a class-action settlement, a court-supervised administrator Patrick Juneau took over administration. Until this more than one million claims of 220,000 individual and business claimants were processed and more than $6.2 billion was paid out from the fund. 97% of payments were made to claimants in the Gulf States. In June 2012, the settlement of claims through the GCCF was replaced by the court-supervised settlement program. During this transition period additional $404 million in claims were paid.
The GCCF and its administrator Feinberg had been criticized about the amount and speed of payments as well as a lack of transparency. An independent audit of the GCCF, announced by Attorney General Eric Holder, was approved by Senate on 21 October 2011. An auditor BDO Consulting found that 7,300 claimants were wrongly denied or underpaid. As a result, about $64 million of additional payments was made. The Mississippi Center for Justice provided pro bono assistance to 10,000 people to help them "navigate the complex claims process." In a New York Times opinion piece, Stephen Teague, staff attorney at the Mississippi Center for Justice, argued that BP had become "increasingly brazen" in "stonewalling payments." "But tens of thousands of gulf residents still haven't been fully compensated for their losses, and many are struggling to make ends meet. Many low-wage workers in the fishing and service industries, for example, have been seeking compensation for lost wages and jobs for three years."
In July 2013, BP made a motion in court to freeze payments on tens of thousands of claims, arguing inter alia that a staff attorney from the Deepwater Horizon Court-Supervised Settlement Program, the program responsible for evaluating compensation claims, had improperly profited from claims filed by a New Orleans law firm. The attorney is said to have received portions of settlement claims for clients he referred to the firm. The federal judge assigned to the case, Judge Barbier, refused to halt the settlement program, saying he had not seen evidence of widespread fraud, adding that he was "offended by what he saw as attempts to smear the lawyer administering the claims."
=== Civil litigation and settlements ===
By 26 May 2010, over 130 lawsuits relating to the spill had been filed against one or more of BP, Transocean, Cameron International Corporation, and Halliburton Energy Services, although it was considered likely by observers that these would be combined into one court as a multidistrict litigation. On 21 April 2011, BP issued $40 billion worth of lawsuits against rig owner Transocean, cementer Halliburton and blowout preventer manufacturer Cameron. The oil firm alleged failed safety systems and irresponsible behaviour of contractors had led to the explosion, including claims that Halliburton failed to properly use modelling software to analyze safe drilling conditions. The firms deny the allegations.
On 2 March 2012, BP and plaintiffs agreed to settle their lawsuits. The deal would settle roughly 100,000 claims filed by individuals and businesses affected by the spill. On 13 August, BP asked US District Judge Carl Barbier to approve the settlement, saying its actions "did not constitute gross negligence or willful misconduct". On 13 January 2013, Judge Barbier approved a medical-benefits portion of BP's proposed $7.8 billion partial settlement. People living for at least 60 days along oil-impacted shores or involved in the clean-up who can document one or more specific health conditions caused by the oil or dispersants are eligible for benefits, as are those injured during clean-up. BP also agreed to spend $105 million over five years to set up a Gulf Coast health outreach program and pay for medical examinations. According to a group presenting the plaintiffs, the deal has no specific cap. BP says that it has $9.5 billion in assets set aside in a trust to pay the claims, and the settlement will not increase the $37.2 billion the company budgeted for spill-related expenses. BP originally expected to spend $7.8 billion. By October 2013 it had increased its projection to $9.2 billion, saying it could be "significantly higher."
On 31 August 2012, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed papers in federal court in New Orleans blaming BP for the Gulf oil spill, describing the spill as an example of "gross negligence and willful misconduct". In their statement the DOJ said that some of BP's arguments were "plainly misleading" and that the court should ignore BP's
argument that the Gulf region is "undergoing a robust recovery". BP rejected the charges saying "BP believes it was not grossly negligent and looks forward to presenting evidence on this issue at trial in January." The DOJ also said Transocean, the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig, was guilty of gross negligence as well.
On 14 November 2012, BP and the US Department of Justice reached a settlement. BP will pay $4.5 billion in fines and other payments, the largest of its kind in US history. In addition, the U.S. government temporarily banned BP from new federal contracts over its "lack of business integrity". The plea was accepted by Judge Sarah Vance of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on 31 January 2013. The settlement includes payments of $2.394 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $1.15 billion to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences for oil spill prevention and response research, $100 million to the North America Wetland Conservation Fund, $6 million to General Treasury and $525 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Oil sector analysts at London-based investment bank Canaccord Genuity noted that a settlement along the lines disclosed would only be a partial resolution of the many claims against BP.
On 3 January 2013, the US Justice Department announced "Transocean Deepwater Inc. has agreed to plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and to pay a total of $1.4 billion in civil and criminal fines and penalties". $800 million goes to Gulf Coast restoration Trust Fund, $300 million to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, $150 million to the National Wild Turkey Federation and $150 million to the National Academy of Sciences. MOEX Offshore 2007 agreed to pay $45 million to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, $25 million to five Gulf state and $20 million to supplemental environmental projects.
On 25 July 2013, Halliburton pleaded guilty to destruction of critical evidence after the oil spill and said it would pay the maximum allowable fine of $200,000 and will be subject to three years of probation.
In January 2014, a panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an effort by BP to curb payment of what it described as "fictitious" and "absurd" claims to a settlement fund for businesses and persons affected by the oil spill. BP said administration of the 2012 settlement was marred by the fact that people without actual damages could file a claim. The court ruled that BP had not explained "how this court or the district court should identify or even discern the existence of 'claimants that have suffered no cognizable injury.'" The Court then went further, calling BP's position "nonsensical". The Supreme Court of the United States later refused to hear BP's appeal after victims and claimants, along with numerous Gulf coast area chambers of commerce, objected to the oil major's efforts to renege on the Settlement Agreement.
In September 2014, Halliburton agreed to settle a large percentage of legal claims against it by paying $1.1 billion into a trust by way of three installments over two years.
=== Justice Department lawsuit ===
BP and its partners in the oil well, Transocean and Halliburton, went on trial on 25 February 2013 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans to determine payouts and fines under the Clean Water Act and the Natural Resources Damage Assessment. The plaintiffs included the U.S. Justice Department, Gulf states and private individuals. Tens of billions of dollars in liability and fines were at stake. A finding of gross negligence would result in a four-fold increase in the fines BP would have to pay for violating the federal Clean Water Act, and leave the company liable for punitive damages for private claims.
The trial's first phase was to determine the liability of BP, Transocean, Halliburton, and other companies, and if they acted with gross negligence and willful misconduct. The second phase scheduled in September 2013 focused on the flow rate of the oil and the third phase scheduled in 2014 was to consider damages. According to the plaintiffs' lawyers the major cause of an explosion was the mishandling of a rig safety test, while inadequate training of the staff, poor maintenance of the equipment and substandard cement were also mentioned as things leading to the disaster. According to The Wall Street Journal the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states had prepared an offer to BP for a $16 billion settlement. However, it was not clear if this deal had been officially proposed to BP and if BP has accepted it.
On 4 September 2014, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled BP was guilty of gross negligence and willful misconduct. He described BP's actions as "reckless". He said Transocean's and Halliburton's actions were "negligent". He apportioned 67% of the blame for the spill to BP, 30% to Transocean, and 3% to Halliburton. Fines would be apportioned commensurate with the degree of negligence of the parties, measured against the number of barrels of oil spilled. Under the Clean Water Act fines can be based on a cost per barrel of up to $4,300, at the discretion of the judge. The number of barrels was in dispute at the conclusion of the trial with BP arguing 2.5 million barrels were spilled over the 87 days the spill lasted, while the court contends 4.2 million barrels were spilled. BP issued a statement strongly disagreeing with the finding, and saying the court's decision would be appealed.
Barbier ruled that BP had acted with "conscious disregard of known risks" and rejected BP's assertion that other parties were equally responsible for the oil spill. His ruling stated that BP "employees took risks that led to the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history", that the company was "reckless", and determined that several crucial BP decisions were "primarily driven by a desire to save time and money, rather than ensuring that the well was secure." BP strongly disagreed with the ruling and filed an immediate appeal.
On 2 July 2015, BP, the U.S. Justice Department and five gulf states announced that the company agreed to pay a record settlement of $18.7 billion. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54 billion.
=== Criminal charges ===
In addition to the private lawsuits and civil governmental actions, the federal government charged multiple companies and five individuals with federal crimes.
In the November 2012 resolution of the federal charges against it, BP agreed to plead guilty to 11 felony counts related to the deaths of the 11 workers and paid a $4 billion fine. Transocean pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge as part of its $1.4 billion fine.
In April 2012, the Justice Department filed the first criminal charge against Kurt Mix, a BP engineer, for obstructing justice by deleting messages showing that BP knew the flow rate was three times higher than initial claims by the company, and knew that "Top Kill" was unlikely to succeed, but claimed otherwise. Three more BP employees were charged in November 2012. Site managers Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza were charged with manslaughter for acting negligently in their supervision of key safety tests performed on the rig prior to the explosion, and failure to alert onshore engineers of problems in the drilling operation. David Rainey, BP's former vice-president for exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, was charged with obstructing Congress by misrepresenting the rate that oil was flowing out of the well. Lastly, Anthony Badalamenti, a Halliburton manager, was charged with instructing two employees to delete data related to Halliburton's cementing job on the oil well.
None of the charges against individuals resulted in any prison time, and no charges were levied against upper level executives. Anthony Badalementi was sentenced to one year probation, Donald Vidrine paid a $50,000 fine and received 10 months probation, Kurt Mix received 6 months' probation, and David Rainey and Robert Kaluza were acquitted.
== In popular culture ==
=== Documentary ===
On 28 March 2011, Dispatches aired a documentary by James Brabazon, BP: In Deep Water, about the oil company, BP, covering oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and other incidents and its relationship with governments.
In April 2012, the National Geographic Channel's documentary series Seconds From Disaster featured the accident in an episode titled "The Deepwater Horizon"
In 2012, Beyond Pollution 2012 traveled across the gulf coast interviewing environmental experts, government authorities, fishermen, scientists, drilling engineers, and key BP contractors, examining economic and health effects.
In 2012, The Big Fix, documented the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico following the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig
In 2014, The Great Invisible, by Margaret Brown chose to focus on the social impacts on people whose lives have been affected by this tragedy. Later airing 19 April 2015 as the season 16, episode 14 of Independent Lens.
In 2014, Vanishing Pearls: The Oystermen of Pointe a la Hache, Louisiana, documented a town of nearly 300 struggling to survive following the oil spill that left their crop dead and finances in ruin.
In 2016, Pretty Slick documented the cleanup effort and locals across four Gulf states about the largest man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history.
In 2016, After the Spill, Jon Bowermaster investigates how the disaster affected local economies and the health of humans, animals, and food sources, and with Corexit, where all the oil went, as a follow-up to the pre-spill SoLa, Louisiana Water Stories, in post-production when the Deepwater Horizon exploded.
In 2016, Dispatches from the Gulf, Hal Weiner follows scientists investigating the oil spill's effect on the Gulf.
=== Drama ===
In 2012, "We Just Decided To", the pilot of the HBO TV series The Newsroom, featured its characters covering the Deepwater Horizon story.
The 2015 film The Runner, directed by Austin Stark and starring Nicolas Cage, is a fictional story of a politician and his family set in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
In 2016, Deepwater Horizon, a film based on the explosion, directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell and John Malkovich was released.
=== Music ===
In 2011, Jimmy Fallon, then host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, created a protest song about how there were still tarballs floating around the Gulf of Mexico called "Balls In Your Mouth". He performed it a number of times on the show with different guest singers, including Eddie Vedder, Russell Crowe, Brad Paisley, and Florence Welch. The live recording of the song featuring Eddie Vedder was included in Fallon's comedy album "Blow Your Pants Off".
In 2011, Rise Against released a song titled "Help Is on the Way" on their album Endgame. The song is about the slow response time for aid to disaster-stricken areas, with lyrics that allude to the Macondo spill and Hurricane Katrina.
In June 2011, Canadian musician City and Colour released a song titled "At the Bird's Foot" on his album Little Hell. The song is about the event and the greed of those involved.
On election day in the United States, 6 November 2012, Pete Seeger and Lorre Wyatt released the music video and single "God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You", which they recorded and filmed live aboard the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater in 2010 immediately after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The song references the spill.
In 2012, American singer-songwriter Andrew Bird released the song "Hole in the Ocean Floor" referencing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as his inspiration.
=== Television ===
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is referenced in a 2010 episode of South Park, "Coon 2: Hindsight". When a BP drilling vessel drills a new hole in the Gulf, it accidentally causes an oil spill in a protected zone, prompting one of the crewmen to exclaim "Oh, don't tell me we did it again?". Later on in the episode, BP drilled again and opened up a portal to another dimension, causing the Gulf to be attacked by its creatures. Then they drilled on the Moon hoping to change the gravitational pull on the Earth and quell the swells on the ocean, allowing them to place a cap on the portal. However, in doing this, Cthulhu emerged from the portal. Each time they drilled, Tony Hayward released a "we're sorry" campaign. The hole in the Gulf wasn't shut until two episodes later.
The Beavis and Butt-Head season 8 episode, "Spill", takes place at the Gulf when their teacher, Mr. Van Driessen, organizes a trip to help clean baby birds affected by the oil spill. The boys mistakenly believe they will be having sex with "filthy chicks" and volunteer to go.
== See also ==
Exxon Valdez oil spill
List of industrial disasters
List of oil spills
Offshore oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico (United States)
Taylor oil spill
Timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Two barrier rule
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Khatchadourian, Raffi (11 March 2011). "A Reporter at Large: The Gulf war". The New Yorker. Vol. 87, no. 4. pp. 36–59. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
Liu, Yonggang; MacFadyen, Amy; Ji, Zhen-Gang; Weisberg, Robert H. (2011). "Monitoring and Modeling the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A Record-Breaking Enterprise". Geophysical Monograph Series. Washington DC American Geophysical Union Geophysical Monograph Series. 195. Bibcode:2011GMS...195.....L. doi:10.1029/GM195. ISBN 978-0-87590-485-6. Archived from the original on 6 November 2014. Retrieved 6 November 2014.
Marghany, Maged (15 December 2014). "Utilization of a genetic algorithm for the automatic detection of oil spill from RADARSAT-2 SAR satellite data". Marine Pollution Bulletin. 89 (1–2): 20–29. Bibcode:2014MarPB..89...20M. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.10.041. PMID 25455367.
Erik Stokstad (8 February 2013). "BP Research Dollars Yield Signs of Cautious Hope". Science. 339 (6120): 636–637. Bibcode:2013Sci...339..636S. doi:10.1126/science.339.6120.636. PMID 23393236. Retrieved 25 February 2013.
Daniel Kaniewski; James Carafano (9 August 2010). "Critical Lessons from the Federal Response to the Gulf Oil Spill". The Heritage Foundation. Archived from the original on 12 August 2010. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
== External links ==
Deepwater BP Oil Spill at the Wayback Machine (archive index) – at Whitehouse.gov
Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
RestoreTheGulf.gov official U.S. Government Web site, taking over content and functions from Deepwater Horizon Response site
Smithsonian's Ocean Portal
Science in a Time of Crisis: WHOI's response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill a multimedia presentation from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
"Approaches for Ecosystem Services Valuation for the Gulf of Mexico After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Interim Report by the National Academy of Sciences"
CDC – Oil Spill Response Resources – NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Topic
The Role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, Second Session, June 17, 2010
=== Lead state agency websites ===
Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)
Mississippi DEQ Archived 20 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
State of Florida Oil Spill Academic Task Force
=== News media ===
Full coverage from The New York Times
Full coverage from The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
ScientificAmerican.com 2015-04020 BP Gulf Oil Spill: 5 Years Later Indepth Report
Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused lasting damage, report says Archived 12 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
BP Oil Spill, NPR
=== Interactive maps ===
Gulf Oil Spill Tracker interactive map and form for citizen reporting (SkyTruth.org)
Map and Estimates of the Oil Spilled (New York Times)
Where Oil Has Made Landfall (New York Times)
=== Images ===
Rig fire at Deepwater Horizon 4/21/10, video at CNN iReport
GOES-13 satellite images on the CIMSS Satellite Blog
Underwater Video Examines Multiple Leak Points Causing BP Oil Spill
The Big Fix. Documentary about the oil spill
=== Animations and graphics ===
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Interactive: Smithsonian Ocean Portal
BBC News – interactive animation to the disaster and blocking efforts
New York Times exploded view diagrams on the methods used to stop the oil spill
Graphic: Where the oil and gas went Archived 12 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
CSB produced blowout animation and technical explanation of cause of disaster |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Nolan | Christopher Nolan | Sir Christopher Edward Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Hollywood blockbusters with structurally complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. Nolan's films have earned over $6.6 billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing film director. His accolades include two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and two British Academy Film Awards. Nolan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019 and received a knighthood in 2024 for his contributions to film.
Nolan developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. After studying English literature at University College London, he made several short films before his feature film debut with Following (1998). Nolan gained international recognition with his second film, Memento (2000), and transitioned into studio filmmaking with Insomnia (2002). He became a high-profile director with The Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012) and found further success with The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017). After the release of Tenet (2020), Nolan parted ways with longtime distributor Warner Bros. Pictures and signed with Universal Pictures for the biographical thriller Oppenheimer (2023), which won him Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture.
Nolan's work regularly features in the listings of best films of their respective decades. Infused with a metaphysical outlook, his films thematise epistemology, existentialism, ethics, the construction of time and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. They feature mathematically inspired images and concepts, unconventional narrative structures, practical special effects, experimental soundscapes, large-format film photography and materialistic perspectives. His enthusiasm for the use and preservation of traditional film stock in cinema production as opposed to digital cameras has also garnered significant attention. He has co-written several of his films with his brother, Jonathan, and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife, Emma Thomas.
== Early life and education ==
Christopher Edward Nolan was born on 30 July 1970 in Westminster, London. His father, Brendan James Nolan (1936–2009), was a British advertising executive of Irish descent who worked as a creative director. His mother, Christina Jensen (born 1942), is a former American flight attendant from Evanston, Illinois; she also worked as a teacher of English. He has an elder brother, Matthew, and a younger brother, Jonathan, also a filmmaker. The three brothers were raised Catholic in Highgate and spent their summers in Evanston. Nolan also spent time living in Chicago during his youth, and he holds both UK and US citizenship.
Growing up, Nolan was particularly influenced by the work of Sir Ridley Scott and the science fiction films 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977). He would repeatedly watch the latter film and extensively research its making. Nolan began making films at the age of seven, borrowing his father's Super 8 camera and shooting short films with his action figures. These films included a stop motion animation homage to Star Wars called Space Wars. He cast his brother Jonathan and built sets from "clay, flour, egg boxes and toilet rolls". His uncle, who had worked at NASA building guidance systems for the Apollo rockets, sent him some launch footage: "I re-filmed them off the screen and cut them in, thinking no-one would notice", Nolan later remarked. From the age of 11, he aspired to be a professional filmmaker. Between 1981 and 1983, Nolan enrolled at Barrow Hills, a Catholic prep school in Witley, Surrey. In his teenage years, Nolan started making films with Adrien and Roko Belic. Nolan and Roko co-directed the surreal 8 mm Tarantella (1989), which was shown on Image Union, an independent film and video showcase on the Public Broadcasting Service. In 2021, after a fan posted a copy of Tarantella online, Nolan's production company filed a copyright infringement claim to have the film removed.
Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire, and later studied English literature at University College London (UCL). Opting out of a traditional film education, he pursued "a degree in something unrelated", which his father suggested "gives a different take on things". He chose UCL specifically for its filmmaking facilities, which comprised a Steenbeck editing suite and 16 mm film cameras. Nolan was president of the Union's Film Society, and with Emma Thomas (his girlfriend and future wife) he screened feature films in 35mm during the school year and used the money earned to produce 16 mm films over the summers. He graduated in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in English literature; Thomas, who studied history at UCL and was also active in the Film Society, met Nolan on his first day at Ramsay Halls. They later married and co-founded the production company Syncopy. Both have retained strong ties with UCL, receiving honorary fellowships (Nolan in 2006, Thomas in 2013), and in 2017 Nolan was awarded an honorary doctorate.
== Career ==
=== 1993–2003: Early career and breakthrough ===
After earning his bachelor's degree in English literature in 1993, Nolan worked as a script reader, camera operator and director of corporate films and industrial films. He directed, wrote and edited the short film Larceny (1996), which was filmed over a weekend in black and white with limited equipment and a small cast and crew. Funded by Nolan and shot with the UCL Union Film society's equipment, it appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts. For unknown reasons, the film has since been removed from public view. Nolan filmed a third short, Doodlebug (1997), about a man seemingly chasing an insect with his shoe, only to discover that it is a miniature of himself.
Nolan and Thomas first attempted to make a feature in the mid-1990s titled Larry Mahoney, which they scrapped. During this period in his career, Nolan had little to no success getting his projects off the ground, facing several rejections; he added, "[T]here's a very limited pool of finance in the UK. To be honest, it's a very clubby kind of place ... Never had any support whatsoever from the British film industry."
Shortly after abandoning Larry Mahoney, Nolan conceived the idea for his first feature, Following (1998), which he wrote, directed, photographed and edited. The film depicts an unemployed young writer (Jeremy Theobald) who trails strangers through London, hoping they will provide material for his first novel, but is drawn into a criminal underworld when he fails to keep his distance. It was inspired by Nolan's experience of living in London and having his apartment burgled; he observed that the common attribute between larceny and pursuing someone through a crowd was that they both cross social boundaries. Co-produced by Nolan with Thomas and Theobald, it was made on a budget of around £3,000. Most of the cast and crew were friends of Nolan, and shooting took place on weekends over the course of a year. To conserve film stock, each scene was rehearsed extensively to ensure that the first or second take could be used in the final edit. Following won several awards during its festival run and was well-received by critics who labelled Nolan a majorly talented debutant. Scott Timberg of New Times LA wrote that it "echoed Hitchcock classics", but was "leaner and meaner". Janet Maslin of The New York Times was impressed with its "spare look" and "agile hand-held camerawork", saying, "As a result, the actors convincingly carry off the before, during and after modes that the film eventually, and artfully, weaves together."
Following's success afforded Nolan the opportunity to make Memento (2000), which became his breakthrough film. His brother Jonathan pitched the idea to him, about a man with anterograde amnesia who uses notes and tattoos to hunt for his wife's murderer. Jonathan worked the idea into a short story, "Memento Mori" (2001), and Nolan developed it into a screenplay that told the story in reverse. Aaron Ryder, an executive for Newmarket Films, said it was "perhaps the most innovative script I had ever seen". The film was optioned and given a budget of $4.5 million, with Guy Pearce and Carrie-Anne Moss in the starring roles. Newmarket also distributed the film after it was rejected by studios who feared that it would not attract a wide audience. Following a positive word of mouth and screenings in 500 theatres, it earned $40 million. Memento premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2000 to critical acclaim. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote in his review, "I can't remember when a movie has seemed so clever, strangely affecting and slyly funny at the very same time." In the book The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, Basil Smith drew a comparison with John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which argues that conscious memories constitute our identities – a theme Nolan explores in the film. Memento earned Nolan many accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, as well as two Independent Spirit Awards: Best Director and Best Screenplay. Six critics listed it as one of the best films of the 2000s. In 2001, Nolan and Emma Thomas founded the production company Syncopy Inc.
Impressed by his work on Memento, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh recommended Nolan to Warner Bros. to direct the psychological thriller Insomnia (2002), although the studio initially wanted a more seasoned director. A remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name, the film is viewed as "the outlier of Nolan's filmography" due to its perceived lack of unconventionality he is known for. Starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank, Insomnia follows two Los Angeles detectives sent to a northern Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a local teenager. It received positive reviews from critics and earned $113 million against a budget of $46 million. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the film for introducing new perspectives and ideas on the issues of morality and guilt, adding, "Unlike most remakes, the Nolan Insomnia is not a pale retread, but a re-examination of the material, like a new production of a good play." Richard Schickel of Time deemed Insomnia a "worthy successor" to Memento and "a triumph of atmosphere over a none-too-mysterious mystery".
Following, Memento and Insomnia established Nolan's image as an "auteur". After the lattermost, he wrote a screenplay for a Howard Hughes biopic. Nolan reluctantly tabled his script after learning that Martin Scorsese was already making one such film: The Aviator (2004). He was then briefly attached to direct a film adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel The Keys to the Street for Fox Searchlight Pictures but chose to direct Batman Begins instead. In April 2003, filmmaker David O. Russell put Nolan in a headlock at a Hollywood party after learning that Jude Law, whom Russell wanted to cast, had decided to work with Nolan instead. Russell pressured Nolan to display "artistic solidarity" by relinquishing Law from his cast.
=== 2003–2013: Widespread recognition ===
In early 2003, Nolan was set to direct Troy (2004), based on Homer's the Iliad. After leaving Troy, Nolan approached Warner Bros. with the idea of making a new Batman film, based on the character's origin story. Nolan was fascinated by the notion of grounding it in a more realistic world than a comic-book fantasy. Warner Bros. let Nolan make Batman Begins (2005) to reconcile with him after he was forced out of Troy when that film's prolific producer, Wolfgang Petersen, decided he wanted to direct it. On Batman Begins, Nolan relied heavily on traditional stunts and miniature effects during filming, with minimal use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). That film was the biggest project Nolan had undertaken to that point, and it was released to critical acclaim and commercial success. Starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman—along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson—Batman Begins revived the franchise. Batman Begins was 2005's ninth-highest-grossing film and was praised for its psychological depth and contemporary relevance; it is cited as one of the most influential films of the 2000s. Film author Ian Nathan wrote that within five years of his career, Nolan "[went] from unknown to indie darling to gaining creative control over one of the biggest properties in Hollywood, and (perhaps unwittingly) fomenting the genre that would redefine the entire industry".
Nolan directed, co-wrote and produced The Prestige (2006), an adaptation of the Christopher Priest novel about two rival 19th-century magicians. The screenplay was the result of an intermittent, five-year collaboration between him and his brother Jonathan, who had begun writing it already in 2001. Nolan initially intended to make the film as early as 2003, but had postponed the project after agreeing to make Batman Begins. Starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in the lead roles of rival magicians, The Prestige received critical acclaim and received two Academy Award nominations. Roger Ebert described it as "quite a movie – atmospheric, obsessive, almost satanic", and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it an "ambitious, unnerving melodrama". The Guardian's Philip French wrote: "In addition to the intellectual or philosophical excitement it engenders, The Prestige is gripping, suspenseful, mysterious, moving and often darkly funny." Despite a negative box-office prognosis, the film earned over $109 million against a budget of $40 million.
The Dark Knight (2008), the follow-up to Batman Begins, was Nolan's next venture. Initially reluctant to make a sequel, he agreed after Warner Bros. repeatedly insisted. Nolan wanted to expand on the noir quality of the first film by broadening the canvas and taking on "the dynamic of a story of the city, a large crime story ... where you're looking at the police, the justice system, the vigilante, the poor people, the rich people, the criminals". Continuing to minimise the use of CGI, Nolan employed high-resolution IMAX cameras, making it the first major motion picture to use this technology. The Dark Knight has been ranked as one of the best films of the 2000s and one of the best superhero films ever made. Many critics declare The Dark Knight to be "the most successful comic book film ever made". Manohla Dargis of The New York Times found the film to be of higher artistic merit than many Hollywood blockbusters: "Pitched at the divide between art and industry, poetry and entertainment, it goes darker and deeper than any Hollywood movie of its comic-book kind." Ebert expressed a similar point of view, describing it as a "haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy". The Dark Knight set many box-office records during its theatrical run, earning over $1 billion worldwide. At the 81st Academy Awards, the film was nominated in eight categories, winning two: Best Sound Editing for Richard King and a posthumous Best Supporting Actor award for Heath Ledger. The film's failure to garner a Best Picture nomination was criticised by the media. Beginning in 2010, the Academy increased their Best Picture nominees from five to ten, a change known as "The Dark Knight Rule". Nolan received many awards and nominations for his work on the film. In the late 2000s, Nolan was reported to direct a film adaptation of the 1960s television series The Prisoner.
The success of The Dark Knight allowed Warner Bros. to sign Nolan to write, direct and co-produce Inception (2010) – a film for which he had the idea around nine years before its release. Nolan described the film as "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind". Starring a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film became a critical and commercial success upon its release. Film critic Mark Kermode named it the best film of 2010, stating "Inception is proof that people are not stupid, that cinema is not trash, and that it is possible for blockbusters and art to be the same thing." Philosophy professor David Kyle Johnson wrote that "Inception became a classic almost as soon as it was projected on silver screens", praising its exploration of philosophical ideas, including leap of faith and allegory of the cave. The film grossed over $836 million worldwide. Nominated for eight Academy Awards—including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay—it won Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Visual Effects. Nolan was nominated for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, among other accolades.
Around the release of The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Nolan's third and final Batman film, Joseph Bevan of the British Film Institute wrote a profile on him: "In the space of just over a decade, Christopher Nolan has shot from promising British indie director to undisputed master of a new brand of intelligent escapism." After initial hesitation, Nolan agreed to return to direct The Dark Knight Rises and worked with his brother and David S. Goyer to develop a story that he felt would end the trilogy on a high note. The film was released to positive reviews. Kenneth Turan found the film "potent, persuasive and hypnotic" and "more than an exceptional superhero movie, it is masterful filmmaking by any standard". Christy Lemire of HuffPost wrote in her review that Nolan concluded his trilogy in a "typically spectacular, ambitious fashion", but disliked the "overloaded" story and excessive grimness. The Dark Knight Rises was a box office success, becoming the thirteenth film to gross $1 billion. During a midnight showing of the film in Aurora, Colorado, a gunman opened fire inside the theatre, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others. Nolan released a statement expressing his condolences for the victims of what he described as a "senseless tragedy".
The Dark Knight trilogy inspired a trend in future superhero films seeking to replicate its gritty, realistic tone to little success. The second instalment in particular revitalised the genre at a time when recent superhero films had failed to meet expectations. Ben Child of The Guardian wrote that the three films "will remain thrilling totems of the genre for decades to come". During story discussions for The Dark Knight Rises, Goyer told Nolan of his idea about Man of Steel (2013), which the latter would produce. Impressed with Zack Snyder's work in 300 (2006) and Watchmen (2009), Nolan hired him to direct the film. Starring Henry Cavill as Clark Kent who learns that he is a powerful alien, Man of Steel received mixed reviews and grossed more than $660 million against a budget of $220 million.
=== 2014–2019: Further success with Interstellar, Dunkirk and other activities ===
Nolan next directed, wrote and produced the science-fiction film Interstellar (2014). The first drafts of the script were written by Jonathan Nolan, and it was originally to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on the scientific theories of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole in search of a new home for humanity. In a 2014 discussion of the film's physics, Nolan expressed his admiration for scientific objectivity, wishing it were applied "in every aspect of our civilisation". Interstellar – starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain – was released to positive reviews and grossed $773 million worldwide. Observing its "visual dazzle, thematic ambition", The New York Times's A. O. Scott wrote that Interstellar is a "sweeping, futuristic adventure driven by grief, dread and regret". Documentary filmmaker Toni Myers called the film "a real work of art" and praised it for exploring a story spanning multiple generations. Interstellar was particularly praised for its scientific accuracy, which led to the publication of two academic papers. The American Journal of Physics called for it to be shown in school science lessons. At the 87th Academy Awards, the film won Best Visual Effects and received four other nominations. Also in 2014, Nolan and Emma Thomas served as executive producers on Transcendence, the directorial debut of his longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister.
In the mid-2010s, Nolan took part in several ventures for film preservation and distribution of the work of lesser-known filmmakers. His production company, Syncopy, formed a joint venture with Zeitgeist Films to release Blu-ray editions of Zeitgeist's films. As a part of the Blu-ray release of the animation films of the Brothers Quay, Nolan directed the documentary short Quay (2015). He initiated a theatrical tour, showcasing the Quays' In Absentia, The Comb and Street of Crocodiles. IndieWire wrote that the brothers "will undoubtedly have hundreds, if not thousands more fans because of Nolan, and for that The Quay Brothers in 35mm will always be one of [the] latter's most important contributions to cinema". An advocate for the survival of the analogue medium, Nolan and visual artist Tacita Dean invited representatives from leading American film archives, laboratories and presenting institutions to participate in an informal summit entitled Reframing the Future of Film at the Getty Museum in March 2015. Subsequent events were held at Tate Modern in London, Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and Tata Theatre in Mumbai. In April 2015, Nolan joined the board of directors of The Film Foundation, a non-profitable organisation dedicated to film preservation, and was appointed, along with Martin Scorsese, by the Library of Congress to serve on the National Film Preservation Board as DGA representatives. Nolan serves on the Motion Picture & Television Fund Board of Governors.
After serving as an executive producer on Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), Nolan returned to directing with Dunkirk (2017). Based on his own original screenplay and co-produced with Thomas, the film is set amid World War II in 1940 and the evacuation of Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, France. Describing the film as a survival tale with a triptych structure, Nolan wanted to make a "sensory, almost experimental movie" with minimal dialogue. He said he waited to make Dunkirk until he had earned the trust of a major studio to let him make it as a British film but with an American budget. Before filming, Nolan sought advice from Spielberg, who later said in an interview with Variety, "knowing and respecting that Chris [Nolan] is one of the world's most imaginative filmmakers, my advice to him was to leave his imagination, as I did on Ryan, in second position to the research he was doing to authentically acquit this historical drama". Starring an ensemble cast, Dunkirk was released to widespread critical acclaim and strong box office results. It grossed over $526 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing World War II film of all time. In his review, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "It's one of the best war films ever made, distinct in its look, in its approach and in the effect it has on viewers. There are movies—they are rare—that lift you out of your present circumstances and immerse you so fully in another experience that you watch in a state of jaw-dropped awe. Dunkirk is that kind of movie." The film received many accolades, including Nolan's first Oscar nomination for Best Director.
In 2018, Nolan supervised a new 70 mm print of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), made from the original camera negative; he presented it at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. USA Today observed that festival-goers greeted Nolan "like a rock star with a standing ovation". A year later, Nolan and Thomas received executive producer credits on The Doll's Breath (2019), an animated short directed by the Quay brothers.
=== 2020–present: Tenet, Oppenheimer and The Odyssey ===
Nolan's next film was the science fiction film Tenet (2020), described by Tom Shone of The Sunday Times as "a globe-spinning riff on all things Nolanesque". Nolan had worked on the screenplay for more than five years after deliberating about its central ideas for over a decade. Delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tenet was the first Hollywood tent-pole to open in theatres after the pandemic shutdown. The film tells the story of an unnamed protagonist (played by John David Washington) who travels through time to stop a world-threatening attack. It grossed $363 million worldwide on a production budget of $200 million, becoming Nolan's first to underperform at the box-office. Tenet was described as his most polarising film; critics praised the ambition and technical aspects but found its story confusing. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian awarded it five out of five, calling it "a cerebral cadenza, a deadpan flourish of crazy implausibility—but supercharged with steroidal energy and imagination". Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter described it as "a chilly, cerebral film—easy to admire, especially since it's so rich in audacity and originality, but almost impossible to love, lacking as it is in a certain humanity". At the 93rd Academy Awards, the film won Best Visual Effects and was nominated for Best Production Design. Following the release of Tenet, Nolan joined the Advisory Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. He served as an executive producer on Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021), a director's cut of 2017's Justice League.
Nolan's 12th film was Oppenheimer (2023), a biopic based on J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) and his role in the development of the atom bomb. It was Nolan's first R-rated film since Insomnia (2002). The film was financed and distributed by Universal Pictures, making it Nolan's first feature film since Memento that was not made for Warner Bros. He disagreed with Warner Bros.' decision to simultaneously release their films in theatres and on HBO Max. Nolan secured the deal with Universal after he was promised a production budget of around $100 million with an equal marketing budget, total creative control, 20% of first-dollar gross, a 100-day theatrical window and a blackout period from the studio wherein the company would not release another film three weeks before or after Oppenheimer's release. The film received critical acclaim. Matthew Jackson of The A.V. Club wrote, "Oppenheimer deserves the title of masterpiece. It's Christopher Nolan's best film so far, a step up to a new level for one of our finest filmmakers, and a movie that burns itself into your brain." Terming it "boldly imaginative and [Nolan's] most mature work yet", BBC Culture's Caryn James added that it combined the "explosive, commercially-enticing action of The Dark Knight trilogy" with the "cerebral underpinnings" of Memento, Inception and Tenet. Oppenheimer grossed over $975 million worldwide, making it the third-highest-grossing film of 2023. Among the film's numerous accolades, Nolan won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture.
As of February 2025, Nolan will once again work with Universal Studios on The Odyssey, an adaptation of the Ancient Greek epic poem the Odyssey by Homer. It is scheduled to be released in July 2026. It follows Odysseus (portrayed by Matt Damon), the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, on his perilous journey to return home following the Trojan War, his encounters with the cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, and the witch goddess Circe, and his reunion with his wife, Penelope. With an estimated production budget of $250 million, it is poised to be the most expensive film of Nolan's career. The film will be the first mainstream blockbuster to be shot entirely on IMAX film. Nolan was elected president of the Directors Guild of America, a labour organisation representing more than 19,500 members, in September 2025.
== Personal life and public image ==
Nolan is married to Emma Thomas, whom he met at University College London when he was 19. She has worked as a producer on all of his films since 1997. The couple have four children and reside in Los Angeles. Nolan and Thomas were included in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2025 with an estimated net worth of £360 million.
Nolan prefers to maintain a certain level of mystery about his work. Refusing to discuss his personal life, he feels that too much biographical information about a filmmaker detracts from the experience of his audiences. He stated, "I actually don't want people to have me in mind at all when they're watching the films." He does not own a smartphone or have an email address, preferring to hand-deliver his scripts to actors instead and have his wife handle outreach with producers and distributors.
== Filmmaking style ==
Nolan's films are largely centred in metaphysical themes, exploring the concepts of time, memory and personal identity. His work is characterised by mathematically inspired ideas and images, unconventional narrative structures, materialistic perspectives, and evocative use of music and sound. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro called Nolan "an emotional mathematician". BBC's arts editor Will Gompertz described him as "an art house auteur making intellectually ambitious blockbuster movies that can leave your pulse racing and your head spinning". Joseph Bevan wrote, "His films allow arthouse regulars to enjoy superhero flicks and multiplex crowds to engage with labyrinthine plot conceits." Nolan views himself as "an indie filmmaker working inside the studio system".
In the sixteen-essay book The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan, professional philosophers and writers analysed Nolan's work; they identified themes of self-destruction, the nature and value of the truth, and the political mindset of the hero and villain, among others. Robbie B. H. Goh, a professor of English literature, described Nolan as a "philosophical filmmaker" who includes philosophical ideas—existentialism, morality, epistemology and the distinction between appearance and reality—in films that frequently portray suspense, action and violence. Goh appreciated his ability to incorporate such themes in films that possess "elements of the Hollywood blockbuster"—which help keep the audiences engaged—but simultaneously remain "more thoughtful and self-reflexive than the typical consumerist action film". He further wrote that Nolan's body of work reflect "a heterogeneity of conditions of products" extending from low-budget films to lucrative blockbusters, "a wide range of genres and settings" and "a diversity of styles that trumpet his versatility".
David Bordwell, a film theorist, wrote that Nolan has been able to blend his "experimental impulses" with the demands of mainstream entertainment, describing his oeuvre as "experiments with cinematic time by means of techniques of subjective viewpoint and crosscutting". Nolan's use of practical, in-camera effects, miniatures and models, as well as shooting on celluloid film, has been highly influential in early 21st century cinema. IndieWire wrote in 2019 that Nolan "kept a viable alternate model of big-budget filmmaking alive", in an era where blockbuster filmmaking has become "a largely computer-generated art form". Because of Nolan's deep involvement in the technical facet of his films, Stuart Joy described him as a "complete filmmaker", who "oversees all aspects of production while also managing cultural and industrial factors outside of the text".
== Recognition ==
Nolan has made some of the most influential and popular films of his time. Many of his films have been regarded by critics as among the best of their respective decades, and according to The Wall Street Journal, his "ability to combine box-office success with artistic ambition has given him an extraordinary amount of clout in the industry". His films have earned more than $6 billion. Nolan's films Memento and The Dark Knight have been selected by the US Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. These films and Inception appeared in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century and The Hollywood Reporter's poll of best films ever made. In 2017, The Dark Knight, Inception and Interstellar featured in Empire magazine's poll of "The 100 Greatest Movies". In 2018, The Hollywood Reporter listed Nolan as one of the 100 most powerful people in entertainment and described him as a "franchise unto himself". Parade ranked Nolan number eight in its 2022 list of 75 Best Movie Directors of All Time.
Nolan's work has been as "intensely embraced, analysed and debated by ordinary film fans as by critics and film academics". Calling him "a persuasively inventive storyteller", Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute named Nolan one of the few contemporary filmmakers producing highly personal films within the Hollywood mainstream. Andrew wrote that Nolan's films are "not so much [notable] for their considerable technical virtuosity and visual flair as for their brilliant narrative ingenuity and their unusually adult interest in complex philosophical questions". David Bordwell observed that Nolan is "considered one of the most accomplished living filmmakers", citing his ability to turn genre movies into both art and event films, as well as his box office numbers, critical acclaim and popularity among cinemagoers. In 2008, Philip French deemed Nolan "the first major talent to emerge this century". Mark Kermode complimented Nolan for bringing "the discipline and ethics of art-house independent moviemaking and apply[ing] them to Hollywood blockbusters. He's living proof that you don't have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to be profitable". The Observer's Ryan Gilbey described Nolan as a "skillful, stylish storyteller, capable of combining the spectacle of Spielberg with the intellectual intricacy of Nicolas Roeg or Alain Resnais". Mark Cousins applauded Nolan for embracing big ideas, "Hollywood filmmakers generally shy away from ideas—but not Christopher Nolan". Scott Foundas of Variety declared Nolan "the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation", and Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times called him "the great proceduralist of 21st century blockbuster filmmaking, a lover of nuts-and-bolts minutiae".
Nolan has been praised by many of his contemporaries, and his work has influenced them. Kenneth Branagh called Nolan's approach to large-scale filmmaking "unique in modern cinema", adding, "regardless of how popular his movies become, he remains an artist and an auteur. I think for that reason he has become a heroic figure for both the audience and the people working behind the camera." Michael Mann complimented Nolan for his "singular vision" and credited with "invent[ing] the post-heroic superhero". Nicolas Roeg said of Nolan, "People talk about 'commercial art' and the term is usually self-negating; Nolan works in the commercial arena and yet there's something very poetic about his work." Martin Scorsese identified Nolan as a filmmaker creating "beautifully made films on a big scale".
Damien Chazelle lauded Nolan for his ability "to make the most seemingly impersonal projects—superhero epics, deep-space mind-benders—feel deeply personal". Discussing the difference between art films and big studio blockbusters, Steven Spielberg referred to Nolan's Dark Knight series as an example of both; he has described Memento and Inception as "masterworks". Denis Villeneuve was impressed by Nolan's ability "to keep his identity and create his own universe in that large scope ... To bring intellectual concepts and to bring them in that scope to the screen right now—it's very rare. Every movie that he comes out with, I have more admiration for his work." James Cameron expressed disappointment that Nolan was not nominated for an Academy Award as Best Director for Inception, calling it "the most astounding piece of film creation and direction of the year, hands down".
== Filmography ==
== Awards and honours ==
Nolan has been nominated for eight Academy Awards (winning two), eight British Academy Film Awards (winning two) and six Golden Globe Awards (winning one). From 2011 to 2014, he appeared in Forbes Celebrity 100 list based on his income and popularity. Nolan appeared in Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2015.
Nolan was named an Honorary Fellow of UCL in 2006, and conferred an honorary doctorate in literature in 2017. In 2012, he became the youngest director to receive a hand-and-footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to film. In 2023, he was awarded the Federation of American Scientists' Public Service Award for his depiction of scientists in his film Oppenheimer. In 2024, Nolan received the British Film Institute Fellowship in recognition of his "extraordinary achievements and enormous contribution to cinema," and the Honorary César award from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma for "continually push[ing] the boundaries of storytelling." In March 2024, Nolan was made a knight bachelor for his contributions to film, while his wife Emma Thomas was honoured with a damehood.
== See also ==
List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Cited sources ===
== Further reading ==
== External links ==
Christopher Nolan at IMDb
Christopher Nolan at Rotten Tomatoes
Christopher Nolan Biography at Tribute.ca
Christopher Nolan – How to Direct Your First Feature Film |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_and_Henry_Wasps | Emory and Henry Wasps | The Emory & Henry Wasps, also known as E&H Wasps, are the athletic teams that represent Emory & Henry University, located in Emory, Virginia, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports. The Wasps will compete as members of the South Atlantic Conference as they plan to start playing a full SAC schedule in 2022–23. Altogether, Emory & Henry sponsors 26 sports: 11 men's teams, 11 women's teams, and 4 co-ed teams. Emory & Henry previously competed as members of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) of NCAA Division III from 1976–77 to 2020–21.
Emory and Henry adopted the Wasps nickname in 1921. The school's athletic teams has previously been called the Wildcats, Jackrabbits, and Whitetoppers.
== History ==
=== NCAA investigation ===
The Emory & Henry football team came under investigation for alleged violations of NCAA bylaws in 2013-2014. The allegations came to public attention after the resignation of former coach Don Montgomery from the football program and departure of the College's president, Rosalind Reichard. The student newspaper reported that allegations were due to lack of "institutional control" of the athletic department. The NCAA investigation revealed that during the time period of recruitment, two possible football student-athletes of the College's athletics program had gotten extra financial aid in their financial aid packages.
In these cases, the College went away from its standard awarding procedure by modifying an award and including endowed funds as part of the initial financial aid package. Due to these inappropriate financial aid decisions, both of these student-athletes were said to be ineligible to take part in football during the 2012 and 2013 seasons.
=== Mascot ===
The official Emory & Henry mascot is the Wasps. While there are many rumored origins of the nickname, the most commonly accepted story is that Emory & Henry was first called the Wasps after the football team played the first-ever game in Tennessee's Neyland Stadium by a local Knoxville newspaper. Despite the Volunteers from Tennessee being heavily favored, they only held a 6-0 lead at halftime, this is due to the defensive efforts of Emory & Henry. The local Knoxville newspapers described the college team as the "Wasps" because of the tenacious and swarming defense they displayed, akin to the persistence of wasps in protecting their nest. This description was inspired by the distinctive uniforms worn by the Emory & Henry players, which included blue-gold striped socks and jerseys adorned with blue-gold stripes on the chest and sleeves. Though Emory and Henry was beaten 27–0, legend has it that the local paper declared "that those Virginia boys stung like wasps," and the nickname has stuck ever since.
== Conference affiliations ==
NCAA
Old Dominion Athletic Conference (1976–2021)
South Atlantic Conference (2022–present)
== Varsity teams ==
=== List of teams ===
== Football ==
The E&H Wasps are credited with inventing an American football offensive formation, named in the college's honor, that divides the offensive line and wide receivers into three groupings of three. While it is primarily used today as a trick play, it was revived in 2007 as an integral part of the A-11 offense, a high school football offensive scheme that was eventually banned due to the exploitation of loopholes in the high school rulebooks. The offense inspired Steve Spurrier to use variations of it as a trick play formation at Florida and South Carolina named "Emory and Henry", as Spurrier attended Wasps games as a child growing up in nearby Johnson City, Tennessee. The formation is featured on EA Sports' NCAA Football 07 video game as well.
The Emory & Henry football team has a long storied history claiming 11 ODAC Conference Championships (more than any other member of the ODAC) since the league's inception in 1976, along with appearing in the 1950 Tangerine Bowl and the 1951 Tangerine Bowl. They have also managed to make it to the 1987 NCAA DIII Semifinal game under coach Lou Wacker before losing to now Division I Wagner College, and well as making it to the DIII playoffs numerous times. E&H also boasted the nations longest home game winning streak in 1999 at 37 games. In 2004, Y'all magazine listed Emory and Henry among the 40 colleges and universities in the South with the greatest football traditions. "Not to be overshadowed by neighboring Division I powerhouses . . .Winning seasons plus pride and pageantry equals one of the greatest Southern football traditions."
The Wasps football team began play in 1893 beating Virginia Tech 6–0, and have won games against other Division I programs such as Appalachian State, Marshall, The University of Central Florida, and Middle Tennessee State. The Wasps oldest current football rival is Hampden-Sydney College who first played the Wasps in 1922.
Emory and Henry University has had three players drafted to the NFL over the years. The most notable being Sonny Wade (class of '69) who went on to play several years in the CFL.
=== NCAA Division III playoff appearances ===
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#:~:text=Hindi%20is%20the%20fastest%20growing,the%202011%20census%20of%20India. | Languages of India | Languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both families together are sometimes known as Indic languages. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino–Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, Andamanese, and a few other minor language families and isolates. According to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, India has the second highest number of languages (780), after Papua New Guinea (840). Ethnologue lists a lower number of 456.
Article 343 of the Constitution of India stated that the official language of the Union is Hindi in Devanagari script, with official use of English to continue for 15 years. Opposition to increased Hindi usage in South India led to the passage of the Official Languages Act in 1963, amending the constitution to allow for the continuation of English alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union are "the international form of Indian numerals", which are referred to as Arabic numerals in most English-speaking countries. Despite some misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India; the Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.
The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Assamese, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. This status is given to languages that have a rich heritage and independent nature.
According to the Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in the definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Three contact languages have played an important role in the history of India in chronological order: Sanskrit, Persian and English. Persian was the court language during the Indo-Muslim period in India and reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation. English continues to be an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government.
Hindi, which has the largest number of first-language speakers in India today, serves as the lingua franca across much of northern and central India. However, there have been concerns raised with Hindi being imposed in South India, most notably in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Some in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Punjab, Kerala and other non-Hindi regions have also started to voice concerns about imposition of Hindi. Bengali is the second most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant number of speakers in eastern and northeastern regions. Marathi is the third most spoken and understood language in the country with a significant number of speakers in the southwest, followed closely by Telugu, which is most commonly spoken in southeastern areas.
Hindi is the fastest growing language of India, followed by Kashmiri in the second place, with Meitei (officially called Manipuri) as well as Gujarati, in the third place, and Bengali in the fourth place, according to the 2011 census of India.
According to Ethnologue, India has 148 Sino-Tibetan, 140 Indo-European, 84 Dravidian, 32 Austro-Asiatic, 14 Andamanese, and 5 Kra-Dai languages.
== History ==
The Southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The Dravidian languages are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. Proto-Dravidian languages were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE. The Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji), South-Central (Telugu–Kui), and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada).
The Northern Indian languages from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indo-Aryan by way of the Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrit languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. The Indo-Aryan languages developed and emerged in three stages — Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE to 600 BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan stage (600 BCE and 1000 CE), and New Indo-Aryan (between 1000 CE and 1300 CE). The modern north Indian Indo-Aryan languages all evolved into distinct, recognisable languages in the New Indo-Aryan Age.
In the Northeast India, among the Sino-Tibetan languages, Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) was the court language of the Manipur Kingdom (Meitei: Meeteileipak). It was honoured before and during the darbar sessions before Manipur was merged into the Dominion of the Indian Republic. Its history of existence spans from 1500 to 2000 years according to most eminent scholars including Padma Vibhushan awardee Suniti Kumar Chatterji. Even according to the "Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947" of the once independent Manipur, Manipuri and English were made the court languages of the kingdom (before merging into Indian Republic).
Persian, or Farsi, was brought into India by the Ghaznavids and other Turko-Afghan dynasties as the court language. Culturally Persianized, they, in combination with the later Mughal dynasty (of Turco-Mongol origin), influenced the art, history, and literature of the region for more than 500 years, resulting in the Persianisation of many Indian tongues, mainly lexically. In 1837, the British replaced Persian with English and Hindustani in Perso-Arabic script for administrative purposes and the Hindi movement of the 19th Century replaced Persianised vocabulary with Sanskrit derivations and replaced or supplemented the use of Perso-Arabic script for administrative purposes with Devanagari.
Each of the northern Indian languages had different influences. For example, Hindustani was strongly influenced by Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, leading to the emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu as registers of the Hindustani language.
Bangla on the other hand has retained its Sanskritic roots while heavily expanding its vocabulary with words from Persian, English, French and other foreign languages.
== Inventories ==
The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was carried out by Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1898 to 1928. Titled the Linguistic Survey of India, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544 dialects. However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in distinguishing between "dialect" and "language", use of untrained personnel and under-reporting of data from South India, as the former provinces of Burma and Madras, as well as the princely states of Cochin, Hyderabad, Mysore and Travancore were not included in the survey.
Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the terms "language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. Ethnologue, produced by the Christian evangelist organisation SIL International, lists 435 tongues for India (out of 6,912 worldwide). These languages are further subclassified in Ethnologue as follows:
Institutional – 45
Stable – 248
Endangered – 131
Extinct – 11
The People's Linguistic Survey of India, a privately owned research institution in India, has recorded over 66 different scripts and more than 780 languages in India during its nationwide survey, which the organisation claims to be the biggest linguistic survey in India.
The People of India (POI) project of Anthropological Survey of India reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633 Indian communities.
=== Census of India figures ===
The Census of India records and publishes data with respect to the number of speakers for languages and dialects, but uses its own unique terminology, distinguishing between language and mother tongue. The mother tongues are grouped within each language. Many of the mother tongues so defined could be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many mother tongues with tens of millions of speakers that are officially grouped under the language Hindi.
1951 Census
Separate figures for Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi were not issued, due to the fact the returns were intentionally recorded incorrectly in states such as East Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, PEPSU, and Bilaspur.
1961 Census
The 1961 census recognised 1,652 mother tongues spoken by 438,936,918 people, counting all declarations made by any individual at the time when the census was conducted. However, the declaring individuals often mixed names of languages with those of dialects, subdialects and dialect clusters or even castes, professions, religions, localities, regions, countries and nationalities. The list therefore includes languages with barely a few individual speakers as well as 530 unclassified mother tongues and more than 100 idioms that are non-native to India, including linguistically unspecific demonyms such as "African", "Canadian" or "Belgian".
1991 Census
The 1991 census recognises 1,576 classified mother tongues. According to the 1991 census, 22 languages had more than a million native speakers, 50 had more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million Indians in 1991).
2001 Census
According to the census of 2001, there are 1,635 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages. Of these, 29 languages have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers. There are a few languages like Kodava that do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu).
2011 Census
According to the most recent census of 2011, after thorough linguistic scrutiny, edit, and rationalisation on 19,569 raw linguistic affiliations, the census recognises 1,369 rationalised mother tongues and 1,474 names which were treated as ‘unclassified’ and relegated to ‘other’ mother tongue category. Among, the 1,369 rationalised mother tongues which are spoken by 10,000 or more speakers, are further grouped into appropriate set that resulted into total 121 languages. In these 121 languages, 22 are already part of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and the other 99 are termed as "Total of other languages" which is one short as of the other languages recognised in 2001 census.
== Multilingualism ==
=== 2011 Census India ===
== Language families ==
Ethnolinguistically, the languages of South Asia, echoing the complex history and geography of the region, form a complex patchwork of language families, language phyla and isolates. Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians. The most important language families in terms of speakers are:
=== Indo-Aryan language family ===
The largest of the language families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself the easternmost, extant subfamily of the Indo-European language family. This language family predominates, accounting for some 1035 million speakers, or over 76.5% of the population, per a 2018 estimate. The most widely spoken languages of this group are Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Odia, Maithili, Punjabi, Marwari, Kashmiri, Assamese (Asamiya), Chhattisgarhi and Sindhi. Aside from the Indo-Aryan languages, other Indo-European languages are also spoken in India, the most prominent of which is English, as a lingua franca.
=== Dravidian language family ===
The second largest language family is the Dravidian language family, accounting for some 277 million speakers, or approximately 20.5% per 2018 estimate. The Dravidian languages are spoken mainly in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in parts of northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Besides the mainstream population, Dravidian languages are also spoken by small scheduled tribe communities, such as the Oraon and Gond tribes. Only two Dravidian languages are exclusively spoken outside India, Brahui in Balochistan, Pakistan and Dhangar, a dialect of Kurukh, in Nepal.
=== Austroasiatic language family ===
Families with smaller numbers of speakers are Austroasiatic and numerous small Sino-Tibetan languages, with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively, together 3% of the population.
The Austroasiatic language family (austro meaning South) is the autochthonous language in Southeast Asia, arrived by migration. Austroasiatic languages of mainland India are the Khasi and Munda languages, including Bhumij and Santali. The languages of the Nicobar islands also form part of this language family. With the exceptions of Khasi and Santali, all Austroasiatic languages on Indian territory are endangered.
=== Tibeto-Burman language family ===
The Tibeto-Burman language family is well represented in India. However, their interrelationships are not discernible, and the family has been described as "a patch of leaves on the forest floor" rather than with the conventional metaphor of a "family tree".
Padma Vibhushan awardee Indian Bengali scholar Suniti Kumar Chatterjee said, "Among the various Tibeto-Burman languages, the most important and in literature certainly of much greater importance than Newari, is the Meitei or Manipuri language".
In India, Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken across the Himalayas in the regions of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam (hills and autonomous councils), Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and West Bengal.
Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in India include two constitutionally recognised official languages, Meitei (officially known as Manipuri) and Bodo as well as the non-scheduled languages like Karbi, Deori, Lepcha, and many varieties of several related Tibetic, West Himalayish, Tani, Brahmaputran, Angami–Pochuri, Tangkhul, Zeme, Kukish sub linguistic branches, among many others.
=== Tai-Kadai language family ===
The Ahom language, a Southwestern Tai language, had been once the dominant language of the Ahom Kingdom in modern-day Assam, but was later replaced by the Assamese language (known as Kamrupi in ancient era which is the pre-form of the Kamrupi dialect of today). Nowadays, small Tai communities and their languages remain in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh together with Sino-Tibetans, e.g. Tai Phake, Tai Aiton and Tai Khamti, which are similar to the Shan language of Shan State, Myanmar; the Dai language of Yunnan, China; the Lao language of Laos; the Thai language of Thailand; and the Zhuang language in Guangxi, China.
=== Andamanese language families ===
The languages of the Andaman Islands form another group:
the Great Andamanese languages, comprising a number of extinct, and one highly endangered language Aka-Jeru.
the Ongan family of the southern Andaman Islands, comprising two extant languages, Önge and Jarawa, and one extinct language, Jangil.
In addition, Sentinelese is thought likely to be related to the above languages.
=== Niger-Congo language family ===
In addition, a Bantu language, Sidi, was spoken until the mid-20th century in Gujarat by the Siddi.
=== Language isolates ===
The only language found in the Indian mainland that is considered a language isolate is Nihali. The status of Nihali is ambiguous, having been considered as a distinct Austroasiatic language, as a dialect of Korku and also as being a "thieves' argot" rather than a legitimate language.
The other language isolates found in the rest of South Asia include Burushaski, a language spoken in Gilgit–Baltistan (administered by Pakistan), Kusunda (in western Nepal), and Vedda (in Sri Lanka). The validity of the Great Andamanese language group as a language family has been questioned and it has been considered a language isolate by some authorities. The Hruso language, which is long assumed to be a Sino-Tibetan language, it may actually be a language isolate. Roger Blench classifies the Shompen language of the Nicobar Islands as a language isolate. Roger Blench also considers Puroik to be a language isolate.
== Official languages ==
=== Federal level ===
After Mughal rule and prior to Independence, in British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes.
In 1946, the issue of national language was a bitterly contested subject in the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly of India, specifically what should be the language in which the Constitution of India is written and the language spoken during the proceedings of Parliament and thus deserving of the epithet "national".
The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.
Members belonging to the northern parts of India insisted that the Constitution be drafted in Hindi with the unofficial translation in English. This was not agreed to by the drafting committee on the grounds that English was much better to craft the nuanced prose on constitutional subjects. The efforts to make Hindi the pre-eminent language were bitterly resisted by the members from those parts of India where Hindi was not spoken natively.
Eventually, a compromise was reached not to include any mention of a national language. Instead, Hindi in Devanagari script was declared to be the official language of the union, but for "fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution, the English Language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement."
Article 343 (1) of the Constitution of India states "The Official Language of the Union government shall be Hindi in Devanagari script." Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e. on 26 January 1965.
As the date for changeover approached, however, there was much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh. Accordingly, Jawaharlal Nehru ensured the enactment of the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided that English "may" still be used with Hindi for official purposes, even after 1965. The wording of the text proved unfortunate in that while Nehru understood that "may" meant shall, politicians championing the cause of Hindi thought it implied exactly the opposite.
In the event, as 1965 approached, India's new Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri prepared to make Hindi paramount with effect from 26 January 1965. This led to widespread agitation, riots, self-immolations, and suicides in Tamil Nadu. The split of Congress politicians from the South from their party stance, the resignation of two Union ministers from the South, and the increasing threat to the country's unity forced Shastri to concede.
As a result, the proposal was dropped, and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament.
==== Hindi ====
In the 2001 census, 422 million (422,048,642) people in India reported Hindi to be their native language. This figure not only included Hindi speakers of Hindustani, but also people who identify as native speakers of related languages who consider their speech to be a dialect of Hindi, the Hindi belt. Hindi (or Hindustani) is the native language of most people living in Delhi and Western Uttar Pradesh.
"Modern Standard Hindi", a standardised language is one of the official languages of the Union of India. In addition, it is one of only two languages used for business in Parliament. However, the Rajya Sabha now allows all 22 official languages on the Eighth Schedule to be spoken.
Hindustani, evolved from khari boli (खड़ी बोली), a prominent tongue of Mughal times, which itself evolved from Apabhraṃśa, an intermediary transition stage from Prakrit, from which the major North Indian Indo-Aryan languages have evolved.
By virtue of its being a lingua franca, Hindi has also developed regional dialects such as Bambaiya Hindi in Mumbai. In addition, a trade language, Andaman Creole Hindi has also developed in the Andaman Islands. In addition, by use in popular culture such as songs and films, Hindi also serves as a lingua franca across North-Central India.
Hindi is widely taught both as a primary language and language of instruction and as a second tongue in many states.
==== English ====
British colonialism in India resulted in English becoming a language for governance, business, and education. English, along with Hindi, is one of the two languages permitted in the Constitution of India for business in Parliament. Despite the fact that Hindi has official Government patronage and serves as a lingua franca over large parts of India, there was considerable opposition to the use of Hindi in the southern states of India, and English has emerged as a de facto lingua franca over much of India. Journalist Manu Joseph, in a 2011 article in The New York Times, wrote that due to the prominence and usage of the language and the desire for English-language education, "English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." English language proficiency is highest among urban residents, wealthier Indians, Indians with higher levels of educational attainment, Christians, men and younger Indians. In 2017, more than 58 per cent of rural teens could read basic English, and 53 per cent of fourteen year-olds & sixty per cent of 18-year-olds could read English sentences.
=== Scheduled languages ===
Until the Twenty-first Amendment of the Constitution of India in 1967, the country recognised 14 official regional languages. The Eighth Schedule and the Seventy-First Amendment provided for the inclusion of Sindhi, Konkani, Meitei and Nepali, thereby increasing the number of official regional languages of India to 18. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages, which are given in the table below together with the regions where they are used.
The individual states, the borders of most of which are or were drawn on socio-linguistic lines, can legislate their own official languages, depending on their linguistic demographics. The official languages chosen reflect the predominant as well as politically significant languages spoken in that state. Certain states having a linguistically defined territory may have only the predominant language in that state as its official language, examples being Karnataka and Gujarat, which have Kannada and Gujarati as their sole official language respectively. Telangana, with a sizeable Urdu-speaking Muslim population, and Andhra Pradesh has two languages, Telugu and Urdu, as its official languages.
Some states buck the trend by using minority languages as official languages. Jammu and Kashmir used to have Urdu, which is spoken by fewer than 1% of the population, as the sole official language until 2020. Meghalaya uses English spoken by 0.01% of the population. This phenomenon has turned majority languages into "minority languages" in a functional sense.
In addition to official languages, a few states also designate official scripts.
In addition to states and union territories, India has autonomous administrative regions which may be permitted to select their own official language – a case in point being the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam which has declared the Bodo language as official for the region, in addition to Assamese and English already in use. and Bengali in the Barak Valley, as its official languages.
== Prominent languages of India ==
=== Hindi ===
In British India, English was the sole language used for administrative purposes as well as for higher education purposes. When India became independent in 1947, the Indian legislators had the challenge of choosing a language for official communication as well as for communication between different linguistic regions across India. The choices available were:
Making "Hindi", which a plurality of the country's population (41%) identified as their native language, the sole official language.
Making English, as preferred by non-Hindi speakers, particularly Kannadigas and Tamils and those from Mizoram and Nagaland, the sole official language. (See also Anti-Hindi agitations.)
Declaring both Hindi and English to be official languages nationwide and giving each state the freedom to choose its own statewide official language(s).
The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, i.e. on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially in South India whose native tongues are not related to Hindi. As a result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act in 1963, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.
=== Bengali ===
Native to the Bengal region, comprising the nation of Bangladesh and the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Barak Valley region of Assam. Bengali (also spelt as Bangla: বাংলা) is the sixth most spoken language in the world. After the partition of India (1947), refugees from East Pakistan were settled in Tripura, and Jharkhand and the union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. There is also a large number of Bengali-speaking people in Maharashtra and Gujarat where they work as artisans in jewellery industries. Bengali developed from Abahattha, a derivative of Apabhramsha, itself derived from Magadhi Prakrit. The modern Bengali vocabulary contains the vocabulary base from Magadhi Prakrit and Pali, also borrowings from Sanskrit and other major borrowings from Persian, Arabic, Austroasiatic languages and other languages in contact with.
Like most Indian languages, Bengali has a number of dialects. It exhibits diglossia, with the literary and standard form differing greatly from the colloquial speech of the regions that identify with the language. Bengali language has developed a rich cultural base spanning art, music, literature, and religion. Bengali has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about 7th to 12th century ('Charyapada' Buddhist songs). There have been many movements in defence of this language and in 1999 UNESCO declared 21 Feb as the International Mother Language Day in commemoration of the Bengali language movement in 1952.
=== Assamese ===
Asamiya or Assamese language is most spoken in the state of Assam. It is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language with more than 23 million total speakers including more than 15 million native speakers and more than 7 million L2 speakers per the 2011 Census of India. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Assamese evolved at least before the 7th century CE from the middle Indo-Aryan Magadhi Prakrit. Assamese is unusual among Eastern Indo-Aryan languages for the presence of the /x/ (which, phonetically, varies between velar ([x]) and a uvular ([χ]) pronunciations). The first characteristics of this language are seen in the Charyapadas composed in between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The first examples emerged in writings of court poets in the fourteenth century, the finest example of which is Madhav Kandali's Saptakanda Ramayana composed during 14th century CE, which was the first translation of the Ramayana into an Indo-Aryan language.
=== Marathi ===
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language. It is the official language and co-official language in Maharashtra and Goa states of Western India respectively, and is one of the official languages of India. There were 83 million speakers of the language in 2011. Marathi has the third-largest number of native speakers in India and ranks 10th in the list of most spoken languages in the world. Marathi has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indo-Aryan languages; Oldest stone inscriptions from 8th century & literature dating from about 1100 AD (Mukundraj's Vivek Sindhu dates to the 12th century). The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi (Pramaan Bhasha) and the Varhadi dialect. There are other related languages such as Ahirani, Dangi, Vadvali, Samavedi. Malvani Konkani has been heavily influenced by Marathi varieties. Marathi is one of several languages that descend from Maharashtri Prakrit. The further change led to the Apabhraṃśa languages like Old Marathi.
Marathi Language Day (मराठी दिन/मराठी दिवस (transl. Marathi Dina/Marathi Diwasa) is celebrated on 27 February every year across the Indian states of Maharashtra and Goa. This day is regulated by the State Government. It is celebrated on the birthday of eminent Marathi Poet Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar, popularly known as Kusumagraj .
Marathi is the official language of Maharashtra and co-official language in the union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. In Goa, Konkani is the sole official language; however, Marathi may also be used for all official purposes.
Over a period of many centuries the Marathi language and people came into contact with many other languages and dialects. The primary influence of Prakrit, Maharashtri, Apabhraṃśa and Sanskrit is understandable. Marathi has also been influenced by the Austroasiatic, Dravidian and foreign languages such as Persian and Arabic. Marathi contains loanwords from Persian, Arabic, English and a little from French and Portuguese.
=== Meitei ===
Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language) is the most widely spoken Indian Sino-Tibetan language of Tibeto-Burman linguistic sub branch. It is the sole official language in Manipur and is one of the official languages of India. It is one of the two Sino-Tibetan languages with official status in India, beside Bodo. It has been recognised as one of the advanced modern languages of India by the National Sahitya Academy for its rich literature. It uses both Meitei script as well as Bengali script for writing.
Meitei language is currently proposed to be included in the elite category of "Classical Languages" of India. Besides, it is also currently proposed to be an associate official language of Government of Assam. According to Leishemba Sanajaoba, the present titular king of Manipur and a Rajya Sabha member of Manipur state, by recognising Meitei as an associate official language of Assam, the identity, history, culture and tradition of Manipuris residing in Assam could be protected.
Meitei Language Day (Manipuri Language Day) is celebrated on 20 August every year by the Manipuris across the Indian states of Manipur, Assam and Tripura. This day is regulated by the Government of Manipur. It is the commemoration of the day on which Meitei was included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India on 20 August 1992.
=== Telugu ===
Telugu is the most widely spoken Dravidian language in India and around the world. Telugu is an official language in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Yanam, making it one of the few languages (along with Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu) with official status in more than one state. It is also spoken by a significant number of people in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and by the Sri Lankan Gypsy people. It is one of six languages with classical status in India. Telugu ranks fourth by the number of native speakers in India (81 million in the 2011 Census), fifteenth in the Ethnologue list of most-spoken languages worldwide and is the most widely spoken Dravidian language.
=== Tamil ===
Tamil is a Dravidian language predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and many parts of Sri Lanka. It is also spoken by large mino Telugu is the second oldest language in Dravidian languages, after Tamil.rities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius and throughout the world. Tamil ranks fifth by the number of native speakers in India (61 million in the 2001 Census) and ranks 20th in the list of most spoken languages. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and was the first Indian language to be declared a classical language by the Government of India in 2004. Tamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world. It has been described as "the only language of contemporary India which is recognisably continuous with a classical past". The two earliest manuscripts from India, acknowledged and registered by UNESCO Memory of the World register in 1997 and 2005, are in Tamil. Tamil is an official language of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Sri Lanka and Singapore. It is also recognised as a minority language in Canada, Malaysia, Mauritius and South Africa.
=== Urdu ===
After independence, Modern Standard Urdu, the Persianised register of Hindustani became the national language of Pakistan. During British colonial times, knowledge of Hindustani or Urdu was a must for officials. Hindustani was made the second language of British Indian Empire after English and considered as the language of administration. The British introduced the use of Roman script for Hindustani as well as other languages. Urdu had 70 million speakers in India (per the Census of 2001), and, along with Hindi, is one of the 22 officially recognised regional languages of India and also an official language in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Telangana that have significant Muslim populations.
=== Gujarati ===
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the west Indian region of Gujarat. Gujarati is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati (c. 1100 – 1500 CE), the same source as that of Rajasthani. Gujarati is the chief and official language in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is also an official language in the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 4.5% of population of India (1.21 billion according to 2011 census) speaks Gujarati. This amounts to 54.6 million speakers in India.
=== Kannada ===
Kannada is a Dravidian language which branched off from Kannada-Tamil sub group around 500 B.C.E according to the Dravidian scholar Zvelebil. It is the official language of Karnataka. According to the Dravidian scholars Steever and Krishnamurthy, the study of Kannada language is usually divided into three linguistic phases: Old (450–1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present). The earliest written records are from the 5th century, and the earliest available literature in rich manuscript (Kavirajamarga) is from c. 850. Kannada language has the second oldest written tradition of all languages of India. Current estimates of the total number of epigraph present in Karnataka range from 25,000 by the scholar Sheldon Pollock to over 30,000 by the Sahitya Akademi, making Karnataka state "one of the most densely inscribed pieces of real estate in the world". According to Garg and Shipely, more than a thousand notable writers have contributed to the wealth of the language.
=== Malayalam ===
Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry. It belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and is spoken by some 38 million people. Malayalam is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; with some speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu, and the Dakshina Kannada and the Kodagu district of Karnataka. Malayalam originated from Middle Tamil (Sen-Tamil) in the 7th century. As Malayalam began to freely borrow words as well as the rules of grammar from Sanskrit, the Grantha alphabet was adopted for writing and came to be known as Arya Eluttu. This developed into the modern Malayalam script.
=== Odia ===
Odia (formerly spelled Oriya) is one of the modern language officially recognised as a classical language from the Indo-Aryan group. Odia is primarily spoken and has official language status in the Indian state of Odisha and has over 40 million speakers. It was declared as a classical language of India in 2014. Native speakers comprise 91.85% of the population in Odisha. Odia originated from Odra Prakrit which developed from Magadhi Prakrit, a language spoken in eastern India over 2,500 years ago. The history of Odia language can be divided to Old Odia (3rd century BC −1200 century AD), Early Middle Odia (1200–1400), Middle Odia (1400–1700), Late Middle Odia (1700–1870) and Modern Odia (1870 until present day). The National Manuscripts Mission of India have found around 213,000 unearthed and preserved manuscripts written in Odia.
=== Santali ===
Santali is a Munda language, a branch of Austroasiatic languages spoken widely in Jharkhand and other states of eastern India by Santhal community of tribal and non-tribal. It is written in Ol Chiki script invented by Raghunath Murmu at the end of 19th century. Santali is spoken by 0.67% of India's population. About 7 million people speak this language. It is also spoken in Bangladesh and Nepal. The language is major tribal language of Jharkhand and thus Santhal community is demanding to make it as the official language of Jharkhand.
=== Punjabi ===
Punjabi, written in the Gurmukhi script in India, is one of the prominent languages of India with about 32 million speakers. In Pakistan it is spoken by over 80 million people and is written in the Shahmukhi alphabet. It is mainly spoken in Punjab but also in neighbouring areas. It is an official language of Delhi and Punjab.
=== Maithili ===
Maithili is an Indo-Aryan language native to India and Nepal. In India, it is widely spoken in the Bihar and Jharkhand states. Native speakers are also found in other states and union territories of India, most notably in Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. In the 2011 census of India, It was reported by 13,583,464 people as their mother tongue comprising about 1.12% of the total population of India.
In Nepal, it is spoken in the eastern Terai, and is the second most prevalent language of Nepal. Tirhuta was formerly the primary script for written Maithili. Less commonly, it was also written in the local variant of Kaithi. Today it is written in the Devanagari script.
In 2003, Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as a recognised regional language of India, which allows it to be used in education, government, and other official contexts.
== Classical languages of India ==
In 2004, the Government of India declared that languages that met certain requirements could be accorded the status of a "Classical Language" of India.
Languages thus far declared to be classical:
Tamil (in 2004),
Sanskrit (in 2005),
Kannada (in 2008),
Telugu (in 2008),
Malayalam (in 2013),
Odia (in 2014),
Assamese (in 2024)
Bangla (in 2024),
Marathi (in 2024)
Pali (in 2024)
Prakrit (in 2024)
Over the next few years, several languages were granted the Classical status, and demands have been made for other languages, including Maithili and Meitei (officially called Manipuri).
== Other regional languages and dialects ==
The 2001 census identified the following native languages having more than one million speakers. Most of them are dialects/variants grouped under Hindi.
=== Practical problems ===
India has several languages in use; choosing any single language as an official language presents problems to all those whose "mother tongue" is different. However, all the boards of education across India recognise the need for training people to one common language. There are complaints that in North India, non-Hindi speakers have language trouble. Similarly, there are complaints that North Indians have to undergo difficulties on account of language when travelling to South India. It is common to hear of incidents that result due to friction between those who strongly believe in the chosen official language, and those who follow the thought that the chosen language(s) do not take into account everyone's preferences. Local official language commissions have been established and various steps are being taken in a direction to reduce tensions and friction.
== Languages by earliest known inscriptions ==
Earliest known manuscripts are often subjected to debates and disputes, due to the conflicting opinions and assumptions of different scholars, claiming high antiquity of the languages. So, inscriptions are studied more in depth for understanding the chronology of the oldest known languages of the Indian subcontinent.
== Language policy ==
The Union Government of India formulated the Three language formula.
=== In the Prime Minister's Office ===
The official website of the Prime Minister's Office of India publishes its official information in 11 Indian official languages, namely Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Meitei (Manipuri), Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, in addition to English and Hindi.
=== In the Press Information Bureau ===
The Press Information Bureau (PIB) selects 14 Indian official languages, which are Dogri, Punjabi, Bengali, Odia, Gujarati, Marathi, Meitei (Manipuri), Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Konkani and Urdu, in addition to Hindi and English, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic to render its information about all the Central Government press releases.
=== In the Staff Selection Commission ===
The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) selected 13 Indian official languages, which are Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Konkani, Meitei (Manipuri), Marathi, Odia and Punjabi, in addition to Hindi and English, out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, to conduct the Multi-Tasking (Non-Technical) Staff examination for the first time in its history.
=== In the Central Armed Police Forces ===
The Union Government of India selected Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Meitei (Manipuri), Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, and Konkani, 13 out of the 22 official languages of the Indian Republic, in addition to Hindi & English, to be used in the recruitment examination of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). The decision was taken by the Home Minister after having an agreement between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Staff Selection Commission. The official decision will be converted into action from 1 January 2024 (2024-01-01).
== Language conflicts ==
There are conflicts over linguistic rights in India. The first major linguistic conflict, known as the Anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu, took place in Tamil Nadu against the implementation of Hindi as the official language of India. Political analysts consider this as a major factor in bringing DMK to power and leading to the ousting and nearly total elimination of the Congress party in Tamil Nadu. Strong cultural pride based on language is also found in other Indian states such as Assam, Odisha, Karnataka, West Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra. To express disapproval of the imposition of Hindi on its states' people as a result of the central government, the government of Maharashtra made the state language Marathi mandatory in educational institutions of CBSE and ICSE through Class/Grade 10.
The Government of India attempts to assuage these conflicts with various campaigns, coordinated by the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, a branch of the Department of Higher Education, Language Bureau, and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
== Linguistic movements ==
In the history of India, various linguistic movements were and are undertaken by different literary, political and social associations as well as organisations, advocating for the changes and the developments of several languages, dialects and vernaculars in diverse critical, discriminative and unfavorable circumstances and situations.
=== Bengali ===
Bengali language movement in India
=== Bhojpuri ===
The Bhojpuri language movement, a linguistic movement that has been actively campaigning for greater recognition of the Bhojpuri language since 1947.
There have been several protests and demands to include the Bhojpuri language in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution for a long time. In 1971, CPI MP Bhogendra Jha introduced a bill on this issue in the Lok Sabha, but it was rejected.
In 2009 and 2016, Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and former MP from Gorakhpur, raised the issue of Bhojpuri's recognition in the Lok Sabha. He emphasised that Bhojpuri, spoken in parts of India and 27 countries, is one of the world's major languages.
=== Meitei (Manipuri) ===
Meitei language movements (aka Manipuri language movements), various linguistic movements for the cause of Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language)
Meitei linguistic purism movement, an ongoing linguistic movement, aimed to attain linguistic purism in Meitei language
Scheduled language movement, a historical linguistic movement in Northeast India, aimed at the recognition of Meitei language as one of the scheduled languages of Indian Republic
Meitei classical language movement, an ongoing linguistic movement in Northeast India, aimed at the recognition of Meitei language as an officially recognised "classical language"
Meitei associate official language movement, a semi active linguistic movement in Northeast India, aimed at the recognition of Meitei language as an "associate" official language of Assam
=== Rajasthani ===
Rajasthani language movement, a linguistic movement that has been campaigning for greater recognition for the Rajasthani language since 1947
=== Tamil ===
Tanittamil Iyakkam (Pure Tamil Movement), a linguistic purism movement for the Tamil language, to ignore the loanwords borrowed from Sanskrit
== Developmental works ==
In the age of technological advancements, the Google Translate supports the following Indian languages: Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Meiteilon (Manipuri) (in Meitei script), Odia, Punjabi (in Gurmukhi script), Santali (Ol Chiki script), Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu.
=== Meitei (Manipuri) ===
On 4 September 2013, the Directorate of Language Planning and Implementation (DLPI) was established for the development and the promotion of Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language) and the Meitei script (Manipuri script) in Manipur.
The Manipuri Sahitya Parishad is given annual financial support of ₹500,000 (equivalent to ₹750,000 or US$8,900 in 2023) by the Government of Manipur.
Since 2020, the Government of Assam is giving annual financial support of ₹500,000 (equivalent to ₹590,000 or US$7,000 in 2023) to the Assam Manipuri Sahitya Parishad. Besides, the Assam government financed ₹6 crore (equivalent to ₹7.1 crore or US$840,000 in 2023) for the creation of a corpus for the development of the Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language).
In September 2021, the Central Government of India released ₹180 million (US$2.1 million) as the first instalment for the development and the promotion of the Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language) and the Meitei script (Manipuri script) in Manipur.
The Department of Language Planning and Implementation of the Government of Manipur offers a sum of ₹5,000 (equivalent to ₹8,500 or US$100 in 2023), to every individual who learns Meitei language (officially called Manipuri language), having certain terms and conditions.
=== Sanskrit ===
The Central Government of India allocated ₹6438.4 million in the last three years for the development and the promotion of Sanskrit, ₹2311.5 million in 2019–20, around ₹2143.8 million in 2018–19, and ₹1983.1 million in 2017–18.
=== Tamil ===
The Central Government of India gave an allocation of Rs 105.9 million in 2017–18, Rs 46.5 million in 2018–19 and Rs 77 million in 2019–20 to the "Central Institute of Classical Tamil" for the development and the promotion of Tamil language.
=== Telugu and Kannada ===
The Central Government of India gave an allocation of Rs 10 million in 2017–18, Rs 9.9 million in 2018–19 and Rs 10.7 million in 2019–20, each for the development and the promotion of Telugu language and Kannada language.
== Computerisation ==
== Writing systems ==
Most languages in India are written in scripts derived from Brahmi. These include Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Meitei Mayek, Odia, Eastern Nagari – Assamese/Bengali, Gurumukhi and other. Urdu is written in a script derived from Arabic. A few minor languages such as Santali use independent scripts (see Ol Chiki script).
Various Indian languages have their own scripts. Hindi, Marathi, Maithili and Angika are languages written using the Devanagari script. Most major languages are written using a script specific to them, such as Assamese (Asamiya) with Asamiya, Bengali with Bengali, Punjabi with Gurmukhi, Meitei with Meitei Mayek, Odia with Odia script, Gujarati with Gujarati; Awadhi, Magahi and Bhojpuri with Kaithi script etc. Urdu and Kashmiri, Saraiki and Sindhi are written in modified versions of the Perso-Arabic script. With this one exception, the scripts of Indian languages are native to India. Some languages like Kodava that didn't have a script, as well as some languages such as Tulu which already had a script, adopted the Kannada script due to its readily available printing settings.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Linguistic map of India with a detailed map of the Seven Sister States (India) at Muturzikin.com
Languages and Scripts of India
Kulkarni-Joshi, Sonal. "Linguistic history and language diversity in India: Views and counterviews." Journal of Biosciences 44 (2019): 1–10.
Diversity of Languages in India
A comprehensive federal government site that offers complete info on Indian Languages
Technology Development for Indian Languages, Government of India Archived 15 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine
Languages Spoken in Himachal Pradesh – Himachal Pariksha Archived 6 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaku_Homma#:~:text=Homma%20Gaku%20(%E6%9C%AC%E9%96%93%20%E5%AD%A6%20Honma,of%20the%20founder%20Morihei%20Ueshiba.&text=He%20is%20an%20author%3B%20the,are%20his%20most%20prominent%20publications. | Gaku Homma | Homma Gaku (本間 学 Honma Gaku), born May 12, 1950, is an aikido teacher and direct student of the founder Morihei Ueshiba.
He is an author; the books Children and the Martial Arts and Aikido for Life are his most prominent publications.
Homma, whose father was a Shinto priest and an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army during the war, was born in Akita Prefecture. According to Homma, at the age of 14, he was sent by his father to train in Iwama under aikido founder Ueshiba Morihei. Homma also says that he trained as an uchi deshi in Iwama and at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo, under the founder and under Saito Morihiro in the late 1960s. Along with Hideo Hirasawa, Homma is one of a number of aikidoka who claim to be the last uchi deshi to have been trained directly by Ueshiba Morihei.
His early career as a teacher was on a US air force base. In 1976 Homma moved to Denver, Colorado, and founded the Nippon Kan as an independent dojo in 1978. This dojo has grown into the largest aikido dojo in the Rocky Mountain region and is well known for its international uchi-deshi program. He has organized several large aikido seminars in Denver, many of them taught by Saito Morihiro.
== Humanitarian work ==
In addition to the aikido dojo, which is a non-profit institution, Homma has founded the Aikido Humanitarian Active Network (AHAN), whose mission is "to extend the philosophy of Aikido into the world beyond the dojo". AHAN activities have included sending computers and aid to an orphanage in Mongolia, supporting a sick aikido student in Nicaragua, and assisting dojo in Turkey and Brazil with charitable fundraising efforts.
Homma is also known for his work in his community, including serving meals to the homeless. Homma calls the work he does "support" because, he says, "Help is 'I am reaching down to you." Support is, 'I am on your level and I am lifting up."
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Carlos_Menem | Presidency of Carlos Menem | The presidency of Carlos Saúl Menem lasted from July 8, 1989, the date of his inauguration, to December 10, 1999, the date on which his second term ended and his successor, Fernando de la Rúa, took office. It was a government described as liberal-conservative, which in Argentina is normally associated with the right.
He won the 1989 elections in the first round with 48.51% of the votes and was re-elected in the 1995 elections with 49.95% of the votes.
== Economic policy ==
When Menem began his presidency, there was a huge hyperinflation and recession. The first measure was a mandatory conversion of time deposits into government bonds. It generated more recession, but hyperinflation was lowered. Despite being a Peronist, Menem privatized several state-owned companies, such as telephones and airlines. One of the leading privatizations was YPF, engaged in the exploration and production of oil and gas.
His fourth economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, deepened the neoliberal reforms. He proposed a Convertibility Plan that set a one-to-one fixed exchange rate between the Argentine peso and the US dollar. The law also limited public expenditures, but this was frequently ignored.
A dramatic influx of foreign direct investment funds helped tame inflation (from 5,000% a year in 1989 to single digits by 1993) and improved long-stagnant productivity, though at the cost of considerable unemployment.
Menem's successful turnaround of the economy made the country one of the top performers in the world of the developing countries. Argentina's GDP (below 1973 levels when Menem took office) increased 35% from 1990 to 1994 and fixed investment, by 150%. Negotiations with Brazil resulted in the Mercosur customs union in March 1991. On November 14 that year, Menem addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress, one of only three Argentine presidents to do so (others were Raúl Alfonsín and Arturo Frondizi).
With these successes, Menem was reelected to the presidency by a large majority in the 1995 elections. The early success of the dollar peg (when the dollar was falling) was followed by increasing economic difficulties when the dollar began to rise from 1995 onwards in international markets. High external debt also caused increasing problems. Financial crises affecting other countries (the Tequila Crisis in Mexico, the East Asian financial crisis, the Russian financial crisis in 1998) led to higher interest rates for Argentina as well. By the end of Menem's term, Argentina's country risk premium was a low 6.10 percentage points above yield on comparable US Treasuries.
== Domestic policy ==
Menem began his presidency assuming a nonconfrontational approach, and appointing people from the conservative opposition and business people in his cabinet.
Menem's presidency was initially bolstered by the significant economic recovery following Cavallo's appointment as Economy Minister. His Justicialist Party enjoyed victories in mid-term elections in 1991 and 1993, as well as in his 1995 campaign for reelection.
In domestic policy, his administration created programs to improve AIDS awareness, increased flood prevention, vaccination, and improved child nutrition. In addition, his government launched a Social Plan to increase spending on antipoverty programs, while other social programs addressed needs for poor Argentines. These policies arguably had a positive impact on poverty reduction, with the percentage of Argentines estimated to be living in poverty falling during Menem's first term as president. The Argentine quota law, proposed by the UCR, increased the number of women in the Argentine Congress.
In 1994, after a political agreement (the Olivos Pact) with the Radical Civic Union party leader, former president Raúl Alfonsín, Menem succeeded in having the Constitution modified to allow presidential re-election. He ran for office once again in 1995.
The new Constitution also introduced decisive checks and balances to presidential power. It made the Mayor of Buenos Aires an elective position (previously the office was designated for political appointees, who controlled a huge budget in the capital). The opposition candidate was elected as mayor in 1996. The president of the Central Bank and the Director of the AFIP (Federal Tax & Customs Central Agency), while political appointees, could be removed only with the approval of Congress. The new constitution created an ombudsman position, and a board to review and propose new judicial candidates.
The majority of the population criticized Menem's neoliberal policies, as did some in the Catholic Church. Opponents among unemployed workers developed the Piquetero movement. Some economists said his financial policies were anti-liberal. These mounting problems and a rise in crime rates contributed to defeat for his party during the 1997 mid-term elections, the first time his administration faltered.
== Armed forces ==
On 3 December 1990, Menem had ordered the forceful repression of a politically motivated uprising by a far-right figure, Col. Mohamed Alí Seineldín, ending the military's involvement in the country's political life.
Menem was strongly criticized for his pardon on 29 December 1990, of Jorge Videla, Emilio Massera, Leopoldo Galtieri and other men who had been leaders of the 1976–83 dictatorship responsible for government terrorism and the disappearance of an estimated 15,000 political prisoners. They were convicted in the 1985 Trial of the Juntas. He also pardoned some guerrilla leaders on the grounds of national reconciliation. Nearly 50,000 people gathered in protest in Buenos Aires. Former President Raúl Alfonsín called it "the saddest day in Argentine history."
The president effected drastic cuts to the military budget, and appointed Lt. Gen. Martín Balza as the Army's General Chief of Staff (head of the military hierarchy). Balza, a man of strong democratic convictions and a vocal critic of the Falklands War, had stood up for the legitimate government in every attempted coup d'état throughout his senior career. He gave the first institutional self-criticism about the Armed Forces' involvement in the 1976 coup and the ensuing reign of terror. Following the brutal death of a conscript, Menem abolished conscription in 1994, decisively ending a military prerogative over society.
== Death of his son ==
Carlos Menem Jr., son of the president, died in a helicopter accident on 15 March 1995. He was 26 years old. His death remains a mystery, but his father and mother, Zulema Yoma de Menem, suspect he was murdered. Roberto Locles, a ballistics expert, believes that "Carlitos" died in an attempted assassination.
== Foreign policy ==
Menem's government re-established relations with the United Kingdom, suspended since the Falklands War, within months of taking office. He also earned plaudits for resolving territorial disputes with neighboring Chile. His administration peacefully solved more than 20 border issues with Chile, including the arbitration of the especially serious Laguna del Desierto dispute.
Menem's tenure suffered most from local economic fallout due to the Mexican peso crisis of 1995. It became tainted by repeated accusations by opponents of corruption. Menem administration's handling of the investigations of the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing and the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires were criticised as being dishonest and superficial. He is suspected of diverting the investigation from clues suggesting Iranian involvement, to avoid engaging with that power over the attacks as well as covering for a family friend, Alberto Kanoore Edul, a Syrian-Argentine businessman suspected of involvement in the attacks.
== Cabinet ==
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanger | Kanger | A kanger (Kashmiri pronunciation: [kãːɡɨr]; also known as kangri, kangid, or kangir) is a traditional Kashmiri portable heater consisting of an earthen pot encased in wicker, filled with hot embers. The kanger is considered not only a practical device for warmth but also a work of craft and art.
It is typically carried inside the pheran, a traditional Kashmiri cloak, or wrapped in a blanket. Its primary use is during the cold winter period known as Chillai Kalan. When used with modern clothing such as jackets, it may also function as a hand warmer.
Typical kangers measure approximately 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter and can reach temperatures of around 150 °F (66 °C). They are produced in various sizes, including smaller versions for children and larger ones for adults.
== Background ==
After the earthen pots are moulded and fired, the artisans complete the wickerwork around them, by erecting two arms to handle the pot, propping the back side with strong wicker sticks, and colour it (optionally) to give an aesthetically delicate shape.
== History ==
It is generally believed that Kashmiris learned the use of the kanger from the Italians who were in the retinue of the Mughal emperors and usually visited the Valley during summer. In Italy (where a similar device was known as a scaldino) and Spain, braziers were made in a great variety of shapes and were profusely ornamented. Historical data, however, contradict the claim that kanger came to Kashmir from Italy, but it is known that it was used in the time of the Mughal Empire. Those visiting Kashmir for the first time during the winter season are surprised to find people carrying fire pots in their hands or in their laps but every Kashmiri knows how to handle the apparatus with care. It is a part of Kashmiri tradition and even in modern times it sees a huge demand, and is even used in public or private offices during winters.
== Current use ==
Kanger are widely used in Kashmir. Its use is most prevalent in the countryside where power cuts during winters are frequent. Generally, everyone in the household has one. In some urban households, other devices, such as hot water bottles, blowers and electric blankets, have taken their place.
Aromatic seeds, such as isband (Peganum harmala), are often burnt in a kanger for ceremonial purposes.
Beyond Kashmir, people of the erstwhile Hill states of Himachal, Uttarakhand, and some parts of Nepal also use other local variants of kanger.
In 2015, a shopkeeper in Srinagar commissioned a kanger, described as the world's largest, to attract customers to his textile shop. Kashmir Life reported that the size, over a metre long, posed technical challenges to the wicker-weavers.
== Manufacturing ==
Kangeris are weaved by small scaled farmers known as kanile.
Charari Sharief town is the most famous for a peculiar kind of kanger called "charar kangir". Anantnag is also another major producer. The sector is not organized but is covered under different government schemes.
== Popular culture ==
This Kashmiri proverb, "what Laila was on Majnun’s bosom (Legendary Lovers), so is the Kanger to a Kashmiri", sums up the relationship between a Kashmiri and the Kanger and its cultural importance, which is also shown by this verse:
Ai kangri! ai kangri!
Kurban tu Hour wu Peri!
Chun dur bughul mi girimut
Durd az dil mi buree.
(Oh, kangri! oh, kangri!
You are the gift of Houris and Fairies;
When I take you under my arm
You drive fear from my heart.)
== Medical hazards ==
Regular use of the kanger can cause a specific skin cancer known as kangri cancer. This effect was first studied by W. J. Elmslie in 1866 and was thought to be caused by burns, but it is now thought to be the result of a carcinogenic distillation product of woodcoal.
== World Kangri Day ==
The tourism department of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has finalised to celebrate 'Pheran and Kangri Day’ on Feb 19 to promote Kashmiri culture.
== See also ==
Phiran
Chillai Kalan
Hand warmer
Kangri Cancer
Pulhoer
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_Premier_League_final | 2019 Indian Premier League final | The 2019 Indian Premier League final was a Twenty20 cricket match played between Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians on 12 May 2019 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad. It was the culmination of the 2019 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), an annual Twenty20 tournament held in India. MI won the match by a single run and claimed their fourth Indian Premier League title.
The final was originally intended to be held at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. In April 2019, however, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed that alternative arrangements had been made, citing a long-standing issue of three closed stands at the original host stadium. Later in the same month, the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium was confirmed as the venue for the final.
After winning the toss, MI elected to bat first. MI scored 149 runs for eight wickets in their 20 overs, Kieron Pollard top-scored with 41 runs. Chennai bowler Deepak Chahar took three wickets in the innings. In response, Chennai was guided by Shane Watson, who was the highest scorer of the match with 80 runs. Some tight bowling at the death, saw Chennai falling one run short with 148. Mumbai Indians' Jasprit Bumrah was awarded the player of the match for his spell of two for 14 in his four overs.
== Road to the final ==
=== Group stage ===
Mumbai Indians were ranked first in the league table, though their campaign started with a loss (by 36 runs) to Delhi Capitals. After getting defeated by Kings XI Punjab, they went on to win their next three matches against Super Kings, Sunrisers and Kings XI. Mumbai had a successful second half of the league stage with five wins out of seven matches. In the group stage, they won nine matches out of fourteen and qualified for the playoffs.
Chennai Super Kings started their season campaign with a seven-wicket win over the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Chennai had a successful first half of the season with six wins out of seven matches, which included an opening three consecutive wins. Their run was finally ended by Mumbai. The wins displayed a mixture of both batting and bowling strength, with MS Dhoni taking the main batting role in his team, actively supported by Shane Watson and the bowlers Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh. Chennai finished the group stage with nine wins from fourteen matches, and were ranked second in the league table.
=== Group stage series ===
Mumbai Indians won the two group stage matches between the finalists, winning the first group stage series match by 37 runs. Suryakumar Yadav scored a half-century and Hardik Pandya scored 25 runs from 8 balls (Mumbai scored 45 runs in the final two overs) to set Chennai a target of 171. Chennai did not start well, and despite Kedar Jadhav scoring 58 runs and forging a 54-run partnership with MS Dhoni, they finished well short. Both Hardik and Lasith Malinga took three wickets, while Jason Behrendorff took two wickets for Mumbai.
=== Playoffs ===
The playoff stage of IPL was played according to the Page playoff system and provided Mumbai and Chennai, being the top and second-ranked teams, with two chances for qualifying for the Final. These teams first faced each other in Qualifier 1, with the winners qualifying directly for the final; the loser of Qualifier 1 would then play against the winner of the Eliminator in Qualifier 2, with the winner of that match qualifying for the final.
The Super Kings won the toss in Qualifier 1 and decided to bat first. The team lost Faf du Plessis early, and Shane Watson and Murali Vijay played cautiously in the beginning, but the Super Kings lost Watson to Krunal Pandya. The Super Kings made runs from their middle-order, with Ambati Rayudu and MS Dhoni scoring 42 and 37 runs respectively, to see the team amass 131 runs for the loss of 4 wickets. Rohit Sharma opened with Quinton de Kock to start the chase for the Mumbai Indians, but both departed early. Though Suryakumar Yadav started slowly, he hit out later against Super Kings bowlers to reach his half-century. After Ishan Kishan's departure, Hardik Pandya joined Yadav to complete the chase for the Mumbai Indians and secure their progression to the final.
Delhi Capitals won against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator to set up a match against Chennai to decide the second finalist.
In Qualifier 2, Chennai captain MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to bowl. Delhi lost their both openers early and Rishabh Pant did not receive support from Delhi Capitals players, as wickets kept falling from the other end. Pant scored 38 runs before getting out in the 19th over. In the last over Ishant Sharma helped the Delhi Capitals to finish with 147 runs. Chasing 148 to win, Chennai openers Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis batted slowly and did not score many runs in the first couple of overs. In the final two powerplay overs, du Plesis took charge and changed the momentum of Chennai batting. The two openers put together an 81-run partnership and Chennai successfully chased their 148 run target with the loss of four wickets and qualified for their 8th IPL final.
== Match ==
=== Summary ===
Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bat first on which he said, "This is a big game, that's what we prefer to do. We want to bat first, and set down the runs on the board." Chennai captain MS Dhoni said, "We were looking to bowl first. If the result is in your favour, then it’s fine, otherwise, they’ll say the guys are fatigued."
Rohit Sharma led Mumbai Indians became the IPL champion for the fourth time. Mumbai beat Chennai Super Kings by 1 run in a thrilling title match. Mumbai team after the end of IPL 2019 became the most successful team of IPL by winning the fourth title. After Mumbai, Chennai was second in terms of most IPL titles won (3). Chennai won three titles of IPL at that point of time. Mumbai presented 149 runs in the final match played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad. In reply, he Chennai team could manage, only 148 runs in the loss of 7 wickets in 20 overs despite the brilliant innings of Shane Watson (80). Watson hit 8 fours and 4 sixes in his 59-ball innings. Apart from this, Faf du Plessis (26), Suresh Raina (8), MS Dhoni (2), Ambati Rayudu scored 1 for Chennai. Rahul Chahar, Lasith Malinga and Krunal Pandya took one wicket each for Mumbai. There were four final matches between these two teams, out of which Mumbai won three while Chennai managed to win once.
=== Scorecard ===
On-field umpires: Ian Gould (Eng) and Nitin Menon (Ind)
Third umpire: Nigel Llong (Eng)
Reserve umpire: C. K. Nandan (Ind)
Match referee: Javagal Srinath (Ind)
Toss: Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bat.
Result: Mumbai Indians won by 1 run and won the 2019 Indian Premier League.
Fall of wickets: 1-45 (de Kock, 4.5 overs), 2-45 (Rohit, 5.2 overs), 3-82 (Suryakumar, 11.2 overs), 4-89 (Krunal, 12.3 overs), 5-101 (Kishan, 14.4 overs), 6-140 (Hardik, 18.2 overs), 7-140 (Rahul, 18.4 overs), 8-141 (McClenaghan, 19.4 overs)
Fall of wickets: 1-33 (du Plessis, 4 overs), 2-70 (Raina, 9.2 overs), 3-73 (Rayudu, 10.3 overs), 4-82 (Dhoni, 12.4 overs), 5-133 (Bravo, 18.2 overs), 6-146 (Watson, 19.4 overs), 7-148 (Thakur, 20 overs),
Key
* – Captain
† – Wicket-keeper
c Fielder – the batsman was dismissed by a catch by the named fielder
b Bowler – the bowler who gains credit for the dismissal
lbw – the batsman was dismissed leg before wicket
Total runs are in the format: score/wickets
== Post-match ==
Mumbai received ₹20 Crore rupees and a trophy for being the champions. Rohit said:
"Today we played some fine cricket. At the start of the tournament, we wanted to cut the tournament into two halves. Good to see we qualified in the top two in the league Stage and all credit to the whole squad of my team, not just the XI. Even the support staff too."
Chennai's Imran Tahir was given the Purple Cap for getting the highest number of wickets in the league. He took 26 wickets and broke the previous record for most wickets for spin bowler of 24 wickets held jointly by Harbhajan Singh (Mumbai Indians, 2013) and Sunil Narine (Kolkata Knight Riders, 2012).
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eremiaphila_bifasciata#:~:text=Binomial%20name-,Eremiaphila%20bifasciata,Chopard%2C%201940,-Eremiaphila%20bifasciata%20is | Eremiaphila bifasciata | Eremiaphila bifasciata is a species of praying mantis in the family Eremiaphilidae.
== See also ==
List of mantis genera and species
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron_Prize | Tetrahedron Prize | The Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry or Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry is awarded annually by Elsevier, the publisher of Tetrahedron Publications. It was established in 1980 and named in honour of the founding co-chairmen of these publications, Professor Sir Robert Robinson and Professor Robert Burns Woodward. The prize consists of a gold medal, a certificate, and a monetary award of US $15,000.
== Prizewinners ==
Winners of the prize are:
== See also ==
List of chemistry awards
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Geographical_Society#Camsell_Medal | Royal Canadian Geographical Society | The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS; French: Société géographique royale du Canada) is a Canadian nonprofit educational organization. It has dedicated itself to spreading a broader knowledge and deeper appreciation of Canada, including its people, places, natural and cultural heritage, as well as its environmental, social and economic challenges.
== History ==
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society was founded in 1929 by a group of eminent Canadians, including Marius Barbeau, an ethnographer and folklorist who is today considered a founder of Canadian anthropology, the Hon. A.E. Arsenault, Premier of Prince Edward Island and justice of the province's supreme court, Lawrence J. Burpee, Secretary for Canada of the International Joint Commission, John Wesley Dafoe, managing editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, the Hon. Albert Hudson, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Dr. O.D. Skelton, Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The Rt. Hon. Viscount Willingdon, Governor-General of Canada, was the founding patron. J.B. Joseph Tyrrell, a geologist and cartographer whose exploits included the discovery of Albertosaurus bones in Alberta's Badlands, and making first contact with the Ihalmiut ("People from Beyond") of the Keewatin district of Canada's Northwest Territories, served as founding Honorary President. Arthur Philemon Coleman, a geologist and explorer who between 1884 and 1908 made eight trips of discovery to the Canadian Rockies, was named Honorary Vice-president.
At its first meeting, Charles Camsell said the society was formed "purely for patriotic purposes", and he hoped it would "be a unifying influence upon the life of Canada." A report by the acting secretary, E.S. Martindale, stated the intention of the founders: "The work of making the resources and other geographic factors of each part of the Dominion more widely known and more clearly understood is one of the best educational services that can be undertaken—and one that cannot be rendered except through a geographic organization animated by a broad national purpose."
Among those who have addressed meetings of the RCGS over the years are Sir Francis Younghusband, Sir Hubert Wilkins, Maj. L.T. Burwash, Dr. Isaiah Bowman, Dr. Wade Davis, Michael Palin, Dr. Phil Currie, and Sir Christopher Ondaatje.
The RCGS publishes an award-winning English-language magazine, Canadian Geographic, which has been published continuously since 1930 (then called Canadian Geographical Journal). The society also publishes Canadian Geographic Travel quarterly. The society's French-language magazine, Géographica, which is published in collaboration with La Presse, was introduced in 1997.
Alan Beddoe designed the coat of arms for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and his fonds includes a black and white photograph of the letters patent.
In October 2016, it was announced that the society's new home would be an "iconic" building at 50 Sussex Drive in Ottawa. The society moved into its new headquarters in Spring 2018, and it debuted two exhibitions – Explore by Chris Cran and Lessons From the Arctic: How Roald Amundsen Won the Race to the South Pole.
In May 2019, the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, attended the official opening ceremony of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society's headquarters at 50 Sussex Drive.
== Programs ==
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society helps fund education, expeditions, research and lectures programs. Notably, it was a partner in the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition that located HMS Erebus, one of two exploration vessels lost on the British Arctic Expedition led by Sir John Franklin.
Each fall, the society hosts the annual College of Fellows Annual Dinner, with notable past speakers include Sir Francis Younghusband, Major General Sir James Howden MacBrien, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, artist Robert Bateman, actor Dan Aykroyd, ethnobotanist Wade Davis, Climate Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips, storm chaser George Kourounis, and award-winning author Margaret Atwood. In addition, the dinner has been attended by both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston in the past.
In June 2017, it was granted $2,084,000 in funding from the Government of Canada to develop the educational resource, a portion of which was drawn from the Canada 150 fund. This resulted in the creation of the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, developed with input from a number of groups and organizations representing indigenous peoples in Canada, including the Assembly of First Nations, Indspire, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council, and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. An issue of each of Canadian Geographic and Géographica were dedicated to the project.
== College of Fellows ==
The society's board of governors and its program committees are made up entirely of volunteers, who are members of the College of Fellows. Traditionally, Fellows were elected "in recognition of outstanding service to Canada." Fellows are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRCGS (Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society).
Past Fellows of the society include eminent names such as:
painter A.Y. Jackson,
explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson,
mariner and explorer Capt. Joseph-Elzéar Bernier,
journalist Agnes C. Laut,
American businessman and explorer Fenley Hunter,
Nobel Prize recipient Prof. F.G. Banting,
Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton, geographer and son of Sir Ernest Shackleton,
composer Sir Ernest MacMillan,
broadcaster and traveller Lowell Thomas,
businessman James Armstrong Richardson Sr.,
Saskatchewan Premier T.C. Tommy Douglas,
explorer Henry Larsen,
historian L'abbé Arthur Maheux
anthropologist Diamond Jenness,
businessman E.P. Taylor,
Canadian Prime Ministers R.B. Bennett, Louis St. Laurent, and Lester B. Pearson,
hotelier Conrad Hilton,
former Conservative leader and Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield,
and geographer and GIS originator Roger Tomlinson.
Current Fellows include:
Gilbert M. Grosvenor, of the National Geographic Society,
ethnobotanist Wade Davis,
astronauts Steve MacLean, Jeremy Hansen and Jerry M. Linenger,
and businessman and author Sir Christopher Ondaatje.
Besides regular Fellows, the society elects Honorary Fellows, people recognized for special or outstanding achievements. The president, and other members of the executive, are elected by the College of Fellows at the society's annual general meeting.
Honorary Fellows include:
Myrna Pearman, Canadian naturalist and author.
== Organization ==
The Governor General of Canada serves as the patron of the society. The society has honorary officers, including honorary presidents and honorary vice-presidents. A volunteer Board of governors, chaired by the president of the board, and an executive committee, provide general oversight.
Day-to-day operations of the society, its programs and business, are provided by its chief executive officer, currently John G. Geiger. The CEO is also responsible for strategic leadership, in consultation with the board of governors.
=== Presidents ===
1930–1941: Dr. Charles Camsell, geologist in charge of explorations for the Geological Survey of Canada, and commissioner of the Northwest Territories. Oversaw the exploration of the uncharted parts of Canada's North—a vast area covering 1.4 million square kilometres or about 25 percent of the country.
1941–1944: Dr. George J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries and of National Defence. He was the Canadian official who first learned that explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was separated from his ship, and that the Karluk was missing in the Arctic ice.
1944–1950: Mr. Charles C. Cowan, vice president and managing director, British American Bank Note Co.; Dir., National Film Board
1950–1955: Air Marshal Robert Leckie, an aviation pioneer and Chief of the Air Staff for the Royal Canadian Air Force. An outstanding fighter pilot during the First World War, he flew attacks on German Zeppelins, and downed two.
1955–1963: Maj.-Gen. Hugh A. Young, commanded the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade at Normandy, and served as Deputy Minister of Public Works. Commissioner of the Northwest Territories from 1950 to 1953. As head of the advisory committee on Northern Development, in 1953 he studied threats to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.
1963–1967: Dr. Omond Solandt, scientist and first chairman of both Canada's Defence Research Board and the Science Council of Canada. He was a scientific advisor to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, and later a member of the joint military mission sent to Japan to evaluate the effects of the atomic bomb. He served as Chancellor of the University of Toronto.
1967–1977: Dr. Pierre Camu, geographer and civil servant. Served as president of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, and later as chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). He is co-founder of the Trans Canada Trail.
1977–1986: Mr. Denis Coolican, served as president of the Canadian Bank Note Company and the first Chair of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton. He was also a Vice President of Brascan.
1986–1992: Dr. Alexander T. Davidson, geographer and civil servant. Served as chief of resources for the federal Department of Northern Affairs, and assistant deputy minister of rural development; water; policy, planning and research for Environment Canada; and Parks Canada. He also was chairman of the federal Panel Concerning Low Level Military Flights in Labrador-Goose Bay.
1992–1998: Dr. Denis A. St-Onge, geoscientist with the Geological Survey of Canada. Conducted pioneering research into the evolution of landscape under extreme cold climate on Ellef Ringnes Island in the High Arctic. He is credited with developing a unique method of mapping geomorphology.
1998–2004: Dr. Arthur E. Collin, served as Scientific Advisor for the Maritime Forces (1965) and as the Dominion Hydrographer (1968). From 1971 to 1980 he served as Assistant Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Environment.
2004–2010: Ms. Gisèle Jacob, director general with Environment Canada and Deputy Secretary General for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. She also served as chair of the Geographical Names Board of Canada.
2010–2013: Mr. John G. Geiger, author of Frozen In Time: The Fate of The Franklin Expedition and other books, former head of the editorial board of The Globe and Mail, current chief executive officer of the RCGS.
2013–2016: Dr. Paul Ruest, former president of the Université de Saint-Boniface.
2016–2023: Mr. Gavin Fitch, KC, lawyer.
2023–present: The Hon. Lois Mitchell, businesswoman and former Lieutenant Governor of Alberta.
=== Notable Vice-Presidents ===
1930–1934: J. Mackintosh Bell, geologist, explorer and writer. His field work included pioneer exploration in Arctic Canada for the Geological Survey of Canada. He later became director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand.
1939–1941: Senator W. A. Buchanan, former Member of Parliament and publisher of the Lethbridge Herald.
1939–1954: Gen. A.G.L. Andrew McNaughton, Chief of the General Staff for Canada, commanding officer of the First Canadian Infantry Division, First Canadian Corps, First Canadian Army, Minister of National Defense, and Ambassador to the United Nations.
1968–Dr. John Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist and geologist who achieved worldwide acclaim for his contributions to the theory of plate tectonics.
1988–2000: Ernest Côté, soldier, diplomat, and senior civil servant.
== Awards ==
=== Gold Medal ===
Recognizing a particular achievement by one or more individuals in the general field of geography or a significant national or international event. It was first awarded in 1972.
Source: RCGS
2019: Richard Boudreault, Adrienne Clarkson and Dr. Jane Goodall
2018: Trans Canada Trail, Perry Bellegarde, Clément Chartier, Natan Obed, Ry Moran and Roberta Jamieson
2017: Sir David Attenborough, Gordon Lightfoot (singer/songwriter) and John Turner (Prime Minister)
2016: Marc R. St-Onge, Paul F. Hoffman, Denis St-Onge and the Geological Survey of Canada
2015: Jacob Verhoef, Graeme Gibson and Margaret Atwood
2014: Canada's Astronauts, including Roberta Bondar, David Saint-Jacques, Marc Garneau, Steve MacLean, Dafydd Rhys "Dave" Williams, Robert Thirsk, Jeremy Hansen, Bjarni Tryggvason and the Canadian Space Agency
2013: Michael Palin, Robert Bateman, and Yvan Desy and Sylvain Lemay of Natural Resources Canada
2012: Dr. Philip Currie
2011: Sir Christopher Ondaatje and Dr. Jerry Linenger
2010: Alex Trebek and Canadian International Polar Year National Committee
2009: Dr. Wade Davis
2007: The Nature of Québec/Le Québec au naturel
2006: The Atlas of Canada
2004: Jean Lemire and Edryd Shaw
2003: Roger F. Tomlinson
2002: Gordon Slade
2001: Norman Hallendy
2000: Bernard Voyer
1998: Mary Simon
1997: Peter Gzowski
1996: Gilbert M. Grosvenor
1995: Harold K. Eidsvik, Dr. Lawrence W. Morley and Dr. Victor K. Prest
1994: The Historical Atlas of Canada, volumes II and III
1988: The Historical Atlas of Canada, Volume I, William G. Dean, Richard Colebrook Harris, and Geoffrey J. Matthews
1986: Dr. Derek C. Ford
1980: Selma Barkham
1978: Dr. J. Tuzo Wilson
1976: National Atlas of Canada
1973: Maj. Gen. William J. Megill
1972: Dr. Stanislaw Lesczychki
=== Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration ===
The Sir Christopher Ondaatje Medal for Exploration, named after gold medal and Camsell Medal recipient Sir Christopher Ondaatje, was established in 2013.
Source: RCGS
2019: Charles “Chas” Yonge
2018: Chic Scott
2017: Pat and Baiba Morrow, and Wade Davis
2016: Richard Weber
2015: Jean Lemire
2014: George Hobson
2013: Jill Heinerth
=== 3M Environmental Innovation Award ===
The 3M Environmental Innovation Award was established in 2009 by the Society and 3M Canada to recognize outstanding individuals in business, government, academia or community organizations whose innovative contributions to environmental change are benefiting Canada and Canadians. The award was discontinued, with the final recipient named in 2015.
Source: RCGS
2015: GreenBug Energy Inc.
2014: Ross Thurston
2013: Jeff Golfman
2012: Dr. Fraser Taylor
2011: Michel Séguin
2010: Frank van Biesen
2009: Sidney Ribaux
=== Camsell Medal ===
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society awards the Camsell Medal to bestow recognition upon, and to express the society's appreciation to, individuals who have given outstanding service to the society. The award was established by the society's board of governors in 1992.
Source: RCGS
2021: Alison Gill and Susan Taylor
2020: Keith Exelby
2019: Beth Dye and Joe Frey
2018: Paul Ruest and Élisabeth Nadeau
2017: Jody Decker and Philip Howarth
2016: Mark Graham, Peter Harrison and Christine Duverger-Harrison
2015: Bruce Amos and Louise Maffett
2014: Christopher Burn and Iain Wallace
2013: Sir Christopher Ondaatje
2012: Jean Fournier
2011: Gisèle Jacob and Arthur E. Collin
2010: Pierre Bergeron and Helen Kerfoot
2009: James Raffan and Ted Johnson
2008: Kenneth Boland and Carman Joynt
2007: Stuart Semple and Brian Osborne
2006: Karen Lochhead and Michael Schmidt
2005: James Maxwell and Denis St-Onge
2004: Samuel P. Arsenault and Alexander T. Davidson
2003: J. Blair Seaborn and David Kirkwood
2002: Alan O. Gibbons
2001: Dickson Mansfield
2000: Winifred Wadasinghe-Wijay
1999: Pierre Camu and Grete Hale
1998: Pierre Des Marais II and Dr. George Hobson
1997: Enid Byford and Robert Goddard
1996: David Bartlett
1995: William M. Gilchrist and Col. Louis M. Sebert
1994: Wendy Simpson-Lewis
1993: David W. Phillips and Dr. Ernest P. Weeks
1992: Dr. J. Keith Fraser and Samuel F. Hughes
=== The Martin Bergmann Medal for Excellence in Arctic Leadership and Science ===
Established by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2012, the medal recognizes achievement for "excellence in Arctic leadership and science." It is named in honour of Martin "Marty" Bergmann, a public servant.
Source: RCGS
2019: Wayne Pollard
2018: James Drummond and Derek Muir
2017: Martin Fortier
2016: Warwick Vincent
2015: John Smol
2014: Donald Forbes
2013: David Hik
2012: Martin Bergmann
=== Lawrence J. Burpee Medal ===
Established by the society in 2013, this medal is awarded to recognize outstanding contribution to the general advancement of geography, or to other achievement that greatly enhances the ability of the society to fulfill its mission.
Source: RCGS
2019: Anne Innis Dagg
2018: Chris Cran, André Préfontaine and Peter Suedfeld
2017: President Jimmy Carter and Andrew Prossin
2016: Simon Winchester
2015: Louie Kamookak, Wendy Cecil and Alex Trebek
2014: Marc-André Bernier, Ryan Harris, Jonathan Moore and Andrew Campbell (Parks Canada)
=== Massey Medal ===
The Massey Medal recognizes outstanding personal achievement in the exploration, development or description of the geography of Canada. The award was established in 1959 by the Massey Foundation, named for industrialist Hart Massey.
Source: RCGS
2021 - Yvan Bédard and Barbara Sherwood Lollar
2020 - John Smol
2019 - Derek Clifford Ford
2018: Arthur J. Ray
2017: David Morrison
2016: Steve Blasco
2015: Brian Osborne
2014: Derald Smith
2013: David Ley
2012: Graeme Wynn
2011: David Livingstone
2010: Raymond Price
2009: Michael Church
2008: Bruce Mitchell
2007: Eddy Carmack
2006: Serge Courville
2005: Tim Oke
2004: Larry Stuart Bourne
2003: Richard Colebrook Harris
2002: John Oliver Wheeler
2001: Lawrence McCann
1999: Alexander T. Davidson
1998: William C. Wonders
1997: James A. Houston
1996: James P. Bruce
1995: Pierre Camu
=== Innovation in Geography Teaching Award ===
Established in 2013, the Innovation in Geography Teaching Award is presented to K-12 teachers who have "gone above and beyond their job description to further geographic literacy." Recipients are chosen by the board of Canadian Geographic Education.
Source: RCGS
2018: Breanna Heels
2017: Paula Huddy-Zubkowski
2016: Greg Neil
2015: Janet Ruest
2014: Mike Farley
2013: Andrew Young
=== Louie Kamookak Medal ===
Established in 2018, the medal is named for Louie Kamookak, an Inuk historian involved in the search for Franklin's lost expedition, and is awarded for those who have "been brought to the attention of the Executive Committee, Awards Committee, or to the CEO, as having made Canada’s geography better known to Canadians and to the world".
Source: RCGS
2020: Nellie Kusugak, Elizabeth Dowdeswell
2019: George Jacob
2018: Gregory Copley, Jared Harris, Josephine Kamookak, Anne Kari Hansen Ovind, Michael Palin, Kim Wallace
== Canadian Geographic Education ==
Canadian Geographic Education—formerly the Canadian Council for Geographic Education (CCGE)—is a joint initiative of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Geographic Society of Washington, D.C., established in 1993. The programs of the Can Geo Education aim to strengthen geographic education in the classroom. In addition to increasing the emphasis on geography within the school system, the Can Geo Education endeavours to increase the public awareness of the importance of geographical literacy.
== Arms ==
== See also ==
Canadian Association of Geographers
List of Canadian organizations with royal patronage
List of environmental awards
List of geography awards
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
Canadian Geographic magazine
Géographica magazine
Canadian Geographic Education |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Professionals | Pittsburgh Professionals | The Pittsburgh Professional Hockey Club, also referred to as the Pittsburgh Professionals and Pittsburgh Pros, were a professional ice hockey team that participated in the International Professional Hockey League (IPHL) from 1904 until 1907. The team's home arena was Duquesne Garden. It was the first inter-city professional hockey team in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pros' line-ups included several important early professional hockey players, the most notable being Hod Stuart, who was considered, in certain hockey circles, to be the "greatest hockey player in the world."
== History ==
=== Origins ===
The club was made up of players from the various teams of the Western Pennsylvania Hockey League (WPHL), which dissolved after the 1904 season. During the 1902–03 WPHL season, the league champion Pittsburgh Bankers competed against the Portage Lakes Hockey Club, which was based in Houghton, Michigan, for the "Pro Championship of the United States". A four-game series was arranged with Portage Lakes and the Bankers, with Portage Lakes winning the four game series 2–1 with a game tied, despite being outscored bt the Bankers, 11–6. In the fall of 1903, James R. Dee of Houghton started discussions with WPHL representatives in Pittsburgh to initiate discussion on the formation of a national hockey association. The next season, Portage Lakes continued to play professional exhibition games, but raided Pittsburgh's teams for top players like Riley Hern and Bruce Stuart. After the 1903–04 WPHL season, the Pittsburgh Victorias were defeated by Portage Lakes in a battle for the "American Championship".
A meeting was held on November 5, 1904 which included prominent business leaders from Pittsburgh, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Northern Michigan. A number of cities were considered for this new professional league, however the league accepted teams from Houghton (Portage Lakes), Pittsburgh (Pros), Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (Canadian Soo), Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan (Michigan Soo Indians) and Calumet & Laurium, Michigan (Calumet Miners). Also at this meeting, the representatives of the Canadian Soo suggested a revenue sharing plan that would divide gate receipts in a 60–40 home-visitor split. This revenue sharing plan would make the long journey to Pittsburgh possible, considering the Pros played at the high capacity (5,000 seats) Duquesne Garden. Although Pittsburgh much larger in size, to the other IPHL markets. However, like the other league markets, its population featured a large percentage of working-class citizens. While civic boosters helped drive the interest in the games in Michigan and Canada, Pittsburgh used its large population base and established hockey tradition to fill its arena. Pittsburgh's local supporters adopted nickname, "Coal Heavers," for their team.
== Season-by-season ==
The Pros did not fare well in its first season, posting only an 8–15–1 record for fourth place in the league. The Pros' inaugural season was also distracted by the actions and June 7, 1905 death of Pros' player William "Peg" Duval, due to alcoholism. Duval had been suspended in December 1904 without pay by the Pros for not being in condition to play although he returned to the team in time to score the winning goal in a game against Calumet on January 7, 1905. He was permanently released by the team in February 1905 for being unable to stay in condition to play. A Pittsburg Press newspaper report at that time said that "'Peggy' when in condition can hold his end up with any of them, but the wine when it is red seems to have a fascination for him, hence his downfall."
However the following season, the team acquired Hod Stuart, who was considered the best player of his era, in certain hockey circles. On December 11, 1905, before the start of the 1905–06 season, Stuart, who previously played in Pittsburgh (for the Bankers of the WPHL in 1903), was suspended from the league after the western teams complained that he had won too many championships and was too rough for the league. He was reinstated by the league on December 30, and joined the Pittsburgh Professionals. During the 1905–06 season the Professionals were one of three teams vying with Portage Lakes and Michigan Soo Indians for first place. However the Pros would finish the season in third place.
Stuart started the next season with Pittsburgh, but later left the team following a dispute. However the Pittsburgh line-up still included the recent addition of several notable players such as; Tommy Smith and Horace Gaul of the Ottawa Hockey Club and Jimmy Gardner of the Montreal Wanderers. These players joined Pros alumni; goalie Jack Winchester and Lorne Campbell in the line-up. Campbell and Smith finished ahead of future Hall-Of-Famers; Didier Pitre, Newsy Lalonde and Bruce Stuart in scoring. However Pittsburgh's play only earned the team another third-place finish in the standings.
The team's uniform colors were reported in successive seasons as gold (or yellow or orange) and black, maroon and white, and blue and white.
== Demise ==
The team and the IPHL existed until after the 1906–07 season. The revenue-sharing program that granted the visiting team forty percent of the gate receipts, however proved to lead to the demise of the team and the league. The revenues would prove inadequate to maintain player salaries, particularly with the advent of other professional leagues, leading to the IPHL's collapse. However, the league's demise led to the rebirth of the WPHL, which was now a fully professional league.
== Prominent players ==
The following members of the Pittsburgh Professionals later became members of the Hockey Hall of Fame:
Jimmy Gardner (1963)
Tommy Smith (1973)
Bruce Stuart (1961)
Hod Stuart (1945)
== Notes ==
== References ==
Mason, Daniel S. (Spring 1998). "The International Hockey League and the Professionalization of Ice Hockey, 1904–1907" (PDF). Journal of Sport History. 25 (1): 1–17. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jett_Williams | Jett Williams | Jett Williams (born Antha Belle Jett; January 6, 1953) is an American singer and songwriter, the daughter of Hank Williams.
== Early life ==
Born Antha Belle Jett, she is the daughter of country music icon Hank Williams and Bobbie Jett (1922–1974), whose brief relationship with Hank Williams occurred between his two marriages. She is a posthumous child; born on January 6, 1953, in Montgomery, Alabama, five days after her father's death on January 1. In December 1954, she was legally adopted by her paternal grandmother, Lillie Williams Stone, who renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone. Following her grandmother's death in 1955, Stone was made a ward of the state of Alabama and subsequently adopted by parents who renamed her Cathy Louise Deupree.
== Court fight ==
Deupree knew she was adopted, but did not learn of her biological parents until the early 1980s. Although Hank Williams had executed a custody agreement three months before her birth that gave him custody of his unborn daughter, she was forced to go to extreme lengths to prove the relationship and be recognized as Williams' daughter.
In September 1984, she met and retained Washington, D.C. investigative attorney Keith Adkinson to help her. Within days, he obtained a copy of the custody contract, and within months had conclusive proof Deupree was defrauded for the financial gain of others. A lawsuit was filed based on this discovery. On September 28, 1986, Deupree and Adkinson married in Washington. He died on June 19, 2013. In 2016, Jett married Kelly Zumwalt.
In 1985, the Alabama State Court ruled she was the daughter of Hank Williams. On October 26, 1987, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled she was entitled to her half-share in the Williams estate, as she had been the victim of fraud and judicial error. Hank Williams Jr. appealed against the decision in federal court, but the ruling stood when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1990.
== Book and honors ==
In 1990, she published her autobiography Ain't Nothin' as Sweet as My Baby.
In 2000, the Tennessee legislature passed HJR 621 designating May 18, 2000, as "Jett Williams Appreciation Day" in Macon County.
== Sole rights ==
In January 2006, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating Hank Williams' heirs — son Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.) and daughter Jett Williams, Hank Jr.'s half-sister — have the sole rights to sell his old recordings made for a Nashville radio station in the early 1950s. The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show, a program that originally aired on WSM. The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams' hits and covers of other songs. Polygram contended Williams' contract with MGM Records, which Universal Music Nashville now owns since 1998, gave them rights to release the radio recordings. In October 2008, a selection of the "Mother's Best" recordings was released by Time-Life as Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings.
Jett Williams released a number of albums featuring her own songs, and toured with a version of the Drifting Cowboys to sing her father's songs. Her nephew Hank Williams III is an ardent critic of her, calling her an atrocious performer and saying that she should have written a book instead.
== Discography ==
That Reminds Me of Hank (Foundation Records, 1993)
You Are on My Lonely Mind (Self-released, 1999)
Honk! (Self-released, 2007)
Mount Olive (Storytown Records, 2017)
== References ==
== External links ==
Official Website Archived 2006-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
Jett Williams at AllMusic
Jett Williams at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizkif | Mizkif | Matthew Rinaudo (born 16 February 1995) known professionally as Mizkif, is an American Twitch streamer and YouTuber. He was a founder of the gaming organization One True King. He was named Best Just Chatting Streamer at the 2021 Streamer Awards.
== Early life ==
Mizkif was born on February 16, 1995, and grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. He is of Italian descent.
== Career ==
=== 2016–2020: Early career ===
Mizkif began streaming in 2016. He streamed to a relatively small community until 2018, when he gained popularity for serving as a cameraman for fellow streamer Paul "Ice Poseidon" Denino.
On April 30, 2019, Mizkif and fellow Twitch streamer and friend Esfand were banned in response to an incident that occurred at PAX East between them and Jenna "Meowri", a streamer and cosplayer, where Mizkif and Esfand made an insensitive joke towards Meowri during a livestream. They were then unbanned seven days later.
=== 2020–present ===
In March 2020, Mizkif garnered attention after he made over $5,600 during a sleeping stream. In an interview with Wired, he stated, "Most streams can be very draining. This stream was the opposite. It was very easy. It was honestly a nice break from my normal routine of playing games all day."
Mizkif was the third-most-watched Twitch streamer during the 2020 United States presidential election, trailing fellow streamers Trainwreckstv and HasanAbi.
On October 11, 2020, Mizkif, along with fellow Twitch streamers Asmongold, Esfand, Rich Campbell, and Tips Out, announced the launch of their new gaming organization, One True King.
Mizkif hit one million followers on Twitch on January 18, 2021.
In October 2021, Mizkif appeared in leaks detailing the top Twitch streamers' earnings from August 2019 to October 2021. Mizkif was ranked 23rd on the list, with a reported payout of $2,086,548.21 during this time period.
On March 2022, Mizkif won Best Just Chatting Streamer at the 2021 Streamer Awards. He was also nominated for Streamer of the Year at the same ceremony.
On September 19, 2022, Mizkif was accused by fellow Twitch streamer Trainwreckstv of downplaying and covering up an incident where his roommate and fellow streamer CrazySlick allegedly sexually assaulted female streamer AdrianahLee. Later that day, streamer Ice Poseidon, whom Mizkif worked with during his early streaming career, published a set of comments made by Mizkif from 2018 to 2019, characterized as racist and homophobic. The following day, as a result of the aforementioned incidents, Mizkif was placed on leave by One True King. According to the Texas-based law firm Jackson Walker, the investigation's counsel did not find direct evidence that Mizkif attempted to minimize or cover up sexual assault, as alleged. His status as an OTK member was reinstated. Later on January 2, 2023, Mizkif uploaded a video apologizing for the "insensitive" and "tone-deaf" behavior he displayed in a broadcast from early October.
Mizkif was banned from Twitch on January 13, 2023, after he viewed and broadcast content from Gross Gore, a streamer who was banned from the platform. He was eventually unbanned less than 24 hours later.
On February 7, 2023, Mizkif was banned on Twitch for violating the DMCA after he watched an American reality TV series called MILF Manor on his Twitch channel. He was then unbanned a day later.
On May 28, 2023, Mizkif announced that he had joined Rumble, a video hosting site, and would stream some of his content on the platform.
In an October 25, 2025 livestream, cosplayer and streamer Emiru accused Mizkif of misconduct, including unwanted physical contact, emotional abuse, and stalking. Emiru and Mizkif were in a relationship for several years, ending in 2024. According to Emiru, Mizkif threatened to retaliate if she ever spoke about the situation. Mizkif denied the more serious allegations and disputed some aspects of Emiru's account. In response, on October 27, 2025, One True King disclosed on Twitter that Mizkif had been terminated from the organization for unrelated reasons "some time ago" and that he holds no stake in the organization or any of its affiliated companies. Following, Mizkif filed a federal lawsuit against Emiru, Asmongold, OTK Media Inc., Mythic Talent Management Inc., and King Gaming Labs Inc for reputational harm, lost earnings, and emotional distress.
== Other ventures ==
=== Unrooted ===
In 2021, Mizkif announced his intention to develop a platform game titled Unrooted. Citing Jump King as a primary influence, the game was showcased in the platformer category at the 2022 OTK Games Expo. Unrooted was officially released on Steam on August 2, 2024.
=== Iron Forge Gym ===
On January 17, 2024, Mizkif announced the opening of Iron Forge Gym, located in Austin, Texas, and co-owned by himself and Norwegian Twitch streamer Knut. The facility offers full-service weight lifting as well as MMA and wrestling classes.
=== Just Chatting Podcast ===
On May 6, 2024, Mizkif announced the launch of "Just Chatting Podcast", a weekly podcast hosted by himself where he interviews various guests in a one-on-one setting.
== Philanthropy ==
On December 21, 2019, Mizkif held a charity stream for St. David's Children's Hospital in Austin, Texas. His community raised over $5,000, which Mizkif would later use to purchase toys for the hospital's patients.
In June 2021, Mizkif, along with fellow streamer Ryan "Simply" Reeves, rappelled down 600 Congress, a 32-story building in Austin, Texas, for a Make-A-Wish fundraiser event titled "Over the Edge". They raised over $20,000 during their companion charity stream, funded by donations from viewers.
On February 10, 2023, Mizkif held a 26-hour charity stream with the goal of raising funds for the victims of the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes. Mizkif and his community managed to raise $80,799.
== Personal life ==
Mizkif began dating fellow Twitch streamer and wildlife rehabilitator Maya Higa in 2019. On September 14, 2021, Mizkif announced on Twitter that he and Higa were no longer in a relationship.
Mizkif has a heart condition known as viral myocarditis. He has also publicly spoken out about his struggles with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
In early June 2021, Mizkif purchased an Audi R8. On January 3, 2022, Mizkif announced on Twitter that his Audi R8 sustained $100,000 in damages after being hit by someone in a parking lot.
== Awards and nominations ==
== Filmography ==
=== Music videos ===
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prabhunath_Singh#Conviction_and_controversies | Prabhunath Singh | Prabhunath Singh is a politician from Bihar, India and was a member of the 12th, 13th and 14th Lok Sabha. Singh represented the Masrakh assembly constituency from 1985 to 1995, and the Maharajganj Lok Sabha constituency of Bihar from 1998 to 2009. In 2013, he won the bypoll and remained as MP until 2014. Singh is a member of the JDU and currently serving life imprisonment in murder case.
== Early life and education ==
Singh was born in Mashrakh, Saran district, Bihar. He studied until class-12 from Bihar University, Muzaffarpur in 1972. His brothers Dina Singh, Madan Singh and Kedar Singh are also politicians.
== Family ==
He is married to Binda Devi. His son, Randhir Kumar Singh, is also a politician and lost in the 2019 Indian general election to Janardan Singh Sigriwal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
== Career ==
Before entering into politics, Singh owned a brick-making factory. He won his first election for MLA as an independent candidate due to his support among Rajputs from his area. He is a four time member of parliament from the Saran district. In the 1995 elections, he ran as a member of BJP, but left for the Janata Dal (United) (JD(U)) party after losing. Singh won election as a member of the JD(U) party, but later joined RJD due to dictatorship of Nitish Kumar in JD(U). He represented the Maharajganj constituency of Bihar from 2004 to 2009 on the JD(U) ticket. In 2009, he contested on the JD(U) ticket, but narrowly lost to Uma Shankar Singh of RJD. After the death of Uma Shankar Singh, whose seat was now vacant, Singh contested on the RJD ticket, defeating JD(U)'s nominee P.K. Shahi.
== Conviction and controversies ==
On 23 May 2017, Singh was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hazaribagh Court for his connection with the murder of MLA Ashok Singh 22 years prior.
== Positions held ==
Prabhunath Singh had been elected as MLA twice, and as Lok Sabha MP four times.
== References ==
Home Page on the Parliament of India's Website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Waves#Artwork | 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/Ferrer_Center_and_Colony | Ferrer Center and Colony | The Ferrer Center and Stelton Colony were an anarchist social center and colony, respectively, organized to honor the memory of anarchist pedagogue Francisco Ferrer and to build a school based on his model, Escuela Moderna, in the United States.
In the widespread outcry following Ferrer's execution in 1909 and the international movement that sprung in its wake, a group of New York anarchists convened as the Ferrer Association in 1910. Their headquarters, the Ferrer Center, hosted a variety of cultural events in the avant-garde arts and radical politics, including lectures, discussions, and performances. It was also home to the Ferrer Modern School, a libertarian day school that emphasized unplanned, undogmatic curriculum. The Center moved several times throughout Manhattan to establish a space conducive to children's play. Following a bomb plot and police infiltration, several anarchists from the association decided to take the school out to the country.
The school moved to what would become the Ferrer Colony in Stelton, New Jersey, 30 miles outside New York City, in 1914. The colony was based around the school and land was individually parceled such that, in the spirit of anarchist volunteerism, anyone could sell and exit the colony at their prerogative. They intended for the colony to form the center of a national libertarian education movement. The school floundered in its first years and passed through multiple administrations, the longest of which with co-principals Elizabeth and Alexis Ferm. The school closed in 1953. It had been a model for short-lived Ferrer schools across the country and lasted among the longest.
== Ferrer Center ==
In 1909, the free-thinker, pedagogue, and anarchist Francisco Ferrer was executed in Barcelona and subsequently propelled into martyrdom. The resulting Ferrer movement led to the founding of anticlerical private schools in the model of his Escuela Moderna throughout the world. One such school was founded in New York.
On June 12, 1910, a group of 22 anarchists and sympathizers began the Francisco Ferrer Association in New York City. Together they built a "cultural center and evening school", which expanded into an "experimental day school" and, ultimately, a colony outside New Brunswick, New Jersey. The association lasted over 40 years and had three goals: to promote Ferrer's writings, to organize meetings on the anniversary of his death, and to establish schools by his model throughout the United States. Outside the United States, the Americans had no explicit connection with international Ferrer groups.
The Association's headquarters, the Ferrer Center, hosted a variety of cultural events: literary lectures, debates on current affairs, avant-garde arts and performance, social dances, and classes for the inquisitive masses. And when the Center crossed genres, its spirit of experimentalism was unpretentious. Though many of its teachers were hostile to formal academic manner, classes addressed standard subjects. Some were taught by distinguished individuals: painters Robert Henri and George Bellows taught figure drawing, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen's son taught comparative literature, Robert La Follette's law partner taught government, and Will Durant taught the history of philosophy. The Center held an evening English class, whose topics often included proletarian history and current affairs. One group studied Esperanto. Lectures discussed free thought, religion, sex, and hygiene. Margaret Sanger proposed mothers' meetings on birth control. On the weekends, the Center hosted speakers for discussion including journalist Hutchins Hapgood, poet Edwin Markham, and reporter Lincoln Steffens. A lecture by lawyer Clarence Darrow attracted hundreds. Others associated with the Center included Max Weber, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
The folklorist Moritz Jagendorf started a "Free Theatre" at the Center in late 1914. The group performed new manuscripts, including a world premiere of a Lord Dunsany drama, as well as their own original plays, which had social themes. The theater had a very limited budget and some of its performers struggled to speak English. They also hosted Floyd Dell's troupe and others from Greenwich Village.
The Center had an air of radical affability and cosmopolitanism. Historian Laurence Veysey described the Center, with its unrestricted discussions on social subjects and wide representation of nationalities, as potentially the country's least inhibited and most stimulating small venue at the time. The Center's radical politics made it a haven for anti-capitalist revolutionaries, anarchists, and libertarians. It hosted children from the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, supported Frank Tannenbaum's 1914 mobilization of the unemployed, and fed protesters. The Center's formation coincided with a resurgence of interest in radical politics: the rise of syndicalism, multiple revolutions (including Russia), and strike actions. While assimilation had eroded immigrant interest in radical politics for several decades, with this optimistic turn, anarchism had begun to escape the stigma of the 1901 McKinley assassination. By 1914, the Center's adult membership was in the hundreds and Jewish people formed the largest contingent of its many represented nationalities. The social foundation of the New York Ferrer movement was the relationship between Jewish immigrants, who valued education, and domestic Americans, who approached teaching with alacrity.
The Association and Modern School leaders were mostly domestic Americans. Among the early leaders, only Joseph J. Cohen was an immigrant, and he arrived three years after the Center's founding. The rest were not immigrants: the early spokesperson and first Association president Leonard Abbott, Harry Kelly, and early financier Alden Freeman. Journalist Hutchins Hapgood, who lectured at the Center, came to write about Yiddish culture following his interactions there. Gallerist Carl Zigrosser wrote of the Center expanding his understanding of New York society beyond the knowledge he had received from books.
Several anarchists from the association decided to take the school out to the country.
The Center served as a model for schools across the United States in Chicago, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. But while these schools mostly closed within several years, the schools in Stelton and Mohegan would last for decades.
=== New York Modern School ===
As was originally intended, the Ferrer Association established a day school for children within the Ferrer Center in October 1911. In practice, the New York Ferrer Modern School was based less on Ferrer's method than his memory. The New York school's founders were propelled by their sense of injustice at Ferrer's execution and their belief in the liberatory prospect of his approach, but they made no concerted effort to replicate his example. The American movement for progressive education was a more likely influence on the New York founders' interest in starting a school, as was the importance put upon education in Jewish culture. New York anarchists believed in the liberatory role of the school partly because, as European anarchist émigrés, they believed in the power of ideas to change the future and wanted their children to share their values.
The school's early character was unplanned and undogmatic. The Association sought "the reconstruction of society upon the basis of freedom and justice" and accordingly, the founders wanted their school to let children develop freely and through this freedom, develop a sense of social justice. The Association was essentially anarchist, unwedded to a particular ideal, but to the free expression of opinion and exchange of ideas. The school would be both a protected island against the influence of middle-class America, and a force to propel cultural and political revolution.
The Association found little agreement on school policy apart from that education was a process of educing a children's latent talents rather than a process of imposing dogma. The founders had little experience with education or parenting, apart from some having taught in the Workmen's Circle radical Sunday Schools, and trusting no authority, would hold long debates with no effect. Some Association members interfered in the classroom to the objection of other members. The day school teacher was not expected to uphold a religious or social dogma but instead to "have the libertarian spirit" and answer children's questions truthfully. The teachers had low salaries and high turnover, including multiple scrambles for staffing. No principal stayed longer than a year between 1911 and 1916.
The Ferrer Modern School also suffered its environmental conditions. The Center's original location at 6 St. Mark's Place was established in haste and could not house a day school for lack of outdoor play space and park access. It moved several blocks north to 104 East Twelfth Street just before the school opened for the school year in 1911. This location had an outdoor play space but the building continued to lack standard school equipment and was less accessible to radical families, so the school moved farther north in October 1912 to an older building in East Harlem, 63 East 107th Street, which had a stronger immigrant population and rested three blocks from Central Park. The three-story building included an unusable ground level floor, a large room on the second floor where two classes occurred at once, and a small office and kitchen on the third floor, where the adult anarchists congregated.
Enrollment rose despite the school's conditions. By 1914, the school taught 30 children and turned away half its applicants. Historian Laurence Veysey attributes this rise to the expressiveness and love shared between students and their teachers, and to a cultural "union of enthusiasms" in the Ferrer movement, in which new Jewish immigrants, whose families tended towards warm affection and interest in education, met a body of Americans who equally wanted to be their teachers. The day school's students were predominantly from immigrant, garment industry worker families with radical or anarchist politics. Like the Association itself, early principals of the day school were native born, largely with degrees from Ivy League schools and not Jewish. They were possibly propelled by their interest in upending the status quo, altruism for the poor, and a curiosity for bohemian life in the ghetto, as juxtaposed against their urban, predictable upper-middle class lives.
The school moved multiple times and ultimately closed in 1953.
Students would "often" not learn to read until ten or twelve years old.
== Stelton colony ==
=== Selection ===
Harry Kelly arranged the move to Stelton, New Jersey, about 30 miles from New York City. The anarchist printer and Association member selected the site, a farm within two miles of a railroad station. The group bought the land and resold plots to colonists at fair market value while setting aside land for the school. As anarchists, the colonists did not uphold a common doctrine towards property, and disagreed on whether private property should be preserved or abolished. Plots were individually owned such that, in the spirit of anarchist volunteerism, anyone could sell and exit the colony at their prerogative. ... They hoped the colony could form the center of a national libertarian education movement.
=== Stelton Modern School ===
The school at Stelton was founded in 1914. It floundered in its first years. In 1916, the socialist William Thurston Brown, who had experience operating modern schools, became Stelton's principal.
Stelton's lessons were non-compulsory and the school had no discipline or set curriculum, same as it was in New York City. Students joined in craft and outdoor activities. In addition to students from colonist families, between 30 and 40 children boarded at the school in what was formerly a farmhouse. Next to the farmhouse, Stelton built an open-air dormitory. Their winters were cold. Margaret Sanger's daughter died of pneumonia contracted in the boarding house.
Nellie and James Dick operated the boarding house for children, known as the Living House. The couple had formerly opened Ferrer schools in their original England and elsewhere in the United States. They promoted freedom and spontaneity in education. In their dorms, the Dicks taught personal responsibility.
In 1920, Elizabeth and Alexis Ferm became Stelton's co-principals. The couple had previously run schools in New York City. Their methods emphasized manual work and crafts—e.g., pottery, gardening, carpentry, dance—held in the schoolhouse's workshops. Alternatively, students could study in the library with James Dick. Following disagreement with some parents, who wanted the school to put more emphasis on reading and class-struggle politics, the Ferms left the school in 1925 rather than compromise their technique.
The school briefly floundered between 1925 and 1928, when the Dicks returned as co-principals. They renovated the dilapidated children's dormitories, resurrected the children-run periodical, and added a range of adult activities. The Dicks left in 1933 to pursue their longtime wish of opening their own Modern School in Lakewood, New Jersey.
The Ferms were recruited to return in the mid-1930s, when the school population declined as the Great Depression depleted family incomes. The American government established a military base adjacent to and with negative effects for the colony. Elizabeth Ferm died in 1944 and her husband retired four years later. The school had diminished to 15 pupils at the time. The school closed in 1953.
== Legacy ==
Laurence Veysey described the association as "one of the most notable—though unremembered—attempts to create a counter-culture in America". Of its accomplishments, Veysey counted the association of (1) college-educated native Americans with recent, Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, and of (2) intellectuals with laborers. Veysey called the Ferrer Modern School one of the few "truly advanced" American progressive schools of the 1920s. The Friends of the Modern School was founded in 1973. It was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in around 2005 with the mission of preserving the legacy of the Stelton Modern School. Regular reunions of former students continued until the late 2010s and were recorded and are available at the Rutgers University archives. The records of the Friends, as well as the Modern School itself, can be found at Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers.
== See also ==
Fellowship Farm Cooperative Association
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_B_(Buenos_Aires_Underground) | Line B (Buenos Aires Underground) | Line B of the Buenos Aires Underground runs 11.75 kilometres (7.30 mi) from Leandro N. Alem to Juan Manuel de Rosas in Villa Urquiza. Line B opened to the public on 17 October 1930.
In recent years, it has held the title of being the most used line of the Buenos Aires Underground, and its patronage has increased even more after the opening of a section of tunnel between Los Incas station in the neighbourhood of Parque Chas and a shopping centre in Villa Urquiza. It was the first line in Buenos Aires whose stations had turnstiles and moving stairways.
It is the only line that uses third rail current collection, while the rest of the Underground lines collect electric current from overhead lines, although there has been ongoing conversion to overhead lines to incorporate new rolling stock. Its gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) is the same as the rest of the Buenos Aires underground system.
The rolling stock currently used on the B line are former Tokyo Metro (formerly Eidan Subway) 300/500/900 stock, which was used on Marunouchi Line, and CAF 6000 stock. The Japanese units were acquired in the early 1990s, and offer less sitting room than the previous rolling stock, increasing the line's capacity during peak hours. The Japanese trains have been partially supplanted by CAF 6000 rolling stock, acquired in 2013 from the Madrid Metro.
== History ==
In 1912 the Congress of Argentina enacted Law 8,870 to construct a line that would unite the Correo Central (Central Post Office) and the intersection of Triunvirato and Elcano streets, and meet with the tracks of the Buenos Aires Central Railroad (Ferrocarril Central de Buenos Aires or FCCBA), which belonged to the same business group, through an 8.7 km (5.4 mi) tunnel. The Act provided that the works "would help reduce traffic in the central area of the city".
On 17 December 1927 in New York City the financial agreement to build the line was signed between Teófilo Lacroze, the president of Banco de la Nación Dr. Tomás de Estrada, Dr. Louis J. Rocca directory owner of Ferrocarril Terminal de Buenos Aires and bankers Harris and Forbes. This agreement granted the concession of the line for passengers, parcels and freight to Lacroze Brothers Company.
The construction was carried out by the Argentine builder Dwight P. Robinson & Cía, and the line was called Ferrocarril Terminal Central de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Central Terminal Railroad). The first section between Federico Lacroze and Callao opened on 17 October 1930 and was 7.021 km (4.363 mi) in length. The Argentine President, José Félix Uriburu, travelled on the maiden journey.
On 22 June 1931, Line B was extended to Carlos Pellegrini station. The line was finally completed on 1 December 1931 when the subway reached the Leandro N. Alem station. These three sections were located below Corrientes Avenue, including 19 curves and 13 stations.
Depending to the depth of the line, some sections were constructed using an open trench (cut-and-cover method) or gallery or tunnel. The open trench approach was used in constructing the Federico Lacroze, Dorrego, Canning (now Malabia), Río de Janeiro (now Ángel Gallardo) and Medrano stations. The tunnel at Maipu Street reached a maximum depth of 17 metres (56 ft). Underneath the Rancagua (today Los Andes) park in Chacarita, a workshop and a 10 track garage (with capacity for 110 cars) were built.
Lione B had escalators and turnstiles for the payment of coin-operated service, initially manufactured in the United States, formerly controlled by guards. Line B is deeper underground than Line A, and like it, each station was decorated with friezes of characteristic colours.
An underground link with the Mercado Central de Abasto (a wholesale fruit and vegetable market) was opened on 12 July 1933, through which goods wagons with freight from the Ferrocarril Central de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires Central Railroad) would arrive, driven by electric locomotives. This service ceased after a fire occurred on the link on 27 November 1952.
The line always had an automatic light signalling system. In 1980 the mechanical stop-gear devices were replaced by magnetic induction devices, and in 1998 they were finally replaced by an electronic system with Automatic Train Protection (ATP). The original tracks were replaced, and a new automatic signal system with automatic train protection was installed and the transformers were changed to ones that did not contain PCBs, a carcinogenic chemical.
The modernisation carried out from 1996 by the private concessionaire Metrovías brought about a radical change in the appearance of the stations, covering the walls of both the platforms and the halls with asphalt-type material painted black and ochre in most cases, except for Callao and Carlos Gardel which were decorated with white tiles with black veins. As a result, the previous coloured friezes that embellished the stations and gave them their characteristic touch were covered.
On 9 August 9, 2003, two new stations, Tronador - Villa Ortúzar and De los Incas - Parque Chas, were inaugurated, allowing the line to transport more than 300,000 passengers per business day.
== Recent expansion and refurbishment ==
In 2013 Line B was extended underground further west (2 km (1.2 mi)) from Los Incas/Parque Chas to Echeverría and Juan Manuel de Rosas (previously named Villa Urquiza) where transfer to the Ferrocarril Mitre line was provided. The new stations opened on 26 July 2013.
Further plans include: installation of a new signal system, acquisition of new cars, construction of a new central workshop for the repair of machinery, widening of platforms, hallways and all areas of pedestrian traffic at stations and at transfer nodes, improvements in transfer centres with other means of transport.
Some refurbishment on the line has come under criticism, mostly due to the overwhelming colour of the new murals, but also due to alleged cases where the historic artwork of the line has been destroyed during the line's modernisation.
== Rolling stock ==
Initially, the Line B had 56 English Metropolitan Cammell cars, with metal bodywork and two bogies, painted cream and red and with a capacity of 47 seated people. Each car had 3 double-leaf sliding doors on each side, at platform height, whose opening and closing was controlled by the guard, and had two 105 HP motors. Then 20 North American Osgood-Bradley cars were added. Between 1965 and 1967, 14 similar cars were purchased from Fabricaciones Militares, and between 1977 and 1979, 20 units with 195 HP Siemens engines.
In 1995, the replacement of the existing fleet began and in 1996 128 second-hand Japanese Tokyo Metro (formerly Eidan Subway) 300/400/500/900 rail cars were purchased that were in excellent condition.
In 2009, it was announced that the Madrid Metro has sold its oldest wide-profile trains to Buenos Aires. The CAF 5000 series trains, which were in operation in Madrid since 1974, entered service in 2013 to replace some of the Eidan 300/400/500/900 sets that were utilized on line B starting in 1996. In operation, the 5000 series sets proved problematic, particularly with electrical issues, and were temporarily removed from service in late 2016 in response to brake-related safety concerns. Although slowly reinstated starting in 2017, the 5000 series sets were permanently withdrawn less than a year later, following the discovery of asbestos in some cars' electrical components.
In July 2013, Madrid Metro sold 73 of its 6000 series cars (which entered service in Madrid in 1998) to Buenos Aires for €32.6 million in exchange for the retirement of the rest of the Japanese-built trains. The purchase of the CAF 6000 rolling stock was met with major criticism due to the need for large and expensive alterations to accommodate the new rolling stock that was poorly adapted for Line B.
Due to the 6000 series cars using overhead lines for power collection, in contrast to the existing and functional third rail electrification system of Line B, a new solid overhead catenary system had to be installed. The new overhead power collection system turned out be insufficient in powering the 6000 series cars resulting in the cars operating at reduced performance leading to lower acceleration. The trains were significantly narrower than the Line B's original loading gauge necessitating the need for modifications to the trains to reduce the large platform gap. These alterations made the second-hand units not any cheaper than simply purchasing new rolling stock, as was done with the 200 Series on Line A. The rolling stock suburban interior design was a poor fit for the urban Line B. The seating was arranged as transverse seating, designed for long distance comfort with limited standing room which is a poor fit to Line B's typically short passenger trips with high passenger turnover at each station. The trains also were not completely walk through train sets as they were organised into married pairs. These factors and the narrow width of the train cars themselves led to very poor internal passenger circulation. The shorter cars meant that a 6000 series six car train made poor use of the existing platform length compared to older six car trains. These factors led to the new 6000 series rolling stock having a much smaller passenger capacity compared to the existing rolling stock.
As of 2020, the remaining Eidan 300/400/500/900 sets are the oldest rapid transit cars that remain in operation in the world; the remaining cars are expected to be retired in the mid-2020s.
== Events and highlights ==
When excavation was carried out for construction of the Leandro Alem station, the remains of a Mammoth of the Quaternary period where found, which were sent to the Museum of Natural Sciences of La Plata.
Line B connects through a ramp at Federico Lacroze into the electrified track of the Urquiza Line, where the underground rolling stock heads to the Urquiza Railway workshops in Ruben Darío (Hurlingham) for wheel, gear and axle maintenance.
Florida and Carlos Pellegrini stations are the two busiest stations on the line, as most commuters alight there in the morning to work in the downtown financial district. They also provide easy access to the entertainment district in the evening (see also Florida Street).
Carlos Pellegrini station can be reached from an underground commercial gallery located right below the Obelisco landmark, used by pedestrians to avoid crossing 9 de Julio Avenue at street level.
Since the 1940s, the line used to end in Federico Lacroze Station, near Chacarita Cemetery, where commuters could board the suburban bound Urquiza Line. In the 1990s, work began to expand the line to Villa Ortúzar and Villa Urquiza.
== Gallery ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Subterráneos de Buenos Aires (Official Page)
Metrovías S.A. Subte Operator (Official Page)
Subterráneos de Buenos Aires, B Line
System map
La ruina de la línea B (in Spanish) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_speakers_of_the_West_Pakistan_Legislative_Assembly | List of speakers of the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly | The Speaker of the West Pakistan Legislative Assembly was the presiding officer of that legislature.
== Sources ==
Former Speakers |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harnaam_Kaur#:~:text=In%20March%202017%2C%20Kaur%20was,design%20a%20beard%20oil%20elixir. | Harnaam Kaur | Harnaam Kaur (born 29 November 1990) is a British social media personality, postpartum coach, life coach, and motivational speaker.
== Early life ==
Kaur was born in Slough, Berkshire on 29 November 1990 in what she describes as "a traditional Punjabi family". At the age of 12, Kaur was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is due to elevated androgens (male hormones) in females. One of the symptoms of PCOS is hirsutism, or the ability to grow excessive facial and body hair. Kaur is able to grow a full beard as a result of her condition. While Kaur initially attempted to remove her facial hair due to constant bullying, she has grown to embrace her unconventional appearance and has become a spokesperson for the body positivity movement. In an interview with Rock N Roll Bride, Kaur reflects on her decision to keep her beard: "I decided to keep my beard and step forward against society's expectations of what a woman should look like. Today I am not suicidal and I do not self-harm. Today I am happy living as a young beautiful bearded woman. I have realised that this body is mine, I own it, I do not have any other body to live in so I may as well love it unconditionally".
== Career ==
Kaur worked as a primary school teaching assistant at Khalsa Primary School before coming to media attention in 2014, when she started giving public interviews. After achieving fame, Kaur became a full-time public figure and freelance model and motivational speaker.
In March 2015, photographer Mr. Elbank included a photo of Kaur in his exhibit at Somerset House in London, which featured portraits of over 80 individuals with beards. In June 2015, Kaur modeled for Rock N Roll Bride and was photographed by Louisa Coulthurst of Urban Bridesmaid Photography. In November 2015, Kaur joined the "Eff Your Beauty Standards" campaign founded by Tess Holliday as a spokesperson and representative.
In March 2016, Kaur became the first woman with a beard to walk at London Fashion Week. She opened the show for designer Marianna Harutunian. She is signed to Wanted Models in Paris and continues to be featured in fashion spreads in both online and print magazines. In May 2016, the conceptual artist Annelies Hofmeyr featured Kaur in her project Trophy Wife Barbie, where Hofmeyr altered a Barbie doll to Kaur's likeness.
In July 2016, musician Aisha Mizra featured Kaur in the music video for her song "Fuck Me or Destroy Me".
In September 2016, Kaur was included in the Guinness World Records as the youngest woman in the world to have a full beard. Her record citation read: "Now with a beard measuring as long as six inches [15 cm] in places, she overcame years of bullying to take ownership of her appearance and achieve this record title at the age of 24 years 282 days".
In March 2017, Kaur was featured in the Teen Vogue article "Instagrammers Challenge Body and Facial Hair Stigma".
In August 2017, Kaur collaborated with the grooming company Captain Fawcett to create and design a beard oil elixir. Kaur models in the advertisement campaign for the beard oil.
=== Activism ===
In interviews and on social media, Kaur references the abuse and harassment she received as a teenager that led to her self-harm and attempted suicide. In 2017, Kaur contributed to panel discussions in the House of Parliament on topics relating to mental health, body image, cyberbullying, LGBTQIA+ and how social media, businesses, schools and the government can help with the development of positive body images.
Kaur uses her profiles on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to contribute to numerous body-positive campaigns. She frequently posts content to promote awareness of body shaming, cyberbullying and mental illness. Kaur also aims to challenge gender stereotypes in media. She has said, "I don't think I believe in gender. I want to know who said a vagina is for a woman and a penis is for a man, or pink is for a girl and blue is for a boy. I am sitting here with a vagina and boobs – and a big beautiful beard".
== Personal life ==
While Kaur has referenced her conversion to Sikhism at age 16 as one of the reasons she stopped removing her facial hair, she now describes herself as spiritual rather than religious. Traditionally, Sikhism forbids the cutting of hair. She continues to wear her turban or other head coverings, which is a custom of the Khalsa tradition of Sikhism.
Kaur is originally from Slough, England. Her younger brother, Gurdeep Singh Cheema, created the film Happy Ending? The Dangers of Online Grooming to bring awareness to the issue of online child grooming by predators.
To promote self-love and acceptance, Kaur has stated that she has named her beard Sundri, which means beauty or beautiful, and refers to her beard as "she".
== See also ==
Polycystic ovary syndrome
Hirsutism
Bearded lady
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Curzon,_1st_Marquess_Curzon_of_Kedleston | George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston | George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), known as Lord Curzon (), was a British statesman, Conservative politician, explorer and writer who served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 and Foreign Secretary from 1919 to 1924.
Curzon was born in Derbyshire into an aristocratic family and educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, before entering Parliament in 1885. In the following years, he travelled extensively in Russia, Central Asia and the Far East, and published several books on the region in which he detailed his geopolitical outlook and underlined the perceived Russian threat to British control of India. In 1891, Curzon was named Under-Secretary of State for India, and in 1899 he was appointed Viceroy of India. During his tenure, he pursued a number of reforms of the British administration, attempted to address the British maltreatment of Indians, undertook the restoration of the Taj Mahal, and sent a British expedition to Tibet to counter Russian ambitions. In 1905, he presided over the partition of Bengal and came into conflict with Lord Kitchener over issues of military organisation. Unable to secure the backing of the government in London, he resigned later that year and returned to England.
In 1907, Curzon became Chancellor of Oxford University, and the following year he was elected to the House of Lords as an Irish representative peer. During the First World War, he served in H. H. Asquith's coalition cabinet as Lord Privy Seal, and from late 1916 he was Leader of the House of Lords and served in the war cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the War Policy Committee. He was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in October 1919 and lent his name to Britain's proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line. He also oversaw the division of the British Mandate of Palestine and the creation of the Emirate of Transjordan, and was the chief Allied negotiator of the 1922 Treaty of Lausanne which defined the borders of modern Turkey. In 1921, he was created a marquess. On Bonar Law's retirement as prime minister in 1923, Curzon was a contender for the office but was passed over in favour of Stanley Baldwin. He remained as foreign secretary until 1924 when the Baldwin government fell, and died a year later at the age of 66.
== Early life ==
Curzon was the eldest son and the second of the eleven children of Alfred Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), who was the rector of Kedleston in Derbyshire. George's mother was Blanche (1837–1875), the daughter of Joseph Pocklington-Senhouse of Netherhall in Cumberland. He was born at Kedleston Hall, built on the site where his family, who were clergymen and priests, had lived since the 12th century. His mother, exhausted by childbirth, died when George was 16; her husband survived her by 41 years. Neither parent exerted a major influence on Curzon's life. Scarsdale was an austere and unindulgent father who believed that landowners should stay on their land and not indefinitely tour the world for pleasure. He disapproved of the journeys across Asia between 1887 and 1895 which made his son one of the most travelled men to be a member of any British cabinet. An influential presence in Curzon's childhood was that of his brutal, sadistic governess, Ellen Mary Paraman, whose tyranny in the nursery stimulated his combative qualities and encouraged the obsessional side of his nature. Paraman used to beat him and periodically forced him to parade through the village wearing a conical hat bearing the words liar, sneak, and coward. Curzon later noted, "No children well born and well-placed ever cried so much and so justly."
He was educated at Wixenford School, Eton College, and Balliol College, Oxford. His over-intimate relationship at Eton College with Oscar Browning led to the latter's dismissal. A spinal injury incurred while riding during his adolescence was a lifelong impediment to Curzon that required him to wear a metal corset for the remainder of his life.
Curzon was President of the Union and Secretary of the Oxford Canning Club (a Tory political club named after George Canning), but as a consequence of the extent of his time-expenditure on political and social societies, he failed to achieve a first class degree in Greats, although he subsequently won both the Lothian Prize Essay and the Arnold Prize, the latter for an essay on Sir Thomas More, about whom he knew little. In 1883, Curzon received the most prestigious fellowship at the university, a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College. While at Eton and at Oxford, Curzon was a contemporary and close friend of Cecil Spring Rice and Edward Grey. Spring Rice contributed, alongside John William Mackail, to the composition of a famous sardonic doggerel about Curzon that was published as part of The Balliol Masque, about which Curzon wrote in later life "never has more harm been done to one single individual than that accursed doggerel has done to me." It read:
When Spring Rice was assigned to the British Embassy to the United States in 1894–1895, he was suspected by Curzon of trying to prevent Curzon's engagement to the American Mary Leiter, whom Curzon nevertheless married. Spring Rice assumed for a certainty, like many of Curzon's other friends, that Curzon would inevitably become Foreign Secretary: he wrote to Curzon in 1891, 'When you are Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I hope you will restore the vanished glory of England, lead the European concert, decide the fate of nations, and give me three months' leave instead of two'.
Old texts state that he spent few months in a cottage in Dehradun, India. Though exact records are not available there is a road named after him there (probably near his erstwhile cottage).
== Early political career ==
In his youth, Curzon regularly attended debates at the House of Commons. Curzon became Assistant Private Secretary to the Marquess of Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered Parliament as Member for Southport in south-west Lancashire. His maiden speech, which was chiefly an attack on home rule and Irish nationalism, was regarded in much the same way as his oratory at the Oxford Union: brilliant and eloquent but also presumptuous and rather too self-assured. The press reaction was mainly favourable. The Times called it 'brilliant' while other newspapers described it as 'capital' and a 'decided success', and the St James' Gazette deemed it 'very successful' though 'unnecessarily flippant in tone'. Subsequent performances in the Commons, often dealing with Ireland or reform of the House of Lords (which he supported), received similar verdicts. He was Under-Secretary of State for India in 1891–1892 and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1895–1898.
== Asian travels and writings ==
In the meantime Curzon had travelled around the world: Russia and Central Asia (1888–1889); Persia (September 1889 – January 1890); Siam, French Indochina, China, Korea and Japan (1892); and a daring foray into Afghanistan and the Pamirs (1894–1895). He published several books describing central and eastern Asia and related foreign policy issues. A bold and compulsive traveller, driven by orientalism, he was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration of the source of the Amu Darya (Oxus). His journeys allowed him to study the problems of Asia and their implications for British India, while reinforcing his pride in his nation and her imperial mission.
Curzon believed Russia to be the most likely threat to British India, Britain's most valuable possession, from the 19th century through the early 20th century. In 1879 Russia had begun construction of the Transcaspian Railway along the Silk Road, officially solely to enforce local control. The line starts from the city of Kyzyl-Su, formerly Krasnovodsk (nowadays Turkmenbashi) (on the Caspian Sea), travels southeast along the Karakum Desert, through Ashgabat, continues along the Kopet Dagh Mountains until it reaches Tejen. Curzon dedicated an entire chapter in his book Russia in Central Asia to discussing the perceived threat to British control of India. This railway connected Russia with the most wealthy and influential cities in Central Asia at the time, including the Persian Khorasan Province, and would allow the rapid deployment of Russian supplies and troops into the area. Curzon also believed that the resulting greater economic interdependence between Russia and Central Asia would be damaging to British interests.
Persia and the Persian Question, written in 1892, has been considered Curzon's magnum opus and can be seen as a sequel to Russia in Central Asia. Curzon was commissioned by The Times to write several articles on the Persian political environment, but while there he decided to write a book on the country as whole. This two-volume work covers Persia's history and governmental structure, as well as graphics, maps and pictures (some taken by Curzon himself). Curzon was aided by General Albert Houtum-Schindler and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), both of which helped him gain access to material to which as a foreigner he would not have been entitled to have access. General Schindler provided Curzon with information regarding Persia's geography and resources, as well as serving as an unofficial editor.
Curzon was appalled by his government's apathy towards Persia as a valuable defensive buffer to India from Russian encroachment. Years later Curzon would lament that "Persia has alternatively advanced and receded in the estimation of British statesmen, occupying now a position of extravagant prominence, anon one of unmerited obscurity."
== First marriage (1895–1906) ==
On 22 April 1895, Curzon married Mary Victoria Leiter, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Levi Leiter, an American millionaire of Swiss descent, who co-founded the Chicago department store Field & Leiter (later Marshall Field). While he married Mary for her wealth so he could save his estate, he later developed feelings for her. Mary had a long and nearly fatal illness near the end of summer 1904, from which she never really recovered. Falling ill again in July 1906, she died on the 18th of that month in her husband's arms, at the age of 36. It was the greatest personal loss of his life.
She was buried in the church at Kedleston, where Curzon designed his memorial for her, a Gothic chapel added to the north side of the nave. Although he was neither a devout nor a conventional churchman, Curzon retained a simple religious faith; in later years he sometimes said that he was not afraid of death because it would enable him to join Mary in heaven.
They had three daughters during a firm and happy marriage: Mary Irene (known as Irene), who inherited her father's Barony of Ravensdale and was created a life peer in her own right; Cynthia Blanche, who became the first wife of the fascist politician Sir Oswald Mosley; and Alexandra Naldera ("Baba"), Curzon's youngest daughter; she married Edward "Fruity" Metcalfe, the best friend, best man and equerry of Edward VIII. Mosley exercised a strange fascination for the Curzon women: Irene had a brief romance with him before either were married; Baba became his mistress; and Curzon's second wife, Grace, had a long affair with him.
== Viceroy of India (1899–1905) ==
Curzon, in 1901, had famously said, "As long as we rule India we are the greatest power in the world. If we lose it, we shall drop straightaway to a third-rate power."
In January 1899 Curzon was appointed as Viceroy of India. He was created a baron in the peerage of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, on his appointment. (The title was "Curzon of Kedleston" rather than simply "Curzon" because his kinsmen the Earls Howe were already Viscounts and Barons Curzon.) As Viceroy, he was ex officio Grand Master of the Order of the Indian Empire and Order of the Star of India. This peerage was created in the Peerage of Ireland (the last so created) so that he would be free, until his father's death, to re-enter the House of Commons on his return to Britain.
Reaching India shortly after the suppression of the frontier risings of 1897–98, he paid special attention to the independent tribes of the north-west frontier, inaugurated a new province called the North West Frontier Province, and pursued a policy of forceful control mingled with conciliation. In response to what he called "a number of murderous attacks upon Englishmen and Europeans", Curzon advocated at the Quetta Durbar extremely draconian punishments which he believed would stop what he viewed as such especially abominable crimes. In his own private correspondence, Curzon pondered "Is it possible, under the law, to flog these horrible scoundrels before we execute them? Supposing we remove them for execution to another and distant jail, could we flog them in the first jail before removal? I believe that if we could postpone the execution for a few weeks and give the criminal a few good public floggings – or even one, were more not possible – it would act as a real deterrent. But I have a suspicion that British law does not smile upon anything so eminently practical." The only major armed outbreak on this frontier during the period of his administration was the Mahsud-Waziri campaign of 1901.
In the context of the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires for control of Central Asia, he held deep mistrust of Russian intentions. This led him to encourage British trade in Persia, and he paid a visit to the Persian Gulf in 1903. Curzon argued for an exclusive British presence in the Gulf, a policy originally proposed by John Malcolm. The British government was already making agreements with local sheiks/tribal leaders along the Persian Gulf coast to this end. Curzon had convinced his government to establish Britain as the unofficial protector of Kuwait with the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899. The Lansdowne Declaration in 1903 stated that the British would counter any other European power's attempt to establish a military presence in the Gulf. Only four years later this position was abandoned and the Persian Gulf was declared a neutral zone in the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, prompted in part by the high economic cost of defending India from Russian advances.
=== Trucial States ===
That neutral status did not extend to the Trucial States, which were bound to Britain under a number of treaties signed since the General Maritime Treaty of 1820, including the Exclusive Agreement of 1892, which bound the Trucial Sheikhs ‘not to enter into any agreement or correspondence with any Power other than the British Government’. On 21 November 1903, Curzon held a Darbar in Sharjah (today one of the United Arab Emirates) and addressed the Sheikhs of the Trucial Coast assembled on the Argonaut, moored some five miles offshore of Sharjah because of the shallow waters nearer land.
In his address to them, Curzon made it clear they should consider themselves blessed by the Pax Brittanica: they were to be appreciative of the peace the British had brought. The 'pacificated Arabs' were to consider that ‘the influence of the British government must remain supreme’ and abide by their treaty obligations by sea and on land. Three years later, in 1906, the Sheikhs were all presented with a bound collection of the treaties their predecessors had entered into with the British, as a reminder of the obligations they were considered to have inherited. Printed in both Arabic and English, the collection was introduced by a transcribed copy of Curzon’s 1903 Durbar address.
=== Indian reform ===
At the end of 1903, Curzon sent a British expedition to Tibet under Francis Younghusband, ostensibly to forestall a Russian advance. After bloody conflicts with Tibet's poorly armed defenders, the mission penetrated to Lhasa, where the Treaty of Lhasa was signed in September 1904.
During his tenure, Curzon undertook the restoration of the Taj Mahal and expressed satisfaction that he had done so. Curzon was influenced by Hindu philosophy and quoted:
India has left a deeper mark upon the history the philosophy and the religion of mankind than any other terrestrial unit in the universe.
Within India, Curzon appointed a number of commissions to inquire into education, irrigation, police and other branches of administration, on whose reports legislation was based during his second term of office as viceroy. Reappointed Governor-General in August 1904, he presided over the 1905 partition of Bengal.
In 'Lion and the Tiger : The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, 1600–1947', Denis Judd wrote: "Curzon had hoped… to bind India permanently to the Raj. Ironically, his partition of Bengal, and the bitter controversy that followed, did much to revitalize Congress. Curzon, typically, had dismissed the Congress in 1900 as 'tottering to its fall'. But he left India with Congress more active and effective than at any time in its history." Curzon was determined to address the British maltreatment of Indians. In particular, he incurred the displeasure of many in the European community in India by pressing for severe punishment for Europeans who had attacked Indians. On two occasions, he imposed collective punishment on British Army units which had attacked Indians: when soldiers of the West Kent Regiment raped a Burmese woman, he had the whole regiment exiled to Aden without leave. He later imposed similar punishment on the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers for the murder of an Indian cook.
Mahatma Gandhi lauded Curzon as the first viceroy to express sympathy for indentured Indian labourers and question why the system should continue. Curzon was especially concerned with the treatment of Indian emigrants to the Transvaal and Natal. After learning about the realities of labour conditions for indentured Indians, he deemed it impossible to defend the system in its current state, and committed to a stance of reform. In 1900, Curzon wrote an appeal to the Permanent Under-Secretary for India calling for indentured labourers to be treated better given their contribution to colonial defences, although this did not prompt immediate change. On 14 May 1903, he wrote a lengthy despatch to the India Office demanding full discretion to withdraw from the system of indentured labour if they would not concede to the proper treatment of Indian workers. He continued to champion this cause throughout his time as viceroy.
Curzon proposed the Partition of Bengal and put it into effect on 16 October 1905 creating the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Behind this incident, his excuse was that the area of Bengal was too large and it was difficult for the British to administer efficiently but actually his intention was to divide Bengalis into religious and territorial grounds to weaken the growing nationalism in Bengal. He said, "Partition of Bengal is a settled fact and what is settled cannot be unsettled." Huge protest (Swadeshi movement) was seen from every corner of Bengal and on 1911 this so-called "settled fact" became "unsettled" by Lord Hardinge. It was done in response to the Swadeshi movement's riots in protest against the policy but the partition animated the Muslims to form their own national organization along communal lines.
=== Indian Army ===
Curzon took an active interest in military matters and in 1901 he founded the Imperial Cadet Corps, or ICC. The ICC was a corps d'elite, designed to give Indian princes and aristocrats military training, after which a few would be given officer commissions in the Indian Army but these commissions were "special commissions" which did not empower their holders to command any troops. Predictably, this was a major stumbling block to the ICC's success, as it caused much resentment among former cadets. Though the ICC closed in 1914, it was a crucial stage in the drive to Indianise the Indian Army's officer corps, which was haltingly begun in 1917.
Military organisation proved to be the final issue faced by Curzon in India. It often involved petty issues that had much to do with clashes of personality: Curzon once wrote on a document "I rise from the perusal of these papers filled with the sense of the ineptitude of my military advisers", and once wrote to the Commander-in-Chief, India, Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, advising him that signing himself "Kitchener of Khartoum" took up too much time and space, which Kitchener thought petty (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon" as if he were a hereditary peer, although he later took to signing himself "Curzon of Kedleston"). A difference of opinion with Kitchener regarding the status of the military member of the Viceroy's Executive Council (who controlled army supply and logistics, which Kitchener wanted under his own control), led to a controversy in which Curzon failed to obtain the support of the home government. He resigned in August 1905 and returned to England.
=== Indian famine ===
A major famine coincided with Curzon's time as viceroy in which 1 to 4.5 million people died. Curzon implemented a variety of measures, including opening up famine relief works that fed between 3 and 5 million, reducing taxes and spending vast amounts of money on irrigation works. In Late Victorian Holocausts, the historian Mike Davis criticised Curzon for cutting back rations and raising relief eligibility. At the time, Curzon stated that "any government which imperiled the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fibre and demoralized the self-reliance of the population, would be guilty of a public crime."
== Return to Britain ==
Arthur Balfour's refusal to recommend an earldom for Curzon in 1905 was repeated by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal prime minister, who formed his government the day after Curzon returned to England. In deference to the wishes of the King and the advice of his doctors, Curzon did not stand in the general election of 1906 and thus found himself excluded from public life for the first time in twenty years. It was at this time, the nadir of his career, that Mary died.
After the death of Lord Goschen in 1907, the post of Chancellor of Oxford University fell vacant. Curzon was elected as Chancellor of Oxford after by 1,001 votes to 440 against Lord Rosebery. He proved to be an active chancellor – "[he] threw himself so energetically into the cause of university reform that critics complained he was ruling Oxford like an Indian province."
== House of Lords ==
In 1908, Curzon was elected an Irish representative peer, and thus relinquished any idea of returning to the House of Commons. In 1909–1910 he took an active part in opposing the Liberal government's proposal to abolish the legislative veto of the House of Lords, and in 1911 was created Baron Ravensdale, of Ravensdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to his daughters, Viscount Scarsdale, of Scarsdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to the heirs male of his father, and Earl Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, with the normal remainder, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
He became involved with saving Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, from destruction. This experience strengthened his resolve for heritage protection. He was one of the sponsors of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act 1913. He served as President of the Committee commissioning the Survey of London which documented the capital's principal buildings and public art.
On 5 May 1914, he spoke out against a bill in the House of Lords that would have permitted women who already had the right to vote in local elections the right to vote for members of Parliament.
== First World War ==
Curzon joined the Cabinet, as Lord Privy Seal, when Asquith formed his coalition in May 1915. Like other politicians (e.g. Austen Chamberlain, Arthur Balfour) Curzon favoured British Empire efforts in Mesopotamia, believing that the increase in British prestige would discourage a German-inspired Muslim revolt in India. Curzon was a member of the Dardanelles Committee and told that body (October 1915) that the recent Salonika expedition was "quixotic chivalry". Early in 1916 Curzon visited Sir Douglas Haig (newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France) at his headquarters in France. Haig was impressed by Curzon's brains and decisiveness, and considered that he had mellowed since his days as viceroy (Major-General Haig had been Inspector-General of Cavalry, India, at the time) and had lost "his old pompous ways". Curzon served in Lloyd George's small War cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords from December 1916, and he also served on the War Policy Committee. With Allied victory over Germany far from certain, Curzon wrote a paper (12 May 1917) for the War Cabinet urging that Britain seize Palestine and possibly Syria. Like other members of the War Cabinet, Curzon supported further Western Front offensives lest, with Russian commitment to the war wavering, France and Italy be tempted to make a separate peace.
At the War Policy Committee (3 October 1917) Curzon objected in vain to plans to redeploy two divisions to Palestine, with a view to advancing into Syria and knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war altogether. Curzon's commitment wavered somewhat as the losses of the Third Battle of Ypres mounted. In the summer of 1917 the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) General William Robertson sent Haig a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, who he said were all frightened of Lloyd George; he described Curzon as "a gasbag". During the crisis of February 1918, Curzon was one of the few members of the government to support Robertson, threatening in vain to resign if he were removed. Despite his opposition to women's suffrage (he had been co-president of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage), the House of Lords voted conclusively in its favour.
== Second marriage (1917) ==
After a long affair with the romantic novelist Elinor Glyn, Curzon married the former Grace Elvina Hinds in January 1917. She was the wealthy Alabama-born widow of Alfredo Huberto Duggan (died 1915), a first-generation Irish Argentinian appointed to the Argentine Legation in London in 1905. Elinor Glyn was staying with Curzon at the time of the engagement and read about it in the morning newspapers.
Grace had three children from her first marriage, two sons, Alfred and Hubert, and a daughter, Grace Lucille. Alfred and Hubert, as Curzon's step-sons, grew up within his influential circle. Curzon had three daughters from his first marriage, but he and Grace (despite fertility-related operations and several miscarriages) did not have any children together, which put a strain on their marriage. Letters written between them in the early 1920s imply that they still lived together, and remained devoted to each other. In 1923, Curzon was passed over for the office of Prime Minister partly on the advice of Arthur Balfour, who joked that Curzon "has lost the hope of glory but he still possesses the means of Grace" (a humorous allusion to the well known "General Thanksgiving" prayer of the Church of England, which thanks God for "the means of grace, and for the hope of glory").
In 1917, Curzon bought Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, a 14th-century building that had been gutted during the English Civil War. He restored it extensively, and then bequeathed it to the National Trust. From 1915 he also rented Montacute House as a residence for himself and Elinor Glyn.
== Foreign Secretary (1919–1924) ==
=== Relations with Lloyd George ===
Curzon did not have David Lloyd George's support. Curzon and Lloyd George had disliked one another since the 1911 Parliament Crisis. The Prime Minister thought him overly pompous and self-important, and it was said that he used him as if he were using a Rolls-Royce to deliver a parcel to the station; Lloyd George said much later that Winston Churchill treated his ministers in a way that Lloyd George would never have treated his: "They were all men of substance — well, except Curzon." Multiple drafts of resignation letters written at this time were found upon Curzon's death. Despite their antagonism, the two were often in agreement on government policy. Lloyd George needed the wealth of knowledge Curzon possessed so was both his biggest critic and, simultaneously, his largest supporter. Likewise, Curzon was grateful for the leeway he was allowed by Lloyd George when it came to handling affairs in the Middle East.
Other cabinet ministers also respected his vast knowledge of Central Asia but disliked his arrogance and often blunt criticism. Believing that the Foreign Secretary should be non-partisan, he would objectively present all the information on a subject to the Cabinet, as if placing faith in his colleagues to reach the appropriate decision. Conversely, Curzon would take personally and respond aggressively to any criticism.
It has been suggested that Curzon's defensiveness reflected institutional insecurity by the Foreign Office as a whole. During the 1920s the Foreign Office was often a passive participant in decisions which were mainly reactive and dominated by the prime minister. The creation of the job of Colonial Secretary, the Cabinet Office and the League of Nations added to the Foreign Office's insecurity.
=== Policy under Lloyd George ===
After nine months as acting Secretary while Balfour was at the Paris Peace Conference, Curzon was appointed Foreign Secretary in October 1919. He gave his name to the British government's proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line of December 1919. Although during the subsequent Polish-Soviet War, Poland conquered territory in the east, after World War II, Poland was shifted westwards, leaving the border between Poland and its eastern neighbours today approximately at the Curzon Line.
Curzon was largely responsible for the Peace Day ceremonies on 19 July 1919. These included the plaster Cenotaph, designed by the noted architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, for the Allied Victory parade in London. It was so successful that it was reproduced in stone, and still stands.
In 1918, during World War I, as Britain occupied Mesopotamia, Curzon tried to convince the Indian government to reconsider his scheme for Persia to be a buffer against Russian advances. British and Indian troops were in Persia protecting the oilfields at Abadan and watching the Afghan frontier – Curzon believed that British economic and military aid, sent via India, could prop up the Persian government and make her a British client state. The Anglo-Persian Agreement of August 1919 was never ratified and the British government rejected the plan as Russia had the geographical advantage and the defensive benefits would not justify the high economic cost.
Small British forces had twice occupied Baku on the Caspian in 1918, while an entire British division had occupied Batum on the Black Sea, supervising German and Turkish withdrawal. Against Curzon's wishes, but on the advice of Sir George Milne, the commander on the spot, the CIGS Sir Henry Wilson, who wanted to concentrate troops in Britain, Ireland, India, and Egypt, and of Churchill (Secretary of State for War), the British withdrew from Baku (the small British naval presence was also withdrawn from the Caspian Sea), at the end of August 1919 leaving only three battalions at Batum.
In January 1920 Curzon insisted that British troops remain in Batum, against the wishes of Wilson and the prime minister. In February, while Curzon was on holiday, Wilson persuaded the Cabinet to allow withdrawal, but Curzon had the decision reversed on his return, although to Curzon's fury (he thought it "abuse of authority") Wilson gave Milne permission to withdraw if he deemed it necessary. At Cabinet on 5 May 1920 Curzon "by a long-winded jaw" (in Wilson's description) argued for a stay in Batum. After a British garrison at Enzeli (on the Persian Caspian coast) was taken prisoner by Bolshevik forces on 19 May 1920, Lloyd George finally insisted on a withdrawal from Batum early in June 1920. For the rest of 1920 Curzon, supported by Milner (Colonial Secretary), argued that Britain should retain control of Persia. When Wilson asked (15 July 1920) to pull troops out of Persia to put down the rebellions in Iraq and Ireland, Lloyd George blocked the move, saying that Curzon "would not stand it". In the end, financial retrenchment forced a British withdrawal from Persia in the spring of 1921.
Curzon worked on several Middle Eastern problems. He designed the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) between the victorious Allies and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty obliged the de facto end of Turkey's sovereign state status, but a new government in Turkey under Mustafa Kemal rejected the treaty. In response, the Greeks invaded Turkey. Curzon tried and failed to induce the Greeks to accept a compromise on the status of Smyrna and failed to force the Turks to renounce their nationalist program. Lloyd George tried to use force at Chanak but lost support and was forced to step down as prime minister. Curzon remained as foreign secretary and helped tie down loose ends in the Middle East at the peace conference at Lausanne.
Curzon helped to negotiate Egyptian independence (agreed in 1922) and the division of the British Mandate of Palestine, despite the strong disagreement he held with the policy of his predecessor Arthur Balfour, and helped create the Emirate of Transjordan for Faisal's brother, which may also have delayed the problems there. According to Sir David Gilmour, Curzon "was the only senior figure in the British government at the time who foresaw that its policy would lead to decades of Arab–Jewish hostility".
During the Irish War of Independence, but before the introduction of martial law in December 1920, Curzon suggested the "Indian" solution of blockading villages and imposing collective fines for attacks on the police and army.
In 1921 Curzon was granted the titles Earl of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, and Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.
In 1922, he was the chief negotiator for the Allies of the Treaty of Lausanne, which officially ended the war with the Ottoman Empire and defined the borders of Turkey.
Curzon defended the geopolitical talent of Eyre Crowe, who served as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1920 until his death in 1925.
=== Under Bonar Law ===
Unlike many leading Conservative members of Lloyd George's Coalition Cabinet, Curzon ceased to support Lloyd George over the Chanak Crisis and had just resigned when Conservative backbenchers voted at the Carlton Club meeting to end the Coalition in October 1922. Curzon was thus able to remain Foreign Secretary when Bonar Law formed a purely Conservative ministry.
In 1922–23 Curzon had to negotiate with France after French troops occupied the Ruhr to enforce the payment of German reparations; he described the French Prime Minister (and former president) Raymond Poincaré as a "horrid little man". Curzon had expansive ambitions and was not much happier with Bonar Law, whose foreign policy was based on "retrenchment and withdrawal", than he had been with Lloyd George. Curzon provided invaluable insight into the Middle East and was instrumental in shaping British foreign policy in that region.
== Passed over for the premiership, 1923 ==
On Bonar Law's retirement as prime minister in May 1923, Curzon was passed over in favour of Stanley Baldwin, despite his eagerness for the job.
This decision was taken on the private advice of leading members of the party including former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. Balfour advised the monarch that in a democratic age it was inappropriate for the prime minister to be a member of the House of Lords, especially when the Labour Party, which had few peers, had become the main opposition party in the Commons. In private Balfour admitted that he was prejudiced against Curzon, whose character was objectionable to some. George V shared this prejudice. A letter purporting to detail the opinions of Bonar Law but actually written by Baldwin sympathisers was delivered to the King's Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham, though it is unclear how much impact this had in the outcome. Curzon felt he was cheated because J. C. C. Davidson—to whom Baldwin was loyal—and Sir Charles Waterhouse falsely claimed to Stamfordham that Law had recommended that George V appoint Stanley Baldwin, not Curzon, as his successor. Harry Bennett says Curzon's arrogance and unpopularity probably prevented him from becoming prime minister despite his brilliance, great capacity for work and accomplishments.
Winston Churchill, one of Curzon's main rivals, accurately contended that Curzon "sow[ed] gratitude and resentment along his path with equally lavish hands". Even contemporaries who envied Curzon, such as Baldwin, conceded that Curzon was, in the words of his biographer Leonard Mosley, "a devoted and indefatigable public servant, dedicated to the idea of Empire".
Curzon, summoned by Stamfordham, rushed to London assuming he was to be appointed. He burst into tears when told the truth. He later ridiculed Baldwin as "a man of the utmost insignificance", although he served under Baldwin and proposed him for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Curzon remained foreign secretary under Baldwin until the government fell in January 1924. When Baldwin formed a new government in November 1924 he appointed Curzon Lord President of the Council.
Curzon's rejection was a turning point in the nation's political history. Henceforth, by convention peers were deemed to be barred from being leaders of major political parties and from becoming prime minister. In an age of democracy, it was no longer acceptable for the prime minister to be based in an unelected and largely powerless chamber.
== Death ==
In March 1925 Curzon suffered a severe haemorrhage of the bladder. Surgery was unsuccessful and he died in London on 20 March 1925 at the age of 66. His coffin, made from the same tree at Kedleston that had encased his first wife, Mary, was taken to Westminster Abbey and from there to his ancestral home in Derbyshire, where he was interred beside Mary in the family vault at All Saints Church on 26 March. In his will, proven on 22 July, Curzon bequeathed his estate to his wife and his brother Francis; his estate was valued for probate at £343,279 10s. 4d. (roughly equivalent to £25 million in 2023).
Upon his death the barony, earldom and marquessate of Curzon of Kedleston and the earldom of Kedleston became extinct, while the viscountcy and barony of Scarsdale were inherited by a nephew. The barony of Ravensdale was inherited by his eldest daughter Mary and is today held by his second daughter Cynthia's great-grandson, Daniel Mosley, 4th Baron Ravensdale.
There is a blue plaque on the house in London where Curzon lived and died, No. 1 Carlton House Terrace, Westminster.
== Titles ==
On his appointment as Viceroy of India in 1898, he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby. This title was created in the Peerage of Ireland to enable him to potentially return to the House of Commons, as Irish peers did not have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. His was the last title to be created in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1908, he was elected a representative of the Irish peerage in the British House of Lords, from which it followed that he would be a member of the House of Lords until death; indeed, his Irish representative peerage would continue even if (as proved to be the case) he later received a United Kingdom peerage entitling him to a seat in the House of Lords in his own right.
In 1911 he was created Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Viscount Scarsdale, and Baron Ravensdale. All of these titles were in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Upon his father's death in 1916, he also became 5th Baron Scarsdale, in the Peerage of Great Britain. The title had been created in 1761.
In the 1921 Birthday Honours, he was created Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. The title became extinct upon his death in 1925, as he was survived by three daughters and no sons.
== Assessment ==
Few statesmen have experienced such changes in fortune in both their public and their personal lives.
David Gilmour concludes:
Curzon's career was an almost unparalleled blend of triumph and disappointment. Although he was the last and in many ways the greatest of Victorian viceroys, his term of office ended in resignation, empty of recognition and barren of reward.... he was unable to assert himself fully as Foreign Secretary until the last weeks of Lloyd George's premiership. And finally, after he had restored his reputation at Lausanne, his last ambition was thwarted by George V.
Critics generally agreed that Curzon never reached the heights that his youthful talents had seemed destined to reach. This sense of opportunities missed was summed up by Winston Churchill in his book Great Contemporaries (1937):
The morning had been golden, the noontide was bronze, and the evening lead. But all were solid, and each was polished till it shone after its fashion.
Churchill also wrote there was certainly something lacking in Curzon:it was certainly not information nor application, nor power of speech nor attractiveness of manner and appearance. Everything was in his equipment. You could unpack his knapsack and take an inventory item by item. Nothing on the list was missing, yet somehow or other the total was incomplete.
His Cabinet colleague David Lindsay, 27th Earl of Crawford provided a withering personal judgment in his diary; "I never knew a man less loved by his colleagues and more hated by his subordinates, never a man so bereft of conscience, of charity or of gratitude. On the other hand the combination of power, of industry, and of ambition with a mean personality is almost without parallel. I never attended a funeral ceremony at which the congregation was so dry-eyed!"
The first leader of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, paid Curzon a tribute, stating that as viceroy, Curzon exhibited real love of Indian culture. He ordered a restoration project for several historic monuments, including the Taj Mahal:
After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India.
== Legacy ==
By special remainders, although he had no son, two of Curzon's peerages survive to the present day. His barony of Ravensdale went first to his eldest daughter, Irene Curzon, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale, and then to his grandson Nicholas Mosley, both of whom sat in the House of Lords, while his Viscount Scarsdale title went to a nephew. His great-great-grandson Daniel Mosley, 4th Baron Ravensdale, is a current member of the House of Lords, having been elected as a representative hereditary peer.
Curzon Hall, the home of the faculty of science at the University of Dhaka, is named after him. Curzon had inaugurated the building in 1904.
Curzon Gate, a ceremonial gate, was erected by Maharaja Bijay Chand Mahatab in the heart of Burdwan town and was renamed to commemorate Lord Curzon's visit to the town in 1904, which was renamed as Bijay Toran after the independence of India in 1947.
Curzon Road, the road connecting India Gate, the memorial dedicated to the Indian fallen during the Great War of 1914–18, and Connaught Place, in New Delhi was named after him. It has since been renamed Kasturba Gandhi Marg. The apartment buildings on the same road are named after him.
The George Nathaniel Curzon Foundation was established in 2025 to commemorate the centenary of Curzon's death.
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
=== Curzon's writings ===
=== Secondary sources ===
== Further reading ==
Curzon (1926). "George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess of Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) – Bodiam Castle, Sussex : a historical and descriptive survey / by the Marquis Curzon of Kedleston". rct.uk. Retrieved 24 April 2021.
Marabello, Thomas Quinn (2023) "The Centennial of the Treaty of Lausanne: Turkey, Switzerland, the Great Powers and a Soviet Diplomat's Assassination," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 59. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol59/iss3/4
== External links ==
Analysis of George Curzon as Viceroy
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
India under Curzon and after, By Lovat Fraser, Published by William Heinemann, London – 1911. Digital Rare Book :
Problems of the Far East: Japan – Korea – China by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
Modern parliamentary eloquence; the Rede lecture, delivered before the University of Cambridge, 6 November 1913 by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
Russia In Central Asia In 1889 by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
Works by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
War poems and other translations by George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston at archive.org
"Archival material relating to George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston". UK National Archives.
George Nathaniel CURZON was born 11 Jan 1859. He died 20 Mar 1925. George married Mary Victoria LEITER on 22 Apr 1895
Newspaper clippings about George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Shelley#:~:text=Sir%20Timothy%20Shelley%2C%202nd%20Baronet,and%20dramatist%20Percy%20Bysshe%20Shelley. | Timothy Shelley | Sir Timothy Shelley, 2nd Baronet (7 September 1753 – 24 April 1844) was an English politician and lawyer. He was the son of Sir Bysshe Shelley, 1st Baronet, and the father of Romantic poet and dramatist Percy Bysshe Shelley.
== Early life and education ==
Timothy Shelley was the son of Sir Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Catherine Michell (1734–1760), daughter of the Reverend Theobald Michell and his wife Mary Tredcroft. He studied at University College, Oxford, and was awarded his bachelor's degree in 1778, his master's degree following in 1781. He then studied law at Lincoln's Inn.
== Career ==
Shelley was elected as a member of parliament (MP) for Horsham, Sussex, at the 1790 general election, but an election petition was lodged and the result was overturned on 19 March 1792. He was elected as MP for New Shoreham at the 1802 general election. Shelley was re-elected for Shoreham in 1806, 1807, and 1812, and held the seat until he stood down at the 1818 general election.
He associated with the Duke of Norfolk during his time in the British political sphere.
== Personal life ==
Shelley married Elizabeth Pilfold in October 1791 and they moved to Field Place in Warnham, West Sussex, approximately 40 miles (64 km) outside London. The couple had seven children:
Percy Bysshe (1792–1822), English Romantic poet
Elizabeth (1794–1831)
Hellen (1796–1796)
Mary (1797–1884)
Hellen (1799–1885)
Margaret (1801–1887)
John (1806–1866)
None of Shelley's daughters married except for Mary, who in 1819 married D. F. Haynes.
== Titles ==
Mr Timothy Shelley (1753–1790)
Mr Timothy Shelley MP (1790–1815)
Sir Timothy Shelley (1815–1844)
Shelley inherited the baronetcy on 6 January 1815, becoming the 2nd Baronet Shelley of Castle Goring, Sussex.
== Ancestry ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Timothy Shelley |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Crombie | 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/The_Minute_Man | The Minute Man | The Minute Man is an 1874 sculpture by Daniel Chester French in Minute Man National Historical Park, Concord, Massachusetts. It was created between 1871 and 1874 after extensive research, and was originally intended to be made of stone. The medium was switched to bronze and it was cast from ten Civil War-era cannons appropriated by Congress.
The statue depicts a minuteman stepping away from his plow to join the patriot forces at the Battle of Concord, at the start of the American Revolutionary War. The young man has an overcoat thrown over his plow, and has a musket in his hand. Nineteenth-century art historians noticed that the pose resembles that of the Apollo Belvedere. Until the late twentieth century, it was assumed that the pose was transposed from the earlier statue. Based on Daniel Chester French's journals, modern art historians have shown that the Apollo Belvedere was only one of several statues that were used in the research for The Minute Man.
The statue was unveiled in 1875 for the centennial of the Battle of Concord. It received critical acclaim and continues to be praised by commentators. The statue has been a suffragette symbol and a symbol of the United States National Guard and its components, the Army National Guard, and the Air National Guard, and depicted on coins such as the 1925 Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar and the 2000 Massachusetts state quarter.
== Background ==
Minutemen or Minute Companies were a part of the militia of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The name minutemen comes from the idea that they would be ready to fight with a minute's notice. The force was created in response to the Massachusetts militia's failure to respond to the Powder Alarm in September 1774. Unlike the general militia, which was made up of all able-bodied white men between 16 and 60, the two companies of minutemen were made up of young volunteers who were paid one shilling, eight pence for their time drilling three times a week. The other difference between the general militia and minutemen was how officers were appointed. In the general militia, officers were appointed by the governor as a political favor; officers of minutemen were elected by their peers. By February 1775, Concord, Massachusetts had 104 minutemen in two companies.
=== Battles of Lexington and Concord ===
In 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress designated Concord as the stockpile for patriot cannons, gunpowder, and ammunition. In response to the growing stockpile of arms, British Army General Thomas Gage sent spies to Concord to survey the preparations. Based on the reports from spies and instructions from Secretary of State for America William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, Gage ordered a preemptive strike on Concord. At daybreak on April 19, 1775, six companies of grenadiers and light infantry under the command of major John Pitcairn met a group of 70 militiamen under the command of John Parker on the Lexington Common. The militiamen were alerted to the British advance by Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott who traveled from Boston. It is unknown who fired the first shot of the Battle of Lexington, but after less than 30 minutes of fighting, eight militiamen were killed and nine were wounded. After dispersing the patriots, Pitcairn moved his troops on to Concord.
Based on alerts from Prescott and reports from Lexington 150 minutemen from Concord and Lincoln mustered on the Concord Common under the command of James Barrett. After meeting the advancing British troops, the minutemen retreated to higher ground without firing a shot. Since the British troops had control of the town, they proceeded to search for and destroy the stockpiled supplies. The cannon, musket balls, and flour were all rendered unusable, but the gunpowder was removed before it could be seized. While the British were searching the town, the minutemen moved to the Old North Bridge and were reinforced by militiamen from other towns. At the bridge, 400 minutemen and militiamen repelled the British advance and forced them to retreat. Many of the minutemen who participated in the Battle of Concord went home after the British retreated from the bridge. However, minutemen from other towns skirmished with the British troops during their march back to Boston.
=== 1836 Battle monument ===
In 1825, the Bunker Hill Monument Association donated $500 (equivalent to $13,900 in 2024) to Concord to build a monument to the Battle of Concord. The original plan was to place the monument "near the town pump" in Concord. Due to disagreements within the town, nothing was done with the money until Ezra Ripley donated land for the monument near the Old North Bridge in 1835. After the donation, the town had Solomon Willard design a simple 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter) granite obelisk to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Concord. The "Concord Hymn" was written by transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson for the dedication of the monument in 1836. At the ceremony, it was sung to the tune of "Old Hundred".
To the dislike of Emerson, the obelisk stands on the bank of the river where the British stood during battle. The Minute Man was created for the centennial celebration of the battle in 1875. Unlike the earlier monument, it was to be placed on the bank where the Massachusetts militia stood.
== Creation and unveiling ==
The monument committee for The Minute Man— which consisted of George M. Brooks, John B. More, John S. Keyes, and Emerson —only considered Daniel Chester French because he was from Concord and his father, Henry F. French, was a prominent local lawyer and former judge. The statue was French's first full-size work; previously French had produced a bust of his father and one additional statue. In 1871, a year before he was formally commissioned, the committee chairman asked French to start working on the statue. Throughout the year, French sketched possible poses for the statue. That summer, he created a small clay "related figure" that was rejected by the committee. It is unknown what that statue looked like and it was not saved.
French researched The Minute Man by studying powder horns and buttons from the era. According to Harold Holzer, because French was a handsome man, "there would be a line of young women outside his studio ready to show him their alleged Colonial artifacts" to help him with his research. After a months-long search, a plow from the correct era was located to model for the statue. In 1873, his second clay model of the statue was accepted by the statue committee. The same year, the medium of the statue was changed from stone to bronze. The miniature version of the statue won a local art competition in September 1873, but the pose of the figure was deemed "awkwardly stiff" by critics. The pose of The Minute Man was made more natural in the enlargement process by working with models. By September 1874, the statue was completed and a plaster version of the clay statue was sent to Ames Manufacturing Works in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Because the town did not have the money to cast the statue in bronze, through a bill introduced by Ebenezer R. Hoar, the United States Congress appropriated ten Civil War-era cannons to the project. The statue was cast with the metal from guns.
The statue was unveiled on April 19, 1875, during the centennial celebration of the Battle of Concord, in a ceremony attended by President Ulysses S. Grant and Ralph Waldo Emerson. French, however, left for Italy to further study sculpture in 1874 and was not in attendance. Holzer suggests that French avoided the celebration "in case the statue was panned" by contemporary critics. French's fears were unfounded and the statue was positively received by art critics and the public.
=== The Concord Minute Man of 1775 ===
French was commissioned by the town of Concord in 1889 to rework The Minute Man for the Yorktown-class gunboat USS Concord. The new statue, paid for by Congress, was titled The Concord Minute Man of 1775. The reworked statue cleaned up some imperfections in the face of the original statue and incorporated elements of Beaux-Arts. French made the movement of the new statue more fluid and natural. It was completed in 1890 and installed on the gunboat in 1891. A copy of the statue was also carried by the Omaha-class cruiser USS Concord in the 1940s.
== Composition ==
=== Statue ===
The statue is 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall and depicts a minuteman at the Battle of Concord. It is, perhaps, a portrait of Isaac Davis, an officer who died in the battle. The farmer-turned-soldier is shown trading his plow for a musket and stepping away from his private life toward the impending battle. The sleeves of his coat and shirt are rolled up; the minuteman's overcoat is draped over the plow. A powder horn, mistakenly, sits on the man's back instead of on his hip where it can be used. His face is alert while his eyes are transfixed on the battle into which he is ready to march. On his head sits a wide-brimmed hat that has been pinned on the right side.
The pose of the soldier has been compared to the pose of the Apollo Belvedere. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century art critics, such as Lorado Taft and H. C. Howard, have suggested that the pose was directly copied from the Roman sculpture. Howard in particular trivializes the sculpture as "little more than an Americanized rendition of the Apollo Belvedere". Modern scholarship, working with French's journals, disagrees that the pose is a copy while acknowledging that French used a variety of plaster casts of classical sculptures, including the Apollo Belvedere, as inspiration when creating The Minute Man.
=== Pedestal ===
The Minute Man was intended to be placed on a local boulder by the town of Concord. At the insistence of French and his father, the town allowed for the design of a stone pedestal. Several architects submitted designs to the town, including French's brother, but the competition was won by James Elliot Cabot. The resulting design is a simple granite pedestal that is 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) tall and 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) wide with inscriptions in two sides. On the front, it is inscribed with the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn". The date of the battle and the year of the centennial are on the rear. Cabot's design is nearly identical to French's final pedestal design. Throughout the creation of The Minute Man, French sketched and built a variety of potential pedestals.
Beneath the pedestal is a copper time capsule from 1875 that contains items from past celebrations of the battle, maps, and photographs of both the sculpture and sculptor. In 1975, a second time capsule was placed beneath the pedestal that included Girl Scouts USA pins, the United States Bicentennial's flag, and a cassette tape.
== Reception ==
The Minute Man is highly regarded by art historians and critics. Rudyard Kipling came "very near to choking" when he saw the statue and battlefield during his 1892 tour of the United States. Anna Seaton-Schmidt referred to it as "the most inspiring of our soldier monuments" in her 1922 biography of French in The American Magazine of Art. The Boston National Historic Sites Commission claimed the statue "perfectly personifies the American Patriot" in their 1959 interim report. Michael Richman, the 1971–1972 Samuel H. Kress Fellow, calls it a "masterwork in nineteenth-century American sculpture". Chris Bergeron from The MetroWest Daily News describes The Minute Man as "naturalistic detail imbued with an idealistic effect". Harold Holzer describes the statue as representative of French's style of "naturalism, a great feeling of humanity, and connection to the subject".
Louisa May Alcott, writing for Woman's Journal, commented on the lack of place for women in its unveiling ceremony. Alcott and other suffragettes appropriated the statue as a symbol of their struggle for voting rights, and the suffragettes made pilgrimages to the statue in the 1880s.
=== Government usage ===
The Minute Man was widely used by the US government to evoke the idea of the citizen-soldier, commemorate the Battle of Concord, and serve as a symbol for Massachusetts. The statue appears on the seal of the United States National Guard and its components, the Army National Guard, and the Air National Guard. In 1925, the United States Post Office Department released a five-cent stamp depicting the statue and verses from "Concord Hymn". The United States Treasury has used the statue on both war bonds and savings bonds. Workplaces and schools with a 90% war bond participation rate were authorized to fly a flag featuring The Minute Man during World War II. The statue has been depicted on United States coins twice. It appears on the obverse of the 1925 Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar, and on the reverse of the 2000 Massachusetts state quarter along with an outline of the state.
== See also ==
Public sculptures by Daniel Chester French
== References ==
=== Notes ===
=== Citations ===
=== Bibliography ===
== External links ==
Media related to Minuteman by Daniel Chester French at Wikimedia Commons |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_painting | Indonesian painting | Indonesian painting has a very long tradition and history in Indonesian art, though because of the climatic conditions very few early examples survive, Indonesia is home to some of the oldest paintings in the world. The earliest Indonesian paintings were the rock paintings of prehistoric times, such as the petroglyphs found in places like in the caves in the district of Maros in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Stone Age rock paintings found in Maros Cave are approximately 40,000 years old and are listed as one of the oldest paintings in the world.
In November 2018, however, scientists reported the discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo (Kalimantan). In December 2019, figurative cave paintings depicting pig hunting in the Maros-Pangkep karst in Sulawesi were estimated to be even older, at at least 43,900 years old. The finding was noted to be “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world”. And more recently, in 2021, cave art of a pig found in an Indonesian island, and dated to over 45,500 years, has been reported.
== Prehistoric ==
In prehistoric times, painting played an important role because every painting had a specific meaning and purpose. At that time the paintings were made on cave walls and rocks. One of the techniques used by cave people to paint on cave walls is by placing their hands on the cave walls, then spraying them with chewing leaves or colored mineral stones. This spraying technique is known as the aerograph. Another medium used to make paintings is clay. The dyes used come from natural ingredients such as minerals and animal fats. In general, the purpose and theme chosen for making these paintings are magical.
Examples of prehistoric paintings can be seen at Leang Pattakere Cave in Maros, South Sulawesi. The painting depicts a hunting scene. In addition, there are also paintings on cave walls on the south coast of West Papua on the island of New Guinea. The paintings in these places depict ancestors. The thing that drew attention to the paintings scattered over such a vast area were the silhouettes of the hands everywhere. These handprints are also found in South Sulawesi, on paintings on rock cliffs in the bay of Seram Island, in the Berau Gulf region, Papua, and on the island of Arguni and in the Kai Island. Apart from the hand shadow motif, the motifs found in many places are human figures, boats, sun, moon, birds, fish, turtles, humans, lizards, legs, and hog deer.
== Classical Hindu-Buddhist art ==
After the end of prehistoric times, the Indonesian people had various kinds of expertise, such as making large stones in the form of stepped pyramids, metal casting, agriculture and tools, sculpture, and batik making, which were developed with the addition of new elements at the time of the influx of Hindu influence. This period is a new chapter in the periodization of culture in Indonesia. It is a historical era because relics have been found in the form of writing from this time. This happened because of cultural contact with India around the 5th century AD.
Common themes used in works of art at this time include religion, mythology, legends, and historical stories. For example, a classical Balinese painting containing the Ramayana and Mahabharata stories. The style used in the wall carvings of the Majapahit era is the wayang style with a dense, stylized composition of the horizontal plane. The term wayang style here shows a sign of similarity in the stylized forms of the characters from wayang kulit stories and classical Balinese paintings. Painting color is limited to the colors that can be achieved by natural materials such as bark, leaves, soil, and soot. The painting is made on elongated fabric without being attached to the span frame to resemble a scroll painting. Along with temple wall carvings and lontar pictures, classical Balinese painting is an educational medium following religious teachings or the philosophy of life in the Hindu era.
Painting in Bali began when the Hindu culture of East Java was pressured by Islamic culture. Paintings that blend and acculturate Hindu culture are unique and have been recognized by various countries until now. The development of Hindu-Balinese painting can be described in three parts: Kamasan painting, Pita Maha painting, and Young Artists painting.
== Islamic art ==
As in the Hindu era, Islamic art in Indonesia is centered in the Kraton or palace. An artist's job is not only to create works of art, but he is also an expert in various sciences and philosophies, in addition to knowing other branches of art. In Islamic art, there is a prohibition against depicting the motives of living things in realistic forms. The artists made efforts to compromise with the previous culture.
In this case, Islamic tolerance supports the continuity of the previous fine art tradition, but with a new breath, such as decoration with stylized animal and human motifs combined with Arabic letters, both in the application of aesthetic elements to mosques, the cultivation of craft art, painting or calligraphy. As for the making of the statues, they are made so disguised that it is as if this image is only a decoration of leaves or flora.
Usually paintings are made as decorations depicting stories of characters in wayang or animal paintings of candra sangkala and about the history of the prophet. The form of painting disguised as a glass painting originating from Cirebon.
== Modern art ==
The new Indonesian painting that has developed in Indonesia, like art in general, cannot be fully understood without placing it within the overall framework of Indonesian society and culture. The development of Indonesian painting works was strongly influenced by historical forces. Indonesian painting only developed after the era of Islamic painting. Painting at this time experienced a very rapid development along with the development of Indonesian art in which figures such as Raden Saleh, Affandi, Basuki Abdullah and others.
Indonesian modern painting began with the entry of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. The trend of Western European art at that time towards romanticism made many Indonesian painters participate in developing this genre.
Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman is one of the assistants who was lucky enough to learn European-style painting which was practiced by Dutch painters. Raden Saleh then continued to study painting in the Netherlands, so that he became a respected Indonesian painter and became a court painter in several European countries. However, Indonesian painting did not go through the same developments as during the European renaissance, so its development did not go through the same stages. The era of revolution in Indonesia made many Indonesian painters shift from romantic themes to tend toward "populist". Objects related to the natural beauty of Indonesia were considered a theme that betrayed the nation, because they were considered to be a curse on the capitalists who were enemies of the popular ideology of communism at that time. In addition, painting tools such as paints and canvases, which are increasingly difficult to find, have made Indonesian paintings tend to adopt simpler forms, thus giving birth to abstraction.
The Cultural Manifesto Movement which aims to fight the coercion of communist ideology made painters in the 1950s prefer to free their works of art from certain political interests, so that the era of expressionism began. Paintings are no longer considered as messengers and propaganda tools. The journey of Indonesian painting from the pioneering work of R. Saleh to the beginning of the twentieth century, is still being swayed by various clashes of conceptions.
The establishment of Indonesian painting which has not yet reached the level of success has been devastated by the idea of modernism which resulted in alternative or contemporary art, with the emergence of conceptual art: "Installation Art" and "Performance Art", which have mushroomed all over the art college around 1993–1996. Then came various alternatives such as "collaboration" as a fashion 1996/1997. Along with that, conventional painting with various styles adorns the galleries, which is no longer a form of appreciation for the community, but an alternative investment business.
The term modern Indonesian art cannot be separated from the artistic tradition in Europe. The contact between Indonesian art and modern art has been going on for a long time and has been deep so that it has directly or indirectly created a cultural relationship or contact.
Modern art in Europe has been proclaimed since the emergence of post-impressionism (early 18th century). At that time, the space for freedom to create works of art was wide open, beginning with the growth of individualistic attitudes in work. The individualistic attitude is getting stronger with the rampant experiments of the artists, both in terms of materials, techniques, and the expression of their art.
The contact between Indonesian collective art and European modern art went through European painters who came to Indonesia. This touch has slowly but surely inspired certain individuals to open a new page in art, namely new art. In this new era of Indonesian art, several developments occurred, such as the following.
=== The Period of Raden Saleh (Pioneer) ===
In the mid-19th century, the world of painting or drawing art of Indonesian artists still referred to the traditional styles that developed in the regions. Most of these works of art hold decorative potential. For example, paintings in Bali and Java, and ornaments in Toraja and Kalimantan.
=== The Period of Indonesia Jelita (Mooi Indie) ===
Some experts see Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman (1807-1880) as a pioneer of modern Indonesian painting. This expression is not an exaggeration considering that Raden Saleh was the first Indonesian to receive special painting guidance from naturalist and realist-style painters of Belgian descent who had lived in Indonesia, namely A.A.J. Payen. On Payen's recommendation and supported by C. Reinwart, Raden Saleh had the opportunity to study in Europe. At that time, studying in Europe was still rare for most Indonesians. However, because Raden Saleh was considered to have great talent and was still of noble descent, his departure to Europe could not prevent him. He became the first Indonesian to study fine arts abroad. In Europe, Raden Saleh received guidance from the leading portrait painter, Cornellius Krusemen and natural landscape painter, Andreas Schefhout.
=== Period of Intent - National Ideals ===
S. Sudjojono (1913–1986), as the activator of this group, never studied fine arts in Europe at all. The painters who are members of this group include Agus Djaya Suminta, L. Sutioso, Rameli, Abdul Salam, Otto Jaya, S. Sudiarjo, Emiria Sunassa, Saptarita Latif, Herbert Hutagalung, S. Tutur, Hendro Jasmara, and Sutioso.
To strengthen the movement and equalize perceptions, this group then formed the Association of Indonesian Drawing Experts (PERSAGI) in 1938 in Jakarta. Because their main objective was to build national solidarity among local artists in developing painting with an authentic Indonesian style, they always made sketches of the life style of the people at that time in various places.
After returning from Europe, Abdullah S.R. (1878–1941) lived in Bandung and later developed his own painting style, which became known as Indonesia Jelita (Mooi Indie). This style emphasizes the beauty and atmosphere of the Indonesian nation with its fertile nature and peaceful people. Natural scenery is a very dominant painting object. Anything that is beautiful and romantic is pleasant, serene, and peaceful. The paintings carry only one meaning, namely "Comical Indies" for foreigners and tourists.
In fact, before this style was developed by Abdullah S.R, there were foreign painters who were deliberately invited by the Dutch colonial government to work as custom painters. These painters include W. G. Hofker (Netherlands), R. Locatelli (Italy), Le Mayeur (Netherlands), Roland Strasser (Switzerland), E. Dezentje (Netherlands), and Rudolf Bonnet (Netherlands).
=== Japanese Occupation Period ===
During the Japanese occupation era, to be precise in 1942, PERSAGI was forced to disband. There are an increasing number of artists who are born from the grass root (grassroots), namely the lower class. In 1945, Japan established an institution with the name Japan Keimin Bunka Shidoso (Cultural Center) whose teachers were former members of PERSAGI such as Agus Djaya Suminta and S. Sudjojono. Those who provide the means for artistic activities.
At this time, even though the economic life of the Indonesian people was completely deficient, artistic life seemed to be blazing. The painters also got a breath of fresh air from the Japanese occupation army. Indonesian painters used this fresh air to hold exhibitions. The aim is not only to exhibit the works of local painters, but also to spread a sense of nationality to the wider community. The painters who participated in exhibiting their paintings were Basuki Abdullah, Affandi, Kartono Yudhokusumo, Nyoman Ngedon, Hendra Gunawan, Henk Nantung, and Otto Jaya.
=== Painting Period after Independence ===
In the post-independence period, painting was used as a medium of struggle. The development of painting in Indonesia shows rapid progress because painting has been integrated with the spirit of the nation's independence struggle. This heroic spirit is evidenced in the form of posters of struggles and sketch paintings in the midst of battles. One painter who has done this is Djajengasmoro and his Front Painter group.
The move of the center of government to Yogyakarta in 1946 was followed by the departure of the painters. The city of Yogyakarta has also become a center for painters. In 1946 in Yogyakarta, Affandi, Rusli, Hendra Gunawan, and Harijadi formed the Community Arts Association. A year later, namely in 1947 they joined the association of Young Indonesian Artists (SIM) which was formed in 1946 in Madiun with the pioneer Sudjojono.
=== The Period of painting during the formal education era ===
In 1949, R. J. Katamsi with several SIM member artists, People's Painters, POETRA, and Budayan Taman Siswa started the Indonesian Fine Arts Academy (ASRI) which has now changed to ISI. The purpose of establishing this academy is to produce aspiring artists. ASRI figures included S. Soedjojono, Hendra Gunawan, Djajengasmoro, Kusnadi, and Sindusiswono.
Meanwhile, in Bandung in the 1950s there was also the Center for the Higher Education for Teachers of Pictures, pioneered by Syafe'i Soemardja. He was assisted by Mochtar Apin, Ahmad Sadali, Sudjoko, and Edi Karta Subarna. Since 1959, this institution changed its name to the Fine Arts Department at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB).
In 1964, the Department of Fine Arts Education at IKIP Bandung (currently known as the Indonesian Education University) was pioneered by Barli, Karmas, Popo Iskandar, Radiosuto, and Wiyoso Yudoseputo. Some of the alumni of the IKIP Bandung Fine Arts Department who are pursuing painting are artists Oho Garha, Nana Banna, Hidayat, Dadang MA, and Hardiman. Several years later, a fine arts department was opened at other IKIPs throughout Indonesia.
=== The Period of New Painting in Indonesia ===
The development of technology and society that began to advance, around 1974 groups of young artists were born in various regions. Young artists who are members of this movement include Jim Supangkat, Syahrinur Prinka, Satyagraha, F.X. Harsono, Dede Eri Supria, and Munni Ardi. They bring a new style in their work. The first exhibition of their works was held at Taman Ismail Marzuki Jakarta. The works of young artists, most of whom are still in college, are motivated by the following reasons; Dismantling the term artist as an attribute that is only attached to academics, while the small community engaged in the arts do not get a proper place, they challenge the boundaries of art that have long been made by these old artists means avoiding framing, and trying to create something new with various media, work concepts, etc., the creation of this work of art is no exception to art that is applied to things that are considered sacred.
== Gallery ==
== List of Famous Painters in Indonesia ==
== See also ==
Indonesian art
Culture of Indonesia
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umesh_Reddy#Early_life | Umesh Reddy | Umesh Reddy (born 1969) is a serial killer and serial rapist from India. He confessed to killing 18 women, and was convicted in 9 cases. The police believe that he raped at least 20 women in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. They also suspect that several of his crimes have not been reported, because the victims feared social stigma.
The Karnataka High Court sentenced Reddy to death in 2009, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court of India in 2011. After Reddy filed a mercy petition, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to a 30-year sentence in 2022.
== Early life ==
Umesh Reddy was born BA Umesh in 1969, in Basappa Malige, a village in Chitradurga district, Karnataka.
After being selected in the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), he was posted in Jammu and Kashmir. While on duty as a guard at the house of a commandant, he attempted to rape the commandant's daughter. He then fled to Chitradurga district. In 1996, he managed to join the District Armed Reserve (DAR) Police, who were not aware of his background in CRPF. Reddy had been charged in a road rage incident, but the local DAR inspector chose to ignore this "petty case". Reddy completed his police training in Madhya Pradesh, and then returned to Karnataka.
== Crimes ==
Reddy carefully selected his victims. He usually targeted housewives between 11 am and 3 pm, when there would be no men at home. He would gain entry into the victims' house on the pretext of asking for water or an address. He then threatened them with a knife, forced them to remove their clothes, tied them up, and raped them. He often choked his victims, and raped them while they were unconscious. After the rape, Reddy killed his victims and removed their jewellery to make the crime appear like a robbery. He then escaped with the victim's undergarments. Reddy was found wearing women's lingerie under his clothes, whenever the police arrested him.
In November 1996, Reddy attempted to rape a high school girl, who was walking at KEB Colony in Chitradurga. The girl hit him with a stone and managed to escape. On 6 December 1996, Reddy allegedly raped and murdered 16-year-old Roopa, when she was returning to her house in the same locality. The next month, he was arrested and dismissed from service, when his first victim identified him at a Republic Day police parade by chance.
Reddy, along with four others, was charged with Roopa's murder, and remanded to judicial custody (later, in 2004, he was acquitted in this case due to lack of sufficient evidence). A court asked him to be shifted to Bellary jail. In March 1997, while the Chitradurga police were handing him over to the Bellary prison authorities, Reddy escaped. He then killed an income tax officer's wife in Bangalore, a girl in Ahmedabad, two girls in Baroda and a widow in Kunigal.
Reddy would steal lingerie put up for drying in the backyards of houses. On 7 July 1997, he was arrested by Peenya police for stealing women's undergarments. When the police raided his room, they recovered a gunny bag full of lingerie. At the time of his arrest in Peenya, he told the police that his name was "Ramesh". Reddy escaped within 24 hours while being transferred to the MICO Layout police station for interrogation in another case. The police initially tried to hush up his escape, but Reddy's father filed a habeas corpus petition in the High Court. Two police personnel were then suspended, and a lookout notice was issued in the name of Ramesh.
On 28 February 1998, Reddy raped and murdered 37-year-old widow Jayashree Maradi Subbaiah in Peenya. The police believe that he repeatedly had sex with the dead body. When her 8-year-old son Suresh returned from school, he saw Reddy in his house. Reddy told the boy that an evil spirit had entered his mother's body, so he had tied her to the window grill. He then fled saying that he was going to get a doctor. Reddy then attempted to rape another woman in Peenya. When the woman raised the alarm, he tried to escape by jumping from the first floor of the house. He sprained his ankle, and was caught by the neighbours, who handed him over to the police.
In 1999, Reddy once again escaped from the police custody near Hirekerur. Before he could commit any crime, he was arrested by inspector Nyame Gowda, in Chikkaballapur.
On the night of 3–4 March 2002, Reddy escaped from police custody again, while being transferred from Bellary to Bangalore in a KSRTC bus. The District Armed Reserve (DAR) personnel of Bellary, who accompanied him, claimed that he was handcuffed at the time, but Reddy denied this when he was arrested two months later. He stated that he bought rum and chicken for the policemen, and earned their trust. When the bus stopped at a dhaba near Hiriyur bypass, he requested the policemen to remove his handcuffs on the pretext that he needed to answer the call of nature. Once free, he ran into the fields and escaped.
Over the next two months, Reddy raped three girls in Davangere, Hubli-Dharwad and Pune. He also stole three mobile phones and two credit cards. He worked as a waiter in a Pune hotel. He stole cash and clothes from there, and then fled to Dharwad.
On 17 May 2002, Reddy arrived in Bangalore from Tumkur, and left his luggage in the cloakroom at the Yeshwanthpur railway station. Around 8 am, he visited a salon in Yeshwanthpur area, to get a haircut and a clean shave. As he entered the salon, an auto-rickshaw driver Sathyavelu recognized him from a newspaper photograph and an earlier court appearance. The driver called his elder brother Rajendran from a telephone booth and asked him to fetch the police. Meanwhile, he kept a vigil outside the salon. When Reddy exited the salon and started walking towards the railway station, Sathyavelu tipped off the police and followed him. Inspector Nagaraja Urs intercepted Reddy near Sharief Nagar and arrested him. At first, Reddy claimed to be somebody else but admitted that he was the serial killer, after being taken to the police station. The police rewarded the driver with ₹ 20,000. Reddy was found wearing a bra and panties. His baggage, seized from the cloakroom, contained several women's garments: 18 pairs of panties, 10 bras, 8 churidars, 6 saris, 4 blouses and 2 nighties.
== Death sentence ==
Reddy was tried and convicted in 9 cases, including the rape of Jayashree Subbaiah. He was acquitted in 11 cases due to lack of sufficient evidence. On 26 October 2006, Judge K Sukanya of the Bengaluru city fast-track court gave him multiple sentences including a death sentence, a 7-year sentence plus ₹ 25,000 fine and a 10-year sentence plus ₹ 25,000 fine. Reddy tried to win the judge's mercy by saying that he wanted to study and take care of his mother, but the judge did not relent. Since the death sentence was the heaviest sentence, the case was referred to the High Court as per procedure.
On 4 October 2007, a division bench of the Karnataka High Court also convicted Reddy, but the judges differed on the death sentence. Justice V G Sabhahit upheld the death penalty, but Justice Ravi B Naik advocated rigorous imprisonment for life with no scope for amnesty. A third judge, Justice S. R. Bannurmath, was appointed to resolve the tie. On 18 February 2009, Bannurmath upheld the death sentence, and thus, the High Court confirmed the death penalty for Umesh Reddy. On 1 February 2011, the Supreme Court also upheld the death sentence. Justices Altamas Kabir and A K Pathak argued that Reddy was incapable of rehabilitation, and that his rape and murder of Jayashree fell under "rarest of the rare" category, a requirement for capital punishment in India.
Reddy immediately filed a mercy petition before the President of India. On 7 May 2012, the Government of Karnataka rejected Reddy's mercy plea. Subsequently, the President of India also rejected his mercy petition on 12 May 2013. Reddy then filed a fresh petition, following which on 4 November 2022, the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence to 30 years imprisonment.
== In popular culture ==
The Kannada language movie Umesh (2013) is a fictionalized version of Umesh Reddy's life. Khatarnak or Khataranak Umesh Reddy (2013), another Kannada movie, was also based on Umesh Reddy's life. His character was also portrayed by Adi Lokesh in Dandupalya 2 & Dandupalya 3, where he is seen as one of the inmates of Dandupalya gang in Hindalga Prison.
A 3 episodes documentary called "Beast of Bangalore: Indian Predator" was released on Netflix on 16th December 2022 depicting Umesh's heinous crimes. The documentary included interviews with local police officials, victims and associates who helped Umesh in some of his crimes.
== See also ==
List of serial killers by country
== References ==
== External links ==
B.A.Umesh vs Regr.Gen.High Court Of Karnataka on 1 February 2011 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_Township,_Clinton_County,_Iowa | Center Township, Clinton County, Iowa | Center Township is a township in Clinton County, Iowa, United States. At the 2000 census, its population was 626.
== History ==
Center Township was organized in 1852.
== Geography ==
Center Township covers an area of 42.42 square miles (109.9 km2) and contains no incorporated settlements. According to the USGS, it contains two cemeteries: Center Grove and Elvira.
== Notes ==
== References ==
USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
== External links ==
US-Counties.com
City-Data.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant#Early_life | Kobe Bryant | Kobe Bean Bryant ( KOH-bee; August 23, 1978 – January 26, 2020) was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential basketball players in history, Bryant won five NBA championships and was an 18-time All-Star, four-time All-Star MVP, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), two-time NBA Finals MVP, and two-time scoring champion. He ranks fourth in league all-time regular season and postseason scoring. Bryant was posthumously named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team in 2021 and was a two-time inductee to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as a player in 2020 and as a member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic team in 2025.
The son of NBA player Joe Bryant, Bryant was born in Philadelphia and partly raised in Italy. Recognized as the top American high school basketball player while at Lower Merion High School in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore, Bryant declared for the 1996 NBA draft and was selected by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th pick; he was then traded to the Lakers. As a rookie, Bryant earned a reputation as a high-flyer by winning the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest and was named an All-Star by his second season. Despite his contentious relationship with teammate Shaquille O'Neal, the pair led the Lakers to three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002. In 2003, Bryant was charged with sexual assault. Charges were dropped after the accuser refused to testify, and a lawsuit was settled out of court, with Bryant issuing an apology and admitting to a sexual encounter he maintained was consensual.
After the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals, O'Neal was traded and Bryant became the franchise's cornerstone. He led the NBA in scoring in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points, the second most scored in a single NBA game behind Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game. Bryant led the team to championships in 2009 and 2010, and was named NBA Finals MVP both times. He continued to be among the league's premier players through the 2012–13 season when he suffered a torn achilles tendon. The last years of his playing career were hampered by injuries and limited playing time. Bryant retired after the 2015–16 season, capping off his illustrious career with a 60-point performance in his final NBA game, leading the Lakers to a comeback victory over the Utah Jazz. In 2017, the Lakers retired both his Nos. 8 and 24, making Bryant the only player in NBA history to have multiple numbers retired by the same franchise.
The all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, Bryant was the first guard in NBA history to play 20 seasons. His 18 All-Star designations are the third most ever, and his four NBA All-Star Game MVP Awards are tied with Bob Pettit for the most in history. Bryant gave himself the nickname Black Mamba in the mid-2000s, and the epithet became widely adopted by the public. He won gold medals on the 2008 and 2012 U.S. Olympic teams. In 2018, Bryant won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball (2017), becoming the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and an Oscar.
In January 2020, Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people who died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. A number of tributes and memorials followed, and the All-Star Game MVP Award was renamed in Bryant's honor.
== Early life ==
Kobe Bean Bryant was born on August 23, 1978, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Pam Bryant (née Cox), is the sister of basketball player Chubby Cox, and his father, Joe Bryant, played eight seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has two older sisters: Sharia and Shaya. His father named him after the Kobe beef from Japan, which he saw on a restaurant menu, whereas his middle name, Bean, was derived from his father's nickname "Jellybean". Bryant's family was Catholic and he was brought up with this faith.
Bryant started playing basketball at the age of three, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. When Bryant was six, his father retired from the NBA and moved his family to Rieti in Italy to continue playing professional basketball. After two years, they moved first to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistoia and Reggio Emilia. Kobe became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent Italian. He was especially fond of Reggio Emilia, which Kobe considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Kobe began to play basketball seriously while living in Reggio Emilia. His grandfather mailed him videos of NBA games for him to study. Another source of inspiration was animated European films about sports, from which Kobe learned more about basketball. From 1987 to 1989, his father played for Olimpia Basket Pistoia where he paired with former Detroit Pistons player Leon Douglas. Kobe worked at the games as a ball and mop boy and practiced shooting at halftime. Douglas said, "At every one of our games at halftime, it was the Kobe show. He'd get out there and get his shot up. We'd come out of the locker room at halftime and have to chase him off the court".
Bryant also learned to play soccer, and his favorite soccer team was A.C. Milan. During summers, Bryant returned to the United States to play in a basketball summer league. When he was 13, Bryant and his family moved back to Philadelphia, where he enrolled in the eighth grade at Bala Cynwyd Middle School.
=== High school (1992–1996) ===
Bryant earned national recognition during a spectacular high-school career at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, located in the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. He played on the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Bryant became the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team, but the team finished with a 4–20 record. The following three years, the Aces compiled a 77–13 record, with Bryant playing all five positions. During his junior year, Bryant averaged 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 blocks and 2.3 steals and was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year while also earning a fourth-team Parade All-American nomination, attracting attention from college recruiters in the process. Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova were at the top of his list. However, after high schooler Kevin Garnett went in the first round of the 1995 NBA draft, Bryant also began contemplating going directly to the pros.
At Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award while playing alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. While in high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team, where he played one-on-one with Jerry Stackhouse. As a senior, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant finished his high-school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons.
Bryant received several awards for his outstanding performance during his senior year at Lower Merion. These included being named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first-team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was "a complete player who dominates" and praised his work ethic, even as the team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took R&B singer Brandy to her Hollywood High senior prom. Ultimately, the 17-year-old Bryant decided to go directly into the NBA, becoming only the sixth player in NBA history to do so. His news was met with a significant publicity at a time when prep-to-pro NBA players were not very common (Kevin Garnett being the only exception in 20 years). His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have ensured admission to any college Bryant chose, but he did not officially visit any campuses. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans for his high school play as well as his later accomplishments.
== Professional career ==
=== 1996 NBA draft ===
Before the 1996 NBA draft, Bryant had worked out in Los Angeles, where he scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper and, according to then-Laker general manager Jerry West, "marched over these people."
The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their No. 13 pick to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made. Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to co-sign his contract with the Lakers until Bryant was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.
=== Los Angeles Lakers (1996–2016) ===
==== Adjusting to the NBA (1996–1999) ====
Bryant debuted in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, California, scoring 25 points in front of a standing-room-only crowd. Defenders struggled to get in front of him, and his performance excited West and Lakers coach Del Harris. Bryant scored 36 points in the finale and finished with averages of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games. As a rookie in 1996–97, Bryant mostly came off the bench behind guards Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel. At the time, he was the second-youngest player ever to play in an NBA game (18 years, 72 days) and also became the youngest NBA starter (18 years, 158 days). Initially, Bryant played limited minutes, but as the season continued, he began to see some more playing time.
By the end of the season, Bryant averaged 15.5 minutes a game. During the All-Star weekend, he participated in the Rookie Challenge and won the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the youngest dunk champion at the age of 18. Bryant's performance throughout the year earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team with fellow bench teammate Travis Knight.
The Lakers advanced to the Western Conference semifinals in the playoffs against the Utah Jazz, when Bryant was pressed into a lead role at the end of Game 5. Byron Scott missed the game with a sprained wrist, Robert Horry was ejected for fighting with Utah's Jeff Hornacek, and Shaquille O'Neal fouled out with 1:46 remaining in the fourth quarter. Bryant shot four air balls at the end of the game; the Jazz won 98–93 in overtime to eliminate the Lakers 4–1. He first missed a game-winning two-point jump shot in the fourth quarter, and then misfired three three-point field goals in overtime, including two tying shots in the final minute. O'Neal commented that "[Bryant] was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that."
In Bryant's second season, he received more playing time and began to show more of his abilities as a talented young guard. As a result, Bryant's point averages more than doubled, from 7.6 to 15.4 points per game. He would see an increase in minutes when the Lakers "played small", which would feature Bryant playing small forward alongside the guards he would usually back up. Bryant was the runner-up for the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award, and through fan voting, he also became the youngest NBA All-Star starter in NBA history. Bryant was joined by teammates O'Neal, Van Exel, and Jones, making it the first time since 1983 that four players on the same team were selected to play in the same All-Star Game. Bryant's 15.4 points per game was the highest of any non-starter in the season.
The 1998–99 season marked Bryant's emergence as a premier guard in the league. With starting guards Van Exel and Jones traded, Bryant started every game for the lockout-shortened 50-game season. During the season, he signed a six-year contract extension worth $70 million. This kept Bryant with the Lakers until the end of the 2003–04 season. Even at an early stage of his career, sportswriters were comparing Bryant's skills to those of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. However, the playoff results were no better as the Lakers were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Semifinals.
==== Three-peat (1999–2002) ====
Bryant's fortunes improved when Phil Jackson took over as coach of the Lakers in 1999. After years of steady improvement, Bryant became one of the premier shooting guards in the league, earning appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Star, and All-Defensive teams. The Lakers became championship contenders behind the center-guard combination of Bryant and O'Neal. Jackson utilized the triangle offense that he implemented to win six championships with the Chicago Bulls; this offense would help both Bryant and O'Neal rise to the elite class of the NBA. Three championships were won consecutively in 2000, 2001, and 2002, further cementing this view.
Bryant was sidelined for six weeks prior to the start of the 1999–2000 season due to a hand injury that he had incurred during a preseason game against the Washington Wizards. When Bryant was back and playing over 38 minutes a game, he had an increase in all statistical categories during the 1999–2000 season. This included leading the team in assists per game and steals per game. The duo of O'Neal and Bryant backed with a strong bench led to the Lakers winning 67 games, tied for fifth-most in NBA history. This followed with O'Neal winning the MVP and Bryant being named to the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the first time in his career (the youngest player to receive All-Defensive honors). While playing second fiddle to O'Neal in the playoffs, Bryant had some clutch performances, including a 25-point, 11-rebound, seven-assist, four-block game in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals against the Portland Trail Blazers. He also threw an alley-oop pass to O'Neal to clinch the game and the series. In the 2000 Finals, against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant injured his ankle in the second quarter of Game 2 after landing on the Pacers' Jalen Rose's foot. Rose later admitted he placed his foot under Bryant intentionally. Bryant did not return to the game, and he also missed Game 3 due to the injury. In Game 4, Bryant scored 22 points in the second half and led the team to an overtime victory as O'Neal fouled out of the game. Bryant scored the winning shot to put the Lakers ahead 120–118. With a 116–111 victory in Game 6, the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.
Statistically, the 2000–01 season saw Bryant perform similarly to the previous year, but he averaged six more points per game (28.5). It was also the year when disagreements between Bryant and O'Neal began to surface. Once again, Bryant led the team in assists, with five per game. However, the Lakers only won 56 games, an 11-game drop-off from the previous year. The team responded by going 15–1 in the playoffs. They easily swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. In the semifinals round, the Lakers swept the Sacramento Kings. In Game 4 against the Kings, Bryant recorded 48 points, 16 rebounds, and three assists in a 119–113 series-clinching victory. They swept the San Antonio Spurs in the Conference Finals to advance to the Finals, before losing their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers in overtime. They would go on to win the next four games and bring their second championship to Los Angeles in as many seasons. During the playoffs, Bryant played heavy minutes which brought his stats up to 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists per game. In the playoffs, teammate O'Neal declared Bryant the best player in the league. Bryant ended up making the All-NBA Second Team and All-NBA Defensive Team for the second year in a row. He was also voted to start in the NBA All-Star Game for the third year in a row (no game in 1999).
In the 2001–02 season, Bryant played 80 games for the first time in his career. On January 14, 2002, Bryant recorded a then career-high 56 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists in a 120–81 victory over the visiting Memphis Grizzlies. He continued his all-round play by averaging 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Bryant also had a career-high 46.9% shooting and once again led his team in assists. Bryant claimed his first All-Star MVP trophy after a 31-point performance in Philadelphia when he was loudly booed by fans as they had throughout the game, stemming from his earlier comment to a 76ers heckler during the Finals that the Lakers were "going to cut your hearts out." While making the All-NBA Defensive Team again, Bryant was also named to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his career. The Lakers won 58 games that year and finished second in the Pacific Division behind in-state rival Sacramento Kings. Bryant was suspended for one game after he punched Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers after the Lakers' March 1, 2002, victory over the Pacers.
The road to the Finals would prove a lot tougher than the record run the Lakers had enjoyed the previous year. While they swept the Blazers and defeated the Spurs 4–1 in the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Lakers did not have home-court advantage against the Sacramento Kings. The series would stretch to seven games, the first time this had happened to the Lakers since the 2000 Western Conference Finals. However, the Lakers were able to beat their division rivals and make their third consecutive NBA Finals appearance. In the 2002 Finals against the New Jersey Nets, Bryant averaged 26.8 points, 51.4% shooting, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game, which included scoring a quarter of the team's points. At age 23, he became the youngest player to win three championships. Bryant's play was notable and praised for his performance in the fourth quarter of games, specifically the last two rounds of the playoffs. This cemented Bryant's reputation as a "clutch player."
==== Coming up short (2002–2004) ====
In the first game of the 2002–03 season, Bryant recorded 27 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and four steals in an 87–82 loss to the visiting Spurs. On November 1, he recorded a triple-double of 33 points, 15 rebounds, and 12 assists in a 108–93 victory over the Clippers. Bryant also set an NBA record for three-pointers in a game on January 7, 2003, when he made 12 against the Seattle SuperSonics. He averaged 30 points per game and embarked on a historic run, posting 40 or more points in nine consecutive games while averaging 40.6 in the entire month of February. Bryant also averaged 6.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists, and 2.2 steals per game, all career-highs to that point. He was once again voted to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive First Teams, and came in third place in voting for the MVP award. After finishing 50–32 in the regular season, the Lakers floundered in the playoffs and lost in the Western Conference semifinals in six games to the eventual NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
The following season, the Lakers were able to acquire NBA All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton to make another push at the NBA championship. Bryant was arrested for sexual assault before the season began. This caused him to miss some games due to court appearances or attend court earlier in the day and travel to play games later on the same day. In the final game of the regular season, the Lakers played the Portland Trail Blazers. Bryant made two buzzer-beaters to win the game and the Pacific Division title. At the end of the fourth quarter, Bryant made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left to send it into overtime. The game eventually went to a second overtime, in which Bryant made another three-pointer as time expired to narrowly lift the Lakers past the Blazers, 105–104.
With a starting lineup of O'Neal, Malone, Payton, and Bryant, the Lakers were able to reach the 2004 Finals. However, they were upset in five games by the Detroit Pistons, who won their first championship since 1990. In that series, Bryant averaged 22.6 points per game and 4.4 assists while shooting 35.1% from the field. Jackson's contract as coach was not renewed, and Rudy Tomjanovich took over. O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant. The following day, Bryant declined a six-year, $100 million offer to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers and re-signed with the Lakers on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract.
==== Scoring records and playoff upsets (2004–2007) ====
Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the 2004–05 season with his reputation badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year. A particularly damaging salvo came when Jackson wrote The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul. The book detailed the events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and has several criticisms of Bryant. In the book, Jackson called Bryant "un-coachable." Midway through the season, Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without him, stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Bryant was the league's second-leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, but he was surrounded by a subpar supporting cast, and the Lakers went 34–48 and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. The year signified a drop in his overall status in the NBA, as Bryant did not make the NBA All-Defensive Team and was also demoted to the All-NBA Third Team. During the season, Bryant also engaged in public feuds with Malone and Ray Allen.
The 2005–06 season marked a crossroads in Bryant's basketball career. Despite past differences with Bryant, Jackson returned to coach the Lakers. Bryant endorsed the move, and by all appearances, they worked well together the second time around, leading the Lakers back into the playoffs. Bryant's individual scoring accomplishments resulted in the finest statistical season of his career. On December 20, 2005, Bryant scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. Entering the fourth quarter, he had personally outscored the entire Mavericks team 62–61, the only time a player has done this through three quarters since the introduction of the shot clock. When the Lakers faced the Miami Heat on January 16, 2006, Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal made headlines by engaging in handshakes and hugs before the game, signifying a change in the feud that had festered between them. A month later, at the 2006 NBA All-Star Game, the two were seen laughing together.
On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career-high 81 points in a 122–104 victory over the Toronto Raptors. In addition to breaking the previous franchise record of 71 set by Elgin Baylor, Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest point total in NBA history, surpassed only by Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962. Whereas Chamberlain was fed repeatedly by teammates for inside shots in a blowout win, Bryant created his own shot—mostly from the outside—in a game which the Lakers trailed at halftime by 14 and did not pull away until the fourth quarter. Chamberlain, playing in an era when the games were paced faster and scoring opportunities were more plentiful, accounted for 59 percent of his team's points in Philadelphia's 169–147 victory, compared to Bryant scoring 66 percent of the Lakers' 122 points. That same month, he also became the first player since 1964 to score 45 points or more in four consecutive games, joining Chamberlain and Baylor as the only players to do so. For the month of January, Bryant averaged 43.4 points per game, the eighth highest single month scoring average in NBA history and highest for any player other than Chamberlain. By the end of the 2005–06 season, Bryant set Lakers single-season franchise records for most 40-point games (27) and most points scored (2,832). He won the league's scoring title for the first time by averaging 35.4 points per game, becoming just the fifth player in league history to average at least 35 in a season. Bryant finished in fourth place in the voting for the 2006 NBA Most Valuable Player Award but received 22 first place votes—second only to winner Steve Nash.
Later in the season, it was reported that Bryant would change his jersey number from 8 to 24 at the start of the 2006–07 season. Bryant's first high-school number was 24 before he switched to 33. After the Lakers' season ended, Bryant said on TNT that he wanted 24 as a rookie, but it was unavailable as it was worn by George McCloud, as was 33, retired with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Bryant wore 143 at the Adidas ABCD camp and chose 8 by adding those numbers. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lakers played well enough to reach a 3–1 series lead over the Phoenix Suns, culminating with Bryant's overtime-forcing and game-winning shots in Game 4. They came within six seconds of eliminating the second-seeded Suns in Game 6, but the Lakers lost that game 126–118 in overtime. Despite Bryant's 27.9 points per game in the series, the Lakers broke down and ultimately fell to the Suns in seven games. After scoring 50 points on 20 of 35 shooting in the Game 6 loss, Bryant was criticized for only taking three shots in the second half of the 121–90 Game 7 loss to Phoenix.
During the 2006–07 season, Bryant was selected to his ninth All-Star Game appearance, and on February 18, he logged 31 points, six assists, and six steals, earning his second career All-Star Game MVP trophy. Over the course of the season, Bryant became involved in a number of on-court incidents. On January 28, while attempting to draw contact on a potential game-winning jump shot, he flailed his arm, striking San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginóbili in the face with his elbow. Following a league review, Bryant was suspended for the subsequent game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks. The basis given for the suspension was that Bryant had performed an "unnatural motion" in swinging his arm backward. Later, on March 6, he seemed to repeat the motion, this time striking Minnesota Timberwolves guard Marko Jarić. The next day, the NBA handed Bryant his second one-game suspension. In his first game back on March 9, Bryant elbowed Kyle Korver in the face, which was retroactively re-classified as a Type 1 flagrant foul.
On March 16, Bryant scored a season-high 65 points in a home game against the Portland Trail Blazers, which helped end the Lakers seven-game losing streak. This was the second-best scoring performance of his 11-year career. The following game, Bryant recorded 50 points against the Timberwolves, after which he scored 60 points in a road win against the Memphis Grizzlies—becoming the second Laker to score three straight 50-plus point games, a feat not seen since Jordan last did it in 1987. The only other Laker to do so was Baylor, who also scored 50+ in three consecutive contests in December 1962. The next day, in a game against the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, Bryant scored 50 points, making him the second player in NBA history to have four straight 50-point games behind Chamberlain, who achieved it twice with streaks of five and seven. Bryant finished the year with a total of 10 50-plus point games, surpassed only by Chamberlain. Bryant also won his second straight scoring title that season. Throughout the 2006–07 season, Bryant's jersey became the top selling NBA jersey in the United States and China. A number of journalists have attributed the improved sales to Bryant's new number, as well as his continuing All-Star performance on the court. In the 2007 NBA playoffs, the Lakers were once again eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns, 4–1.
==== Back on top (2007–2010) ====
On May 27, 2007, ESPN reported that Bryant stated that he wanted to be traded if Jerry West did not return to the team with full authority. Bryant later confirmed his desire for West's return to the franchise, but denied stating that he would want to be traded if that did not take place. However, three days later, on Stephen A. Smith's radio program, Bryant expressed anger over a Lakers "insider" who claimed that Bryant was responsible for Shaquille O'Neal's departure from the team, and publicly stated, "I want to be traded." Three hours after making that statement, Bryant stated in another interview that after having a conversation with head coach Jackson, he had reconsidered his decision and backed off his trade request. Bryant was later shown in an infamous amateur video saying that center Andrew Bynum should have been traded for All-Star Jason Kidd.
On December 23, 2007, Bryant became the youngest player (29 years, 122 days) to reach 20,000 points, in a game against the New York Knicks, in Madison Square Garden, after scoring 39 points to go along with 11 rebounds and eight assists. This record has since been broken by LeBron James. On March 28, Bryant scored a season-high 53 points to go along with 10 rebounds in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies.
Despite an injury to his shooting hand's small finger, described as "a complete tear of the radial collateral ligament, an avulsion fracture, and a volar plate injury at the MCP joint" that occurred in a game on February 5, 2008, Bryant played all 82 games of the regular season instead of opting for surgery. Regarding his injury, Bryant stated, "I would prefer to delay any surgical procedure until after our Lakers season, and this summer's Olympic Games. But, this is an injury that myself [sic] and the Lakers' medical staff will just have to continue to monitor on a day-to-day basis."
Aided by the trade for All-Star Pau Gasol, Bryant led his team to a West-leading 57–25 record. The Lakers swept the Denver Nuggets in the first round and on May 6, 2008, Bryant was officially announced as the league MVP. He said, "It's been a long ride. I'm very proud to represent this organization, to represent this city." West, who was responsible for bringing Bryant to the Lakers, was on hand at the press conference to observe Bryant receive his MVP trophy from NBA commissioner David Stern. Stern stated, "Kobe deserved it. He's had just another great season. Doesn't surprise me one bit." In addition to winning his MVP award, Bryant was the only unanimous selection to the All-NBA team on May 8, 2008, for the third straight season and sixth time in his career. Bryant would then headline the NBA All-Defensive First Team with Kevin Garnett, receiving 52 points overall including 24 first-place nods, earning his eighth selection.
The Lakers finished the 2007–08 regular season with a 57–25 record, finishing first in the Western Conference and setting up themselves for a first-round contest against the Nuggets. In Game 1, Bryant, who said he made himself a decoy through most of the game, scored 18 of his 32 points in the final eight minutes to keep Los Angeles safely ahead. That made Denver the first 50-win team to be swept out of the first round of the playoffs since the Memphis Grizzlies fell in four games to the San Antonio Spurs in 2004. In the first game of the next round, against the Utah Jazz, Bryant scored 38 points as the Lakers beat the Jazz in Game 1. The Lakers won the next game as well, but dropped Games 3 and 4, even with Bryant putting up 33.5 points per game. The Lakers then won the next two games to win the semifinals. This set up a Western Conference Finals berth against the Spurs. The Lakers won the series in five games, sending themselves to the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. This marked the fifth time in Bryant's career, and the first time without O'Neal, that he made the NBA Finals. The Lakers then lost to the Celtics in six games.
In early September 2008, Bryant decided not to have surgery to repair his right pinkie. In the 2008–09 season, the Lakers opened the campaign by winning their first seven games. Bryant led the team to tie the franchise record for most wins to start the season going 17–2, and by the middle of December they compiled a 21–3 record. He was selected to his 11th consecutive All-Star Game as a starter, and was named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December and January in addition to being named Western Conference Player of the week three times. In a game against the Knicks on February 2, 2009, Bryant scored 61 points, setting a record for the most points scored at Madison Square Garden. During the 2009 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant tallied 27 points, four assists, four rebounds, and four steals and was awarded All-Star Game co-MVP with former teammate O'Neal. The Lakers finished the regular season with the best record in the West (65–17). Bryant was runner-up in the MVP voting behind James, and was selected to the All-NBA First Team and All-Defensive First Team for the seventh time in his career.
In the playoffs, the Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in five games and the Houston Rockets in seven games in the opening two rounds. By finishing off the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals in six games, the Lakers earned their second straight trip to the NBA Finals. The Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic in five games. Bryant was awarded his first NBA Finals MVP trophy upon winning his fourth championship, achieving series averages of 32.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks. Bryant became the first player since West in the 1969 NBA Finals to average at least 32.4 points and 7.4 assists for a Finals series and the first since Jordan to average 30 points, five rebounds, and five assists for a title-winning team in the Finals. Bryant was the league's leading scorer throughout the 2000s decade, accumulating 21,065 points in regular season play between the 1999-00 and 2008–09 seasons.
During the 2009–10 season, Bryant made six game-winning shots including a buzzer-beating, one-legged three-pointer over Dwyane Wade on December 4, 2009, leading to the Lakers' narrow 108–107 victory over the Miami Heat. Bryant considered the shot "one of the luckiest he has made." A week later, Bryant suffered an avulsion fracture in his right index finger in a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite the injury, Bryant elected to continue playing, rather than take any time off to rest the injury. Five days after his finger injury, Bryant made another game-winning shot, after missing on an opportunity in regulation, this time against the Milwaukee Bucks in an overtime game. Bryant also became the youngest player (31 years, 151 days) to reach 25,000 points in his career during the season, surpassing Chamberlain. Bryant continued his dominant clutch plays making yet another game-winning three-pointer against the Sacramento Kings, and what would be the game-winning field goal against the Boston Celtics. The following day, Bryant surpassed West to become the all-time leading scorer in Lakers franchise history. After being sidelined for five games by an ankle injury, which also forced him to miss the 2010 NBA All-Star Game despite being the Western Conference's leading vote-getter, Bryant made his return and made another clutch three-pointer to give the Lakers a one-point lead with four seconds remaining against the Memphis Grizzlies. Two weeks later, he made his sixth game-winning shot of the season, against the Toronto Raptors.
On April 2, 2010, Bryant signed a three-year contract extension worth $87 million. He finished the regular season missing four of the final five games, due to injuries to his knee and finger. Bryant suffered multiple injuries throughout the season and missed nine games as a result. The Lakers began the playoffs as the No. 1-seed in the Western Conference against the Oklahoma City Thunder, eventually defeating them in six games. The Lakers swept the Utah Jazz in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference Finals, where they faced the Phoenix Suns. In Game 2, Bryant finished the game with 13 assists, setting a new playoff career-high; it was the most assists by a Laker in the playoffs since Magic Johnson had 13 in 1996. The Lakers went on to win the series in six games capturing the Western Conference Championship and advancing to the NBA Finals for a third straight season. In a rematch against the 2008 Champion Boston Celtics, Bryant, despite shooting 6-for-24 from the field, led the Lakers back from a 13-point third-quarter deficit in Game 7 to win the championship; he scored 10 of his game-high 23 points in the fourth quarter and finished the game with 15 rebounds, tying an NBA Finals record shared by Sam Jones and Tom Gola for rebounds by a shooting guard. Bryant won his fifth championship and earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. This marked the first time the Lakers won a Game 7 against the Celtics in the NBA Finals. Bryant said that this was the most satisfying of all of his five championships.
==== Chasing a sixth championship (2010–2013) ====
Bryant wanted a sixth championship to match Jordan's total. The Lakers started the 2010–11 season by winning their first eight games. In his ninth game of the season, playing against the Denver Nuggets, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 26,000 career points. Bryant also recorded his first triple-double since January 21, 2009. On January 30, 2011, against the Celtics, Bryant became the youngest player to score 27,000 points. Two days later, Bryant became one of seven players with at least 25,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists. In Boston on February 10, Bryant scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half as the Lakers rallied from an early 15-point deficit for a 92–86 victory over the Celtics. It was the Lakers' first victory of the season against one of the league's top four teams, as they entered the game 0–5 in previous matchups and had been outscored by an average of 11 points. Bryant, selected to his 13th straight All-Star game after becoming the leading vote-getter, had 37 points, 14 rebounds, and three steals in the 2011 All-Star Game and won his fourth All-Star MVP, tying Hall of Famer Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP awards. During the season, Bryant moved from 12th to sixth place on the NBA all-time career scoring list, passing John Havlicek, Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes, and Moses Malone. Bryant finished the season averaging less than 20 shots a game, his fewest since the 2003–04 season.
On April 13, 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for directing a gay slur at referee Bennie Adams in frustration in the previous day's game. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation praised the NBA's decision to fine Bryant, and the Human Rights Campaign said that Bryant's language was a "disgrace" and "distasteful." Bryant stated that he was open to discussing the matter with gay rights groups and wanted to appeal his fine. Bryant later apologized for the use of the word. Bryant and other Lakers appeared in a Lakers public service announcement denouncing his behavior. The team's quest for another three-peat was ended when they were swept by the Dallas Mavericks in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant received experimental platelet-rich plasma therapy called Orthokine in Germany to treat the pain on his left knee and ankle, and Mike Brown replaced the retired Jackson as coach of the Lakers in the off-season. Bryant began the season playing with an injured wrist. On January 10, 2012, he scored 48 points against the Suns. "Not bad for the seventh-best player in the league," said Bryant, referring to a preseason ESPN ranking of the NBA's top players. He went on to score 40, 42, and 42 in his next three games. It was the sixth time in his career Bryant scored 40 or more points in four straight games, a feat exceeded only by Chamberlain (19 times). At the 2012 NBA All-Star Game, Bryant scored 27 points to pass Jordan as the career scoring leader in the All-Star Game. He also suffered a broken nose and a concussion in the third quarter of the All-Star Game after a hard foul from Dwyane Wade. In April, Bryant missed seven games with a bruised left shin. He returned three games before the end of the regular season. Bryant sat out the season finale against Sacramento, foregoing the chase for a possible third NBA scoring title, having needed 38 points to surpass Kevin Durant. The Lakers were knocked out of the playoffs by Durant and Oklahoma City in the second round of the playoffs, losing in five games in what would be Bryant's final postseason appearance.
In 2012–13, the Lakers acquired center Dwight Howard and point guard Steve Nash. On November 2, 2012, Bryant scored 40 points with two steals, and he passed Magic Johnson (1,724) as the Lakers career leader in steals. However, the Lakers lost the game to the Clippers and started the season 0–3 for the first time in 34 years and just the fourth time in franchise history. After starting the season 1–4, coach Brown was fired. He was replaced by Mike D'Antoni, whom Bryant knew as a child when Bryant's father was playing in Italy and D'Antoni was also a star player there. Bryant had grown close with D'Antoni during their time with Team USA. On December 5 against New Orleans, Bryant became the youngest player (34 years and 104 days) in league history to score 30,000 points, joining Hall of Famers Chamberlain, Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Karl Malone as the fifth player to reach that milestone. On December 18, in a narrow 101–100 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats, Bryant scored 30+ points in his seventh consecutive game, the longest streak by an NBA player after turning 34 years old; it was the fourth-longest such streak in his career. Bryant's streak would be snapped at 10 on December 28 in a 104–87 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, when he scored 27 points, sitting out the whole fourth quarter. In a move to improve the team's defense, D'Antoni began having Bryant guard the opponent's best perimeter player; he was the primary defender on the Cavaliers' Kyrie Irving, who was held to 15 points. Bryant acknowledged he was a more focused defender after having a challenging defensive assignment as opposed to when Bryant played off the ball against weaker players. His defense disrupted opponents and freed Nash from unfavorable matchups.
Bryant was leading the league in scoring through much of the first 42 games. With a disappointing 17–25 start to the season, D'Antoni had Bryant became the primary facilitator on offense and Nash was moved off the ball and became more of a spot-up shooter. In the next three games, Bryant had at least 10 assists in three wins with a three-game total of 39 assists, the most in his career. Bryant missed a triple-double in each game with nine rebounds twice and eight in the other. In two crucial wins in March, he scored at least 40 points and had at least 10 assists in back-to-back games, becoming the first Laker to accomplish the feat since West in 1970. Bryant surpassed Chamberlain to become the fourth-leading scorer in league history in a March 30, 2013, victory over Sacramento.
With the Lakers fighting to secure the eighth and final playoff berth in the Western Conference, coupled with injuries on the team, Bryant began playing almost all 48 minutes each game. On April 10, 2013, he became the first player in NBA history to get 47 points, eight rebounds, five assists, four blocks, and three steals in a game. Two days later, Bryant suffered a torn Achilles tendon against the Golden State Warriors, ending his season. Bryant's injury came while he was playing seven consecutive quarters and at least 40 minutes for seven consecutive games. The 34-year-old Bryant was averaging his most minutes (38.6) in six years, and only Portland rookie Damian Lillard was averaging more minutes. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak had spoken to Bryant about his extensive playing time 10 days earlier, but Bryant insisted the minutes needed to continue given the Lakers' playoff push. He had surgery on April 13 to repair the tear, and it was estimated that he would miss six to nine months. Bryant ended the season with customary averages of 27.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 6 assists per game on 46.3% shooting. However, The New York Times called his leading of the Lakers back into playoff contention "perhaps some of the finest work of his career." He reached 40 points eight times during the season, and Bryant had 10 or more assists in his role as distributor 11 times. Bryant was dubbed "Magic Mamba" after the passing skills of Magic Johnson. Bryant's assists were the second-highest of his career and his field goal percentage was its highest since 2008–09. The Lakers finished the season at 45–37, good for seventh in the West. Playing without Bryant, the Lakers were swept in four games by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the playoffs.
==== Injury-plagued years (2013–2015) ====
Bryant resumed practicing in November 2013, after the 2013–14 season had already begun. On November 25, he signed a two-year contract extension with the Lakers at an estimated value of $48.5 million. Bryant remained the league's highest-paid player, although he accepted a discounted deal; Bryant had been eligible to receive an extension starting at $32 million per year. His contract became a polarizing topic, with detractors arguing that stars should take less money to allow their team more financial freedom, while supporters countered that the NBA's biggest stars were being paid less than their true value. Bryant resumed playing on December 8 after missing the season's first 19 games, being limited to nine points, although tying a team-high in assists and rebounds, with eight and four respectively, in 106–94 home loss to the Toronto Raptors. Nine days later, he matched his season high of 21 points in a 96–92 win over Memphis, but suffered a lateral tibial plateau fracture in his left knee that was expected to sideline him for six weeks. Bryant had played six games since returning from his Achilles injury, which included time at point guard after injuries to Nash, Steve Blake, and Jordan Farmar. Bryant was averaging 13.8 points, 6.3 assists, and 4.3 rebounds. Despite being sidelined, he was voted by fans to start in his 16th All-Star game. Bryant did not feel he was deserving of the selection, and some likened it to a career achievement award for his past performance. However, Bryant missed playing in the game, still hampered by his knee. On March 12, 2014, the Lakers ruled Bryant out for the rest of the season, citing his need for more rehab and the limited time remaining in the season. At the time, the team was 22–42 and tied for the worst record in the Western Conference. The Lakers finished 27–55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
Bryant returned for the 2014–15 season, his 19th season with the Lakers, who had replaced D'Antoni with Bryant's former Lakers teammate, Byron Scott. On November 30, 2014, in a 129–122 overtime victory over the Toronto Raptors, Bryant recorded his 20th career triple-double with 31 points, 12 assists, and 11 rebounds. At age 36, Bryant became the oldest NBA player to achieve 30 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists in a game. On December 14, he became the NBA's third all-time leading scorer, passing Jordan (32,292) in a 100–94 victory over Minnesota. Bryant played in the first 27 games of the season, averaging team-highs with 26.4 points and 35.4 minutes per game while leading the league with 22.4 shots per game. However, Scott held him out for three straight games to rest after one of his worst performances of the season, when Bryant committed nine turnovers and scored 25 points on just 8-for-30 shooting in a 108–101 loss to Sacramento. He was suffering from soreness in his knees, feet, back, and Achilles tendons, and Scott planned to reduce Bryant's workload going forward as a result. Bryant had exceeded 40 minutes in a game thrice, and the coach blamed himself for overloading Bryant after he started the season in such great shape. For the season, Bryant had been shooting just 37 percent from the field, and the team's record was only 8–19. In his second game back after resting, Bryant had 23 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds in a 111–103 victory over Denver, and became just the third player in league history to record multiple triple-doubles in a season at age 36 or older. On January 21, 2015, Bryant suffered a rotator cuff tear in his right shoulder while driving baseline for a two-handed dunk against the New Orleans Pelicans. Though he was right-handed, Bryant returned to play in the game and ran the offense while shooting, dribbling, and passing almost exclusively with his left hand. Prior to the injury, Bryant had been rested in eight of 16 games. He underwent season-ending surgery for the injury, finishing the season averaging 22.3 points but shooting a career-low 37.3 percent, well below his 45.4 percent career mark to start the season. Bryant was expected to be sidelined for nine months with a return targeted toward the start of the 2015–16 season. The Lakers finished the season with a record of 21–61, surpassing the franchise record for most losses in a season that they had set the previous year.
==== Final season (2015–2016) ====
After recovering to play in the 2015–16 preseason, Bryant suffered a calf injury and missed the final two weeks of exhibition games. However, he played in the season opener to begin his 20th season with the Lakers, surpassing John Stockton's league record of 19 for the most seasons with the same team. On November 24, 2015, the Lakers fell to 2–12 after losing 111–77 to the Warriors. Bryant scored just four points in 25 minutes on 1-for-14 shooting, matching the worst-shooting game of his career in which he attempted at least five shots. A week later, Bryant played his last game against his hometown team, the Philadelphia 76ers, scoring a team-high 20 points in a 103–91 Lakers loss.
On November 29, 2015, Bryant announced via The Players' Tribune that he would be retiring at the end of the season. In his poem titled "Dear Basketball", Bryant wrote that he fell in love with the game at age six: "A love so deep I gave you my all/From my mind & body/To my spirit & soul." The 2015–16 season "is all I have left to give./My heart can take the pounding/My mind can handle the grind/But my body knows it's time to say goodbye./And that's OK./I'm ready to let you go." In a letter distributed to Lakers' fans before that evening's game against the Indiana Pacers, Bryant wrote: "What you've done for me is far greater than anything I've done for you. ... My love for this city, this team and for each of you will never fade. Thank you for this incredible journey."
At the time of his announcement, Bryant was second on the team in minutes (30.8) behind Jordan Clarkson and leading the team with 16.7 field goal attempts per game, while averaging just 15.7 points and shooting a career-low 31.5 percent. Bryant's free throw attempts had dropped from his career average, and his game had become over-reliant on pump fakes and long-range shots, making a league-worst 19.5 percent from three-point range while attempting seven a game, almost double his career average. In his press conference after the announcement, Bryant acknowledged his declining skills. He stated: "Even though I play like shit, I've worked really, really hard not to play like crap and I do everything I possibly can. And I feel good about that."
Bryant requested that opposing teams on the road not hold any on-court ceremonies in his honor or present him any gifts in public. Prior to announcing his retirement, Bryant had been steadfast about not wanting the fuss of a staged farewell tour, preferring to hear boos instead of cheers. However, Bryant was still honored around the league with video tributes and fan ovations, including arenas that historically jeered him such as TD Garden in Boston, Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Moda Center in Portland, Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, and Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. Previously, Bryant was respected but not beloved, and he was astonished at the cheers he was now receiving.
On February 3, Bryant made seven three-pointers and scored a then season-high 38 points, including 14 of the team's 18 points in the last 5:02 of the game, for a 119–115 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The win ended a 10-game losing streak, and the Lakers averted establishing the longest losing streak in franchise history. He became just the fourth NBA player over 37 years old to log at least 35 points, five rebounds, and five assists in a game. Bryant was the leading overall vote-getter for the 2016 All-Star Game with 1.9 million votes, ahead of Stephen Curry's 1.6 million. Having moved to small forward that season, Bryant was selected as a frontcourt starter for the first time. Playing in his first All-Star game since 2013, Bryant had 10 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. West teammates offered to feed him the ball in an attempt to get him another All-Star MVP, but Bryant declined.
In his final game on April 13, in a 101–96 win against the against the Utah Jazz, Bryant scored an NBA season-high 60 points on 50 shots—the most in an NBA game in the past 30 seasons—while also outscoring the Jazz by himself 23–21 in the fourth quarter. He also set an NBA record for the most points by a player in his final regular season game. Bryant became the oldest player to score 60 or more points in a game at 37 years and 234 days old. The Lakers finished the season with a 17–65 record, their worst record in franchise history. After the game, he gave a prolonged speech in front of the Staples Center crowd and said:
I can't believe how fast 20 years went by. Man, this is crazy [...] and to be standing at center court with you guys, my teammates behind me, appreciating the journey that we've been on — we've been through our ups, been through our downs. I think the most important part is we all stayed together throughout. [...] Thank you guys for all the years of support. Thank you guys for all the motivation. Thank you for all the inspiration [...] What can I say? Mamba out.
== National team career ==
Bryant declined to play in the 2000 Olympics because he was getting married in the off-season. Bryant also decided not to play in the 2002 FIBA World Championship. He was originally selected for the FIBA Americas Championship in 2003, but withdrew after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder and knee surgeries. The following summer, Bryant had to withdraw from the Olympic team because of his sexual assault case. Along with LeBron James, Bryant was one of the first two players to be publicly named to the 2006–2008 U.S. preliminary roster in 2006 by Jerry Colangelo. However, he was once again sidelined after knee surgery and did not participate in the 2006 FIBA World Championship.
Bryant's United States national team career finally began in 2007. He was a member of the 2007 USA Men's Senior National Team and USA FIBA Americas Championship Team that finished 10–0, won gold and qualified the United States men for the 2008 Olympics. Bryant started in all 10 of the USA's FIBA Americas Championship games. He averaged 15.3 points, 2.9 assists, 2.0 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in the tournament.
On June 23, 2008, Bryant was named to the USA Men's Senior National Team for the 2008 Summer Olympics. This was his first time going to the Olympics. Bryant scored 20 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, along with six assists, as Team USA defeated Spain 118–107 in the gold medal game on August 24, 2008, for its first gold medal in a worldwide competition since the 2000 Olympics. He averaged 15.0 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 2.1 assists while shooting .462 from the field in eight Olympic contests.
Bryant rejoined the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics. After winning another gold medal, he decided to retire from the team. Bryant finished his national team career with a record of 26–0 across three tournaments, winning a gold medal each time.
== Player profile ==
Bryant primarily played as a shooting guard. He was listed at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) and 212 pounds (96 kg), Bryant was often cited as one of the most dangerous scorers in the NBA. He has drawn frequent comparisons to Michael Jordan, after whom Bryant modeled his playing style. Like Jordan, Bryant became most known for shooting a fall-away jump shot. Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated described another of Bryant's most famous moves as the "jab step-and-pause" in which Bryant jabbed his non-pivot foot forward to let the defender relax but instead of bringing the jab foot back, Bryant pushed off of it and drove around his opponent to get to the basket. Bryant also learned and practiced post moves through individual coaching sessions from Hakeem Olajuwon.
Bryant established a reputation for taking shots in the closing moments of tight games, even when he was double or triple-teamed, and was noted as one of the premier closers in the NBA. In a 2012 annual survey of NBA general managers, Bryant was selected for the 10th consecutive season as the player general managers would want to take a clutch shot with a game on the line. Bryant enjoyed being the villain, and reveled in being booed and then silencing the crowd with his play. Bryant's ability to make difficult shots has also drawn criticism of his shot selection. Throughout his career, Bryant was disparaged for being a selfish, high-volume shooter; he missed more field goal attempts in his career than any other player in NBA history, until LeBron James broke that record in 2024. Phil Jackson, who coached Bryant for many years, stated that Bryant "tends to force the action, especially when the game isn't going his way. When his shot is off, Kobe will pound away relentlessly until his luck turns." According to Bryant, "I would go 0 for 30 before I would go 0 for 9; 0 for 9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game."
In addition to his abilities on offense, Bryant also established himself as a standout defensive player. Bryant rarely drew charges when he played defense, which he believed spared his body and contributed to his longevity. However, some critics have suggested that Bryant's defensive accolades in his later years were based more on his reputation than his actual play.
Bryant was also lauded for his relentless work ethic, dubbed the "Mamba mentality." Throughout his first 17 seasons, Bryant's body was resilient, and he exhibited a high pain threshold while often playing through injuries. A fierce competitor, Bryant made opponents and teammates alike the objects of his scorn. Many players have considered him difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance. According to sportswriter Mark Heisler of Forbes, "circa 2004–2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen." After the departure of Shaquille O'Neal, he led the Lakers to two NBA championships; during this period, Bryant became more of a mentor to his teammates than he had been earlier in his career. Bryant's longtime head coach Phil Jackson noted a big difference during his two Lakers coaching stints in Bryant's demeanor towards his teammates. In his earlier years, if Bryant talked to teammates it was usually "give me the damn ball." During the latter period, Bryant "embraced the team and his teammates, calling them up when we were on the road and inviting them out to dinner. It was as if the other players were now his partners, not his personal spear-carriers."
== NBA career statistics ==
=== Regular season ===
=== Playoffs ===
== Off the court ==
=== Personal life ===
Bryant was the youngest of three children. He grew up with two older sisters, Sharia and Shaya, and had close relationships with them his entire life.
In November 1999, 21-year-old Bryant met 17-year-old Vanessa Laine while she was working as a background dancer on the Tha Eastsidaz music video "G'd Up." Bryant was in the building and working on his debut album. They began dating and became engaged six months later in May 2000, while Laine was still a senior at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, California. To avoid media scrutiny, she finished high school through independent study. According to Vanessa's cousin Laila Laine, there was no prenuptial agreement. Laila said Bryant "loved her too much for one." They got married on April 18, 2001, at St. Edward the Confessor Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. The wedding was not attended by Bryant's parents, his two sisters, his longtime advisor and agent Arn Tellem, or his Laker teammates. Bryant's parents were opposed to the marriage for a number of reasons—including, reportedly, his marrying so young, especially to a woman who was not African-American. This disagreement resulted in an estrangement period of over two years, which ended when the couple's first daughter was born.
The Bryants' first daughter, Natalia, was born in January 2003. Due to an ectopic pregnancy, Vanessa suffered a miscarriage in the spring of 2005. Their second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore (also referred to as "Gigi"), was born in May 2006. On December 16, 2011, Vanessa Bryant filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, and the couple requested joint custody of their daughters. On January 11, 2013, Bryant and his wife announced via social media that they had called off their divorce. In early December 2016, Vanessa gave birth to their third daughter, and in January 2019, the Bryants announced they were expecting a fourth daughter, who was born in June 2019.
Bryant was a practicing Catholic. He said his faith and a priest helped him through difficult times, such as the period following his accusation of rape. A Catholic cantor said that she was inspired by Bryant's faith, and the respect that he showed her. Bryant and his family were regular attendees at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach. He and his daughter, Gianna, received the Eucharist together just hours before they died.
Bryant was multilingual. He was fluent in English, Italian, and Spanish. Inspired by the codename for Uma Thurman's character in the Kill Bill films, Bryant assigned himself the nickname of "Black Mamba", citing a desire for his basketball skills to mimic the eponymous snake's ability to "strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession." During the 2012–13 season, Bryant began referring to himself as "vino" to describe how his play had been aging like a fine wine.
In January 2002, Bryant bought a Mediterranean-style house for $4 million, located on a cul-de-sac in Newport Coast, Newport Beach. He sold the house in May 2015.
In 2013, Bryant had a legal disagreement with an auction house over memorabilia from his early years that his parents had put up for auction. Bryant's parents received $450,000 from the auction house for the items, and contended Bryant had given them the rights to the items he had remaining in their home. However, Bryant's lawyers asked the auction house to return the items. Before the scheduled trial, a settlement was reached allowing the auction house the sale of less than 10% of the items. Bryant's parents apologized to him for the misunderstanding in a written statement, and appreciated the financial support he had given them over the years.
Bryant grew up a baseball fan and had been a long-time supporter of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels during his tenure with the Lakers. However, during the 2009 National League Championship Series when the Dodgers played his hometown Philadelphia Phillies, Bryant revealed to Craig Sager that he actually grew up a fan of their National League East archrivals, the New York Mets wanting to be like Darryl Strawberry and boasted that he still had a Ron Darling baseball card.
Bryant also was a lifelong fan of his hometown NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Bryant was also a fan of soccer teams Barcelona, AC Milan, and Manchester City.
According to Forbes, at the time of his retirement, Bryant's $680 million in career earnings was the most ever by a team athlete during their playing career.
Bryant was a second cousin of his former Lakers teammate Cedric Ceballos.
==== Sexual assault case ====
In the summer of 2003, the sheriff's office of Eagle, Colorado, arrested Bryant in connection with an investigation of a sexual assault complaint filed by a 19-year-old hotel employee. Bryant had checked into The Lodge and Spa at Cordillera in Eagle County in advance of undergoing knee surgery nearby. The accuser stated that Bryant raped her in his hotel room the night before he was to have the procedure. Bryant admitted to an adulterous sexual encounter with his accuser but denied her sexual assault allegation. Bryant was charged on June 18, 2003.
The accusation had a negative impact on Bryant's reputation, and the public's perception of him plummeted; his endorsement contracts with McDonald's and Nutella were terminated. Sales for Bryant's replica jersey fell significantly. In September 2004, the assault case was dropped by prosecutors after the accuser decided not to testify at the trial. Afterward, Bryant agreed to apologize to her for the incident, including his public mea culpa: "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter." The accuser filed a separate lawsuit against Bryant, which the two sides settled privately.
=== Endorsements ===
Before starting the 1996–97 season, Bryant signed a six-year contract with Adidas worth approximately $48 million. His first signature shoe was the Equipment KB 8. Bryant's other, earlier endorsements included deals with The Coca-Cola Company to endorse their Sprite soft drink, appearing in advertisements for McDonald's, promoting Spalding's new NBA Infusion Ball, Upper Deck, Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA's brand Nutella, Russell Corporation, and appearing on his own series of video games by Nintendo. Many companies like McDonald's and Ferrero SpA terminated Bryant's contracts when rape allegations against him became public. A notable exception was Nike, Inc., who had signed Bryant to a five-year, $40–45 million contract just before the incident. They refused to use his image or market a new shoe of his for the year, but started promoting Bryant two years later, when his image had recovered. Bryant also resumed endorsement deals with The Coca-Cola Company, through their subsidiary Energy Brands, to promote their Vitamin Water brand of drinks. He was also the cover athlete for NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2 and appeared in commercials for the video games Guitar Hero World Tour (with Tony Hawk, Michael Phelps, and Alex Rodriguez) in 2008 and Call of Duty: Black Ops (alongside Jimmy Kimmel) in 2010.
In a 2008 video promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant appears to jump over a speeding Aston Martin. The stunt was considered fake, and the Los Angeles Times said a real stunt would probably be a violation of Bryant's Lakers contract. After promoting Nike's Hyperdunk shoes, Bryant came out with the fourth edition of his signature line by Nike, the Zoom Kobe IV. In 2010, Nike launched another shoe, Nike Zoom Kobe V. In 2009, Bryant signed a deal with Nubeo to market the Black Mamba Collection, a line of sports/luxury watches ranging from $25,000 to $285,000. On February 9, 2009, he was featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine—not for anything basketball related, but about his being a big fan of FC Barcelona. CNN estimated Bryant's endorsement deals in 2007 to be worth $16 million a year. In 2010, he was ranked third, behind Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, in Forbes' list of the world's highest-paid athletes, with $48 million.
On December 13, 2010, Bryant signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey's national airline, Turkish Airlines; he appeared in a promotional film aired in over 80 countries, and appeared in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In September 2012, Bryant shot a commercial for Turkish Airlines with FC Barcelona star Lionel Messi. In the airline's latest commercial, the duo competes to win the attention of a young boy. In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth-highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, and Lionel Messi.
Bryant appeared as the cover athlete for the following video games:
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
NBA Courtside 2: Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA Courtside 2002
NBA 3 on 3 Featuring Kobe Bryant
NBA '07: Featuring the Life Vol. 2
NBA 09: The Inside
NBA 2K10
NBA 2K17 (Legend Edition; Legend Edition Gold)
NBA 2K21 (Mamba Forever Edition)
NBA 2K24 (Kobe Bryant Edition and Black Mamba Edition)
Bryant was also one of the global ambassadors of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
=== Music ===
In high school, Bryant was a member of a rap group called CHEIZAW, named after the Chi Sah gang in the martial arts film Kid with the Golden Arm. The group was signed by Sony Entertainment, but the company's ultimate goal was to eliminate the group and have Bryant record on his own. The label wanted to capitalize on Bryant's youth and NBA fame. He performed at a 1997 concert by Sway & King Tech and recorded a verse for a remix of Brian McKnight's "Hold Me." Bryant even appeared on Lakers teammate O'Neal's Respect, starting the track "3 X's Dope", though Bryant's name was not listed on the credits. Bryant's only credited appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 was as a featured rapper on Brian McKnight and Tone's single "Hold Me," which was released in 1998 and peaked at number 35 in January 1999.
Sony pushed Bryant from his roots of underground hip hop into a more radio-friendly sound. His debut album, Visions, was scheduled to release in the spring of 2000. The first single, "K.O.B.E'", featured supermodel Tyra Banks singing the hook. The single debuted in January 2000, and was performed at NBA All-Star Weekend that month, but it was not well received. Sony abandoned plans for the album, which was never released, and dropped Bryant later that year. The Sony president who originally signed Bryant had already left, and Bryant's other backers had mostly abandoned him. Afterward, Bryant co-founded an independent record label, Heads High Entertainment, but it folded within a year. In 1999, he appeared on a remix of "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child on the Maxi single version of the song.
In 2011, Bryant was featured in Taiwanese singer Jay Chou's single "The Heaven and Earth Challenge" (天地一鬥, pronounced "Tian Di Yi Dou"). The proceeds for downloads of both the single and ringtones were donated to impoverished schools for basketball facilities and equipment. The music video of the single also features Bryant. The song was also used by Sprite in its 2011 marketing campaign in China.
In 2009, American rapper Lil Wayne released a song called "Kobe Bryant." Similarly, in 2010, American rapper Sho Baraka released a song called "Kobe Bryant On'em", which was featured on his album Lions and Liars. In 2012, American rapper Chief Keef released "Kobe", a song paying tribute to Bryant. It was featured on his debut studio album, Finally Rich, as a part of the deluxe edition. For the NBA 2K21 soundtrack, Damian Lillard, under his stage name Dame D.O.L.L.A., released a tribute track also titled "Kobe", featuring Snoop Dogg and Derrick Milano.
=== Film and television ===
Bryant made his acting debut in 1996, appearing in an episode of Moesha. Bryant met the show's star, Brandy, earlier in the year at a Nike All-Star basketball game; a couple of months later, in May 1996, he was Brandy's date to her Hollywood High School senior prom. That year, Bryant guest starred as himself on an episode of Arli$$ (episode: "What About the Fans?") and Sister, Sister (episode: "Kid-Napped"). In 1997, Bryant appeared on an episode of Hang Time, followed by a guest appearance on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That (1998). He was also the first choice for the role of Jesus Shuttlesworth in Spike Lee's 1998 film He Got Game, but turned down the role, saying "this summer is too big for me."
Bryant was the subject of Spike Lee's 2009 documentary film Kobe Doin' Work, which chronicled Bryant during the 2007–08 NBA season.
In 2018, Bryant became the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and the first former professional athlete to be nominated for and win an Academy Award in any category, for his film Dear Basketball. Despite winning the Oscar, he was denied membership into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences due to his past sexual abuse case and their new set of standards of conduct within the recent MeToo movement. The film also won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and a Sports Emmy Award. The film was produced by Bryant's production company, Granity Studios. In addition to future animation projects, Bryant had been in talks with animator veteran Bruce Smith for the last six months before his death about starting his own animation studio.
Beginning in 2018, Bryant wrote, produced and hosted the television series Detail, which aired for multiple seasons on ESPN and ESPN+. It featured his insights into the game of basketball and in-depth analyzes of games and individual players. Bryant also appeared on MTV's Ridiculousness in 2019.
==== Filmography ====
=== Philanthropy ===
Bryant was the official ambassador for After-School All-Stars (ASAS), an American non-profit organization that provides comprehensive after-school programs to children in 13 US cities. Bryant also started the Kobe Bryant China Fund which partnered with the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, a charity backed by the Chinese government. The Kobe Bryant China Fund raises money within China earmarked for education and health programs. On November 4, 2010, Bryant appeared alongside Zach Braff at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event at the Santa Monica Airport, where they presented a $1 million check to the Call of Duty Endowment, an Activision-founded nonprofit organization that helps veterans transition to civilian careers after their military service has ended.
Bryant and his wife founded the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation (KVBFF). Its goals are "helping young people in need, encouraging the development of physical and social skills through sports and assisting the homeless." Bryant spoke of the injustice aimed at homeless people who are blamed for their situation, saying that homelessness should not be ignored or made a low priority. Bryant said he wanted more out of life than just a successful basketball career.
Bryant and his wife were also founding donors of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, with Bryant also donating his uniform that he wore in the 2008 NBA Finals, the year Bryant was named the league MVP. During his lifetime, Bryant granted over 200 requests for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
=== Business ventures ===
Bryant established Kobe Inc. to own and grow brands in the sports industry. The initial investment was a 10% stake in the Bodyarmor SuperDrink company for $6 million in March 2014. The headquarters are in Newport Beach, California. With The Coca-Cola Company purchasing a minority stake in the company in August 2018, the valuation of Bryant's stake rose to approximately $200 million.
In 2013, Bryant launched a production company called Granity Studios, which developed different media, ranging from films to television shows and novels.
On August 22, 2016, Bryant and his business partner Jeff Stibel launched Bryant-Stibel, a venture capital firm focused on different businesses including media, data, gaming, and technology, with $100 million in funding. In 2018, Bryant and Sports Academy launched Mamba Sports Academy, a joint athletic-training business venture. The academy established locations in Thousand Oaks and Redondo Beach, California.
=== Books ===
On October 23, 2018, Bryant's book The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, with photographs and afterword by Andrew D. Bernstein, an introduction by Phil Jackson, and a foreword by Pau Gasol, was published by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book looks back on his career with photos and his reflections.
At the time of his death, Bryant was working with Brazilian author Paulo Coelho on a children's book aimed at inspiring underprivileged children. After Bryant's death, Coelho deleted the draft, saying in an interview that "it didn't make any sense to publish without him." He did not say how many pages had been written or whether the book had a title.
Bryant also co-wrote/produced several young adult novels through Granity Studios: The Wizenard Series: Training Camp, Legacy and the Queen, and Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof. A fourth novel, The Wizenard Series: Season One, was released posthumously in March 2020. The Wizarenard Series: Season One topped the New York Times middle-grade hardcover list.
== Death ==
=== Accident ===
At 9:06 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter departed from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, with nine people aboard: Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, six family friends including John Altobelli, and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The helicopter was registered to the Fillmore-based Island Express Holding Corp., according to the California Secretary of State business database. The group was traveling to Camarillo Airport in Ventura County for a basketball game at Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks.
Due to light rain and fog that morning, the Los Angeles Police Department helicopters and most other air traffic were grounded. The flight tracker showed that the helicopter circled above Glendale, California, due to heavy air traffic in the area. At 9:30 a.m., Zobayan contacted the Hollywood Burbank Airport's control tower, notifying the tower of the situation, and was told he was "flying too low" to be tracked by radar. At that time, the helicopter experienced extreme fog and turned south towards the mountains. At 9:40 a.m., the helicopter climbed rapidly from 1,200 to 2,000 feet (370 to 610 m), flying at 161 knots (298 km/h; 185 mph).
At 9:45 a.m., the helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and began burning. Bryant, his daughter, and the other seven occupants were all killed on impact. Initial reports indicated that the helicopter crashed in the hills above Calabasas in heavy fog. Witnesses reported hearing a helicopter struggling before crashing.
=== Investigations ===
On January 28, Bryant's identity was officially confirmed using fingerprints. The following day, the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner stated that the official cause of death for him and the eight others on the helicopter was blunt force trauma.
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and the FBI launched investigations into the crash.
The cause of the crash was hard to investigate, as the helicopter was not equipped with a black box. Over a year after the crash, on February 9, 2021, the NTSB declared that pilot Ara Zobayan probably became disoriented after flying into thick clouds. The five board members also said Zobayan, who also died in the crash, ignored his training and violated federal regulations during the 40-minute flight.
On February 28, 2023, Vanessa Bryant was awarded a $28.85 million settlement from Los Angeles County to conclude legal proceedings over graphic photos of the aftermath of the helicopter crash that were shared without the permission of the family. The figure includes the $15 million she was awarded from L.A. County in a 2022 civil trial, with "additional funds to settle potential claims from her daughters"—Natalia, 20, Bianka, 6, and Capri, 3. Chris Chester, a co-plaintiff who lost his 45-year-old wife and 13-year-old daughter in the crash, settled for $19.95 million.
=== Tributes and funeral services ===
On February 7, Bryant and his daughter were buried in a private funeral in Pacific View Memorial Park in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, California. A public memorial service was held on February 24 (2/24, marking both Kobe's and Gianna's jersey numbers) at Staples Center (later Crypto.com Arena) with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. Speakers at the service included Vanessa, Jordan, and O'Neal, along with Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi and Geno Auriemma, Taurasi's coach at Connecticut, where Gianna had been aspiring to play.
The NBA had postponed the Lakers' game against the Clippers just two days after the accident on January 28—the first time an NBA game was postponed for any reason since the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing led to the postponement of a Celtics game. On January 30, the first game at Staples Center after the crash was played between the Clippers and the Sacramento Kings; the Clippers honored Bryant before the game, with Southern California native Paul George narrating a video tribute to Bryant. The next day, the Lakers played their first game after the crash against the Trail Blazers. Ahead of the game, the Lakers paid tribute to Bryant and all who lost their lives in the crash with a ceremony held just before tip-off, with Usher singing "Amazing Grace" and Boyz II Men singing the national anthem, while Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth reunited to perform "See You Again"—originally their tribute to Paul Walker after his death while filming Furious 7—at halftime. James also delivered a speech to the crowd before the game, and every player in the Lakers starting lineup was announced with Bryant's name. The game was the second-most-watched in ESPN history, averaging 4.41 million viewers. The first ever head-to-head meeting between Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming in 2003 was the only one with more viewers.
Also, beginning with the Spurs and the Raptors in their game in San Antonio on the day of the crash, teams paid tribute to Bryant at the start of their games with intentional on-court violations referring to his uniform numbers on their first possession—either a 24-second shot clock or an 8-second backcourt violation. On February 15, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that the All-Star Game MVP Award would be renamed to the NBA All-Star Game Kobe Bryant Most Valuable Player Award in Bryant's honor. In May 2020, the Mamba Sports Academy was renamed to Sports Academy out of respect for Bryant.
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards went ahead as scheduled at Staples Center on the day of the crash, but included tributes by multiple artists and groups, including host Alicia Keys opening the show with a tribute speech in which she called Staples Center "the house that Kobe Bryant built" and joining Boyz II Men to sing "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday".
Bryant also appeared at the start of the In Memoriam segment of the 92nd Academy Awards following his Oscar in 2018 for Dear Basketball, and Spike Lee wore a suit in tribute to him at the ceremony. He was not included in the montages at the 2020 VMAs and Emmys, held later in the year. Fans were upset at the omission, especially as actors Naya Rivera and Chadwick Boseman had been featured prominently in both; after Rivera and Boseman's unexpected deaths in July and August 2020 respectively, the three young black celebrities were popularly compared.
The 2020 Pro Bowl was also played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on the day of the crash, and before kickoff, NFC players who learned of Bryant's death conducted a prayer led by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, while various on-field and PA tributes were made during the game.
In the 2020 WNBA draft, Gianna Bryant, Alyssa Altobelli, and Payton Chester were made honorary draft picks.
After the Lakers beat the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the 2020 NBA Finals to clinch the franchise's 17th NBA championship, rapper, Lakers fan and Long Beach native Snoop Dogg paid homage to Bryant and the Lakers with a full forearm tattoo. Bryant was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021, with Vanessa delivering the acceptance speech on Bryant's behalf.
== Legacy ==
Bryant was called "one of the greatest players in the history of our game" by NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and The New York Times wrote that Bryant had "one of the most decorated careers in the history of the sport." Reuters called him "arguably the best player of his generation", while both Sporting News and TNT named him their NBA player of the decade for the 2000s. In 2008 and again in 2016, ESPN ranked Bryant the second-greatest shooting guard of all time after Jordan. In 2022, to commemorate the NBA's 75th Anniversary, The Athletic ranked their top 75 players of all time, and they named Bryant as the 10th-greatest player in NBA history and the second-highest shooting guard on the list, behind only Jordan. Many peer players—including Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Derrick Rose—called Bryant their generation's version of Jordan. The Press-Enterprise described Bryant as "maybe the greatest Laker in the organization's history." He was the Lakers' all-time leading scorer, and his five titles are tied for the most in franchise history. Both numbers Bryant wore during his career, 8 and 24, were retired by the Lakers on December 18, 2017. In his first year of eligibility, Bryant was named a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, weeks after his death, before being elected a couple of months later in April 2020. His formal induction was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In October 2021, Bryant was honored as one of the league's greatest players of all time by being named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team. The team was honored during the 2022 NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland, with Bryant receiving one of the loudest cheers of the night.
With career averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game, Bryant was considered one of the most complete players in NBA history. He is the fourth-leading scorer in league history with 33,643 points. Bryant was the first player in NBA history to have at least 30,000 career points and 6,000 career assists, and was one of only four players with 25,000 points, 6,000 rebounds, and 6,000 assists. He led the NBA in scoring during the 2005–06 and 2006–07 seasons. Bryant's 81-point performance against Toronto in 2006 was the second-highest in NBA history, behind only Chamberlain's 100. Bryant scored at least 50 points 24 times in his career, which is third in league history behind Jordan (31) and Chamberlain (118); six times Bryant scored at least 60. He was just the third player in NBA history to average 40 points in a calendar month, which Bryant accomplished four times. He was voted the league MVP in 2008 and led his team to the 2008 NBA Finals as the first seed in the Western Conference. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Bryant won a gold medal as a member of the U.S. men's basketball team, occasionally referred to as "The Redeem Team." He won another gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Bryant led the Lakers to two more championships in 2009 and 2010, winning the Finals MVP award on both occasions.
Bryant was an 18-time All-Star, which ranks second behind only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's and LeBron James' 19. Bryant was chosen a then-record 18 straight times, each time as a starter. On four occasions (2003, 2011, 2013, 2016), he was the leading vote-getter. Bryant was named the All-Star MVP four times, a record he shares with Bob Pettit. Bryant was selected to the All-NBA Team on 15 occasions, tied for the most with Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan, and his 11 first-team honors are tied for the second-most with Karl Malone. Bryant was also a 12-time All-Defensive Team selection, trailing only Duncan's 15, and Bryant was named to the All-Defensive First Team nine times, tied with Jordan, Garnett, and Gary Payton for the most all time. He was the first guard to play 20 seasons in the NBA. Bryant also won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1997 and was its youngest winner. In his career, Bryant scored 40-plus points in 121 games, and he recorded a triple-double 21 times.
During the 2020 NBA playoffs, the Lakers' players wore 'Black Mamba' jerseys in honor of Bryant. Designed by Bryant himself, the black jersey features a snakeskin pattern with yellow accents and 16 stars representing the team's 16 championships at the time. In a Game 2 victory over the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals, Anthony Davis made a buzzer-beating three-pointer and yelled Bryant's name, while the team was wearing the 'Black Mamba' jerseys. Following a Game 2 victory in the 2020 NBA Finals, LeBron James was asked about the jerseys and had this to say: "It's always special to represent someone that meant so much, not only to the game but also to the Lakers organization for 20-plus years. For us to honor him, being on the floor, this is what it's all about."
On January 26, 2022, coinciding with the second anniversary of his death, a statue of Bryant and his daughter Gianna was placed at the crash site in Calabasas. Later in February, the NBA redesigned the All-Star Game MVP trophy as part of the major redesign of the All-Star Weekend trophies in celebration of the league's 75th anniversary season.
On Kobe Bryant Day, August 24, in 2023, the Lakers stated that Bryant's statue outside of Crypto.com Arena would be unveiled on February 8, 2024, to honor his two numbers with the Lakers, 8 and 24, and 2 for the number of his daughter Gianna. The inspiration for the statue, based on an image of Bryant after his 81-point game, pointing a finger toward the sky, was requested by Bryant himself before his death. On August 2, 2024, the Lakers also unveiled a statue of Kobe and Gianna Bryant outside of Crypto.com Arena.
In February 2025, Donald Trump announced that Bryant would get a statue in the proposed National Garden of American Heroes.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
McGrath, Ben (March 31, 2014). "The fourth quarter : Kobe Bryant confronts a long—and possibly painful—goodbye". The Sporting Scene. The New Yorker. Vol. 90, no. 6. pp. 38–49. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
== External links ==
Career statistics from NBA.com · Basketball Reference
Official website
Kobe Bryant at IMDb |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Vogl | Heinrich Vogl | Heinrich Vogl (15 January 1845 – 21 April 1900) was a German operatic heldentenor.
He played the role of Loge in Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold at Munich Court Opera on 22 September 1869, with his wife, Therese Vogl, playing the role of Wellgunde. He also played the role of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre, also at Munich, on 26 June 1870. Therese Vogl played the role of Siegmund's sister and lover Sieglinde in the same performance. His Munich debut was as Max in Weber's Der Freischütz. He sang at Bayreuth, Berlin, London and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. At Bayreuth, he played the role of Loge in the first complete Ring cycle on 13 August 1876.
His performance in the role caused fellow singer Lilli Lehmann to comment that he was born for the part and that his Loge had never been equalled. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in the title role of Lohengrin on 1 January 1890; he also sang Loge, Siegmund, the title role of Tannhäuser, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, and Siegfried in both Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Met. Heinrich Vogl was also the first performer to play the roles of Loge and Siegfried in London, which he did in the first Ring cycle in London at Her Majesty's Theatre, with Anton Seidl conducting and his wife playing the role of Brünnhilde.
His Wagner repertoire included all the leading tenor roles except Walther in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, for which Wagner rejected him for the 1868 premiere on the grounds that, at the age of 23, Vogl was "totally incompetent". He and his wife Therese were among the first performers to sing the lead roles in Tristan und Isolde, and were highly regarded in these roles. His non-Wagner roles included the title role in Verdi's Otello, Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Aeneas in Berlioz's Les Troyens and the title role of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini. He was known for his vocal power and stamina, which allowed him to perform Loge, Siegmund and both Siegfrieds from Wagner's Ring cycle on consecutive evenings multiple times.
Heinrich Vogl is buried beside his wife in Tutzing, Bavaria.
== References ==
== External links ==
Werke von Heinrich Vogl in the German National Library catalogue
Vogl, Heinrich on University of Munich
Vogl Heinrich on Operissimo
Free scores by Heinrich Vogl at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Abbott | Sidney Abbott | Sidney Abbott (July 11, 1937 – April 15, 2015) was an American feminist and lesbian activist and writer. A former member of the Lavender Menace, she co-authored Sappho Was a Right-on Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism with Barbara Love, and was one of the most vocal and active members in the National Organization for Women, helping the organization to focus on not just women's rights in general, but lesbian rights, as well.
== Life and career ==
Sidney Afton Abbott was born on July 11, 1937 into a military family, describing herself as a military brat. She attended Smith College for three years, and graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1961. She then attended Columbia University for graduate school, studying urban planning.
In 1969, she joined the National Organization for Women (NOW) and became one of the first people to speak out for lesbian rights on panels at the New York chapter of NOW and at Columbia University. Abbott was a member of the Lavender Menace and co-authored Sappho Was a Right-on Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism in 1971, with Barbara Love.
In the mid-1970s, with Barbara Love, she lobbied for a NOW task force to be established to focus on lesbian issues, eventually it was established. NOW first named the task force the "sexuality and lesbian task force," and Abbott had to co-chair with a heterosexual woman. At the NOW national conference in Philadelphia in 1976, Abbott demanded that 1% of the organizations budget should go to the task force, and succeeded. During the conference, it was only one of two resolutions to pass.
Abbott served on the founding board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and worked to ensure the organization's board was equal numbers gay men and lesbian women. She was named by the Manhattan Borough President to the community planning board; she was the first openly gay person to do so. She also served as program developer for two departments in the New York City government. She was co-chair for the New York Performing Arts Center, and was politically active in the North Fork area of Long Island, New York.
Abbott and Kate Millett, Phyllis Birkby, Alma Routsong, and Artemis March were among the members of CR One, the first lesbian-feminist consciousness-raising group.
== Later years ==
Abbott lived in Southold, New York. In 2007, she founded the Women's Rights are Human Rights nonprofit. In 2008, she started a newsletter, In Our Shoes, about politics, class, and poverty. Her personal archives are located in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and in the Radcliff College feminist collection of NOW biographies.
== Death ==
Abbott died in a house fire in Southold, New York on April 15, 2015, aged 77.
== Works ==
Sidney Abbott; Barbara Love (1972). "Is Women's Liberation a Lesbian Plot?". Woman in Sexist Society: Studies in Power and Powerlessness. New American Library. ISBN 978-0-465-09199-7.
Sidney Abbott; Barbara Love (1977). Sappho was a Right-on Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism. Stein and Day. ISBN 978-0-8128-2406-3.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gusevsky_District#:~:text=As%20a%20municipal%20division%2C%20the,settlement%20and%20four%20rural%20settlements. | Gusevsky District | Gusevsky District (Russian: Гу́севский райо́н) is an administrative district (raion), one of the fifteen in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia. As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Gusevsky Urban Okrug. It is located in the east of the oblast. The area of the district is 654.9 square kilometers (252.9 sq mi). Its administrative center is the town of Gusev. Population: 37,142 (2010 census); 37,461 (2002 Census); 37,533 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Gusev accounts for 76.1% of the district's total population.
== Geography ==
The district is situated in the east of the oblast and is sparsely populated. The rivers in the district include the Pissa and the Angrapa. The southern parts of the district are dominated by forests; in the northern parts forests and steppe pasture prevail.
== Administrative and municipal status ==
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Gusevsky District is one of the fifteen in the oblast. The town of Gusev serves as its administrative center.
As a municipal division, the district has been incorporated as Gusevsky Urban Okrug since June 10, 2013. Prior to that date, the district was incorporated as Gusevsky Municipal District, which was subdivided into one urban settlement and four rural settlements.
== Economy ==
The economy is centered on agriculture. The main railway line and road from Kaliningrad to Moscow pass through the district.
== References ==
=== Notes ===
=== Sources ===
Калининградская областная Дума. Закон №463 от 27 мая 2010 г. «Об административно-территориальном устройстве Калининградской области», в ред. Закона №450 от 3 июля 2015 г. «О внесении изменений в Закон Калининградской области "Об административно-территориальном устройстве Калининградской области"». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован: "Калининградская правда" (вкладыш "Ведомости Правительства Калининградской области"), №112, 26 июня 2010 г. (Kaliningrad Oblast Duma. Law #463 of May 27, 2010 On the Administrative-Territorial Structure of Kaliningrad Oblast, as amended by the Law #450 of July 3, 2015 On Amending the Law of Kaliningrad Oblast "On the Administrative-Territorial Structure of Kaliningrad Oblast". Effective as of the day of the official publication.).
Правительство Калининградской области. Постановление №640 от 30 августа 2011 г. «Об утверждении реестра объектов административно-территориального деления Калининградской области», в ред. Постановления №877 от 21 ноября 2011 г «О внесении изменения в Постановление Правительства Калининградской области от 30 августа 2011 г. №640». Вступил в силу со дня официального опубликования. Опубликован: "Калининградская правда" (вкладыш "Официально"), №170, 15 сентября 2011 г. (Government of Kaliningrad Oblast. Resolution #640 of August 30, 2011 On the Adoption of the Registry of the Objects of the Administrative-Territorial Divisions of Kaliningrad Oblast, as amended by the Resolution #877 of November 21, 2011 On Amending the Resolution of the Government of Kaliningrad Oblast #640 of August 30, 2011. Effective as of the day of the official publication.).
Калининградская областная Дума. Закон №230 от 29 мая 2013 г. «О преобразовании Гусевского городского поселения, Калининского, Кубановского, Маяковского и Михайловского сельских поселений путём объединения поселений и наделении вновь образованного городского поселения статусом городского округа». Вступил в силу по истечении 10 дней со дня официального опубликования, за исключением статей 4, 5. Опубликован: "Калининградская правда", №92, 31 мая 2013 г.. (Kaliningrad Oblast Duma. Law #230 of May 29, 2013 On the Transformation of Gusevskoye Urban Settlement, Kalininskoye, Kubanovskoye, Mayakovskoye, and Mikhaylovskoye Rural Settlements by Merging the Settlements and Granting the Newly Formed Urban Settlement Urban Okrug Status. Effective as of the day which is 10 days after the day of the official publication, with the exception of Articles 4, 5.). |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Kramer | Gustav Kramer | Gustav Kramer (11 March 1910 – 19 April 1959) was a German zoologist and ornithologist who specialised in allometry. He described Xenopus laevis, the African clawed frog, for the first time in his doctoral thesis. Near the end of the 1940s, he discovered that birds can use the sun as a compass.
== Career ==
In 1933 Kramer did a study on Xenopus laevis in Berlin. At the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research, under Ludolf von Krehl, he worked on the metabolism of warm-blooded animals. After that, he worked as an assistant at German-Italian Institute of Marine Biology in Rovinj, Croatia. In 1941, he relocated to Naples to conduct a study on lizards, especially the Adriatic lizard. He studied the comparative morphological and genetic differences between mainland and island forms to draw conclusions about the lizard's speciation.
In 1948 Kramer headed a department of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Biology in Wilhelmshaven. There he conducted research on how birds are able to orient themselves over long distances. He constructed an apparatus that allowed him to test how animals react to the position of the sun by tricking the animals into thinking the sun was in a different position. With this experiment, he demonstrated that the direction of flight is dependent on the position of the sun in the sky. Because this ability requires an inner clock to measure the time of day, Kramer sought cooperation with Jürgen Aschoff. From 1 April 1958, Kramer worked with the emerging Aschoff Max Planck near Tübingen. He coined the word Zugunruhe, meaning migratory restlessness.
== Death ==
On 19 April 1959, while trying to remove young rock pigeons from their nests in the mountains of Calabria, he fell and was killed instantly. His two sons secured his body from the high-running mountain river Raganello.
The obituary written by Konrad Lorenz in the Journal of Ornithology stated: "his authorized worldwide fame as the initiator of experimental analytical orientation research" should not be forgotten.
== Publications ==
Untersuchungen über die Sinnesleistungen und das Orientierungsverhalten von Xenopus laevis Daud. Zool. Jahrb., Bd. 52, S. 629–676, Jena: Fischer 1933; zugl. Berlin, Phil. Diss.
Experiments on bird orientation. Ibis 94: 265-285 (1952)
== References ==
== External links ==
Literature by and about Gustav Kramer in the German National Library catalogue |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_WTA_Tour_Championships_%E2%80%93_Doubles | 2000 WTA Tour Championships – Doubles | Defending champions Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova defeated Nicole Arendt and Manon Bollegraf in the final, 6–2, 6–3 to win the doubles tennis title at the 2000 WTA Tour Championships. It was the last tournament in which Hingis and Kournikova played as a pair, before splitting at the beginning of the following season.
== Seeds ==
== Draw ==
Key
=== Finals ===
== References ==
== External links ==
Main draw (WTA) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iestyn_George | Iestyn George | Iestyn George is a Welsh journalist, who previously worked as an editor at both NME and GQ and is now a lecturer at University of Brighton.
== Journalism career ==
During the 1990s, George was a writer for NME magazine, and became news editor.
He became the marketing manager for Welsh band the Manic Street Preachers between 1999 and 2003. By 2001, George was also the music editor for GQ magazine, and became deputy editor at Golf Punk magazine.
He became editor of Rio magazine in 2009; it was the brainchild of Manchester United player Rio Ferdinand, who acted as editor-in-chief. He is presently the lecturer at University of Brighton.
== Personal life ==
Iestyn George is the son of Welsh broadcaster Beti George. He is the brother-in-law of Loaded co-founder and Golf Punk founder Tim Southwell.
== References ==
== External links ==
George, Iestyn (January 2013). "Interview with David Quantick: Chance meetings, mutual connections…a writer's tale". Comedy Studies. 4 (2): 241–247. doi:10.1386/cost.4.2.241_1. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunted_Mansion | The Haunted Mansion | The Haunted Mansion is a horror themed dark-ride attraction located at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Tokyo Disneyland. The haunted house attraction features a ride-through tour in Omnimover vehicles called "Doom Buggies" and a walk-through show is displayed to the queue line. Each location differs slightly in design, utilizing a range of technology from centuries-old theatrical effects to modern special effects, including Audio-Animatronics.
The ride was in development for over a decade after the park opened and was one of the last projects made under Walt Disney's direction. The Haunted Mansion inspired two loosely similar but distinct attractions, Phantom Manor and Mystic Manor, at Disneyland in Paris and Hong Kong, respectively. Franchise media includes television specials, merchandise, comic strips, and two feature films; The Haunted Mansion released in 2003, and Haunted Mansion released in 2023.
== Ride summary ==
=== Disneyland ===
Guests enter the grounds of a typical antebellum mansion through its front gate and walk through the gardens containing a pet cemetery and a carriage led by an invisible horse. Once inside, the deep voice of the invisible Ghost Host introduces himself in the foyer. Guests enter the mansion's art gallery, which contains four paintings, each depicting a person from the chest up. While the Ghost Host challenges guests to find a way out, the room stretches vertically, and the portrait frames appear to elongate, revealing the subjects' grim but humorous fates. This room is actually an elevator used to transport guests underground where the main attraction is located.
The room goes dark, the ceiling vanishes, and lightning flashes to reveal the cupola, in which hangs the Ghost Host's skeletal corpse from the rafters by a noose, implying that he committed suicide by hanging to try to escape. A shriek is then heard, followed by the sound of bones shattering. The Ghost Host apologizes, and a wall opens, exposing the portrait corridor leading to the loading area; the corridor is actually a tunnel that passes under Disneyland Railroad to the ride building, where the actual ride takes place. The subjects of the portraits on the right flicker briefly into macabre versions of themselves when lighting flashes from the windows on the left. At the end of the corridor are two busts who appear to "follow" the guests with their gazes due to the Hollow-Face illusion.
In the loading area, black carriages called "Doom Buggies" descend one staircase and ascend another to the second floor, while fog is pumped into the back of the room.
Guests pass by a candelabra floating down an endless hallway. Near the hallway's entrance is a moving suit of armor and a chair with an abstract face. The Doom Buggies then turn to view a glass conservatory filled with dead flora surrounding a casket whose occupant is heard calling out for help to escape; his bony hands are seen trying to pry the casket lid open. The Doom Buggies then travel down a hallway of doors where sounds of pounding, calls for help, screams, knocking, and maniacal laughter can be heard from behind the doors. Knockers and handles move independently, and some doors appear to be "breathing." Guests then pass by a demonic grandfather clock, which chimes 13 as the minute hand spins backwards while a shadow of a claw passes over it.
Guests enter a dark séance room that contains occult objects. Madame Leota, a blue-haired medium whose disembodied head appears within a levitating crystal ball, summons the Mansion's spirits. Floating musical instruments respond in turn to her spell.
After leaving the séance circle, guests move onto a mezzanine overlooking a massive ballroom where many ghosts are enjoying a birthday party. Ghosts fly into the room from a crashed hearse and the windows. Several ghosts sit at the table where one blows out the candles of a birthday cake. When a ghost girl blows out the candles, the other ghosts seated at the table disappear, then reappear when she "inhales" again. Playing on the chandelier over the dining table are several drunken ghosts holding glasses of red wine. Six ghost couples waltz to music played by a gentleman's spirit on a pipe organ, several wraiths fly out of its pipes as the haunting refrain echoes throughout the scene. Hanging on the wall are the portraits of two duelists who come to life and fire their revolvers at each other. Guests enter the attic filled with portraits. In each portrait, the same bride is seen with a different groom, who disappears only to reappear a moment later. Guests then see the shadow of a pianist playing a sinister version of the "Bridal March". The ghost of the bride, Constance Hatchaway, is nearby, who is holding the same candelabra seen earlier as she floats while her heart glows pinkish red and beats in time with the music.
The Doom Buggies drift out of an attic window and onto a balcony towards the Hatbox Ghost amidst a starry night sky. The Doom Buggies then fall backward underneath dead trees that have humanoid faces. Reaching the ground, they turn towards the gate of a private graveyard, where guests see a frightened caretaker holding a lantern and a shovel with his scrawny dog cowering at his feet, whimpering in fear. Around the corner, ghosts have risen from their graves and are partying enthusiastically. Ghouls also pop up from behind the gravestones, some of which appear to move. In the graveyard are multiple comical sights, such as a skeleton's hand popping out of a hole in a tomb, a duo of ghosts singing opera, a king and queen balancing a seesaw on a gravestone and a duchess sipping a cup of tea. Guests also pass by a group of five busts singing the attraction's theme song "Grim Grinning Ghosts". Near the end of the graveyard, guests can see the candelabra floating once more.
The Doom Buggies enter a large crypt where the Ghost Host warns guests about hitchhiking ghosts as the vehicles pass a group of three ghosts thumbing for a ride. Around the corner, in large mirrors, the guests see that one of the ghosts from the trio is in the buggy with them. The guests then disembark their Doom Buggies and begin to leave the mansion. A small ghost known as Little Leota encourages them to return and to bring their "death certificate."
=== Magic Kingdom ===
The Haunted Mansion was an opening-day attraction at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, where it is part of Liberty Square. During the production and assembly of the props and audio-animatronics for Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, duplicates of everything were being made for Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion. It was decided that the Florida version of the attraction would be slightly longer and more elaborate than its California counterpart with extra scenes such as the library and the music room. Paul Frees recorded additional voice-overs, including the "Ghost Host" to accompany the extra scenes in the ride. Because of the ample space within the park, the attraction's show building is much larger and not restricted by any railroad berm.
In the Foyer, there is a portrait of the Aging Man from the Disneyland version. Unlike its Disneyland counterpart, the stretching rooms are not elevators and instead have the ceilings rise. After this, the door opens to the Doom Buggy loading area.
Upon boarding, guests pass under the staircase, with a candelabra floating above, then pass the changing portraits as seen in the queue at Disneyland. An on-ride photo is taken in this section. Then the guests go through the library where busts of ghost writers stare and follow them when they pass by as also seen in the queue at Disneyland. Once they enter the music room, an invisible pianist plays a sinister version of “Grim Grinning Ghosts” and into the Endless Staircase, where footprints can be seen and candelabras are blown out occasionally by unseen ghosts.
Passing by bat-eyed wallpaper that glows in the dark, the guests see the Endless Hallway, but the Hatbox Ghost appears next to it from a blue door, his footprints visible in front of the Hallway. Passing through the conservatory where a corpse tries to get out while crying for help, the guests travel through the corridor of doors. A demonic grandfather clock chimes 13.
Guests then enter the seance room, where Madame Leota is seen floating and reciting her spell as instruments play. A green specter floats alongside the instruments. The Doom Buggies enter the mezzanine of a ballroom, where ghosts have gathered for a party before proceeding to the attic. Here, the piano player can be heard, but not seen. However, the bride is now blue and white and has a stained hatchet.
The Doom Buggies pass through the cemetery, where many of the ghosts are singing Grim Grinning Ghosts and into the crypt, where the Hitchhiking Ghosts are playing around in the mirrors. Little Leota appears above the vehicles as guests disembark and pass a mausoleum and then a pet cemetery.
=== Tokyo Disneyland ===
The Tokyo Disneyland version of the Haunted Mansion was an opening day attraction and is located in Fantasyland. This version is largely a duplicate of the Magic Kingdom version, although it has some minor differences, such as a haunted painting of a man vaguely resembling Peter Lorre whose face pops out and stretches, a tall, legless ghost in the Séance Room, and more advanced lighting. The attraction did not receive the changes made in the 2007 refurbishment of the Magic Kingdom version.
== History ==
=== Development ===
The idea for the Mansion precedes Disneyland and WED Enterprises, dating to when Walt Disney hired the first of his Imagineers. At the time, the park they were developing the attraction for was supposed to be located across from the studios. In 1951, the first known illustration of the park showed a main street setting, green fields, western village and a carnival. Disney Legend Harper Goff developed a black-and-white sketch of a crooked street leading away from main street by a peaceful church and graveyard, with a run-down manor perched high on a hill that towered over main street.
Disney assigned Imagineer Ken Anderson to create a story using Goff's idea. Plans were made to build a New Orleans-themed land in the small transition area between Frontierland and Adventureland. Weeks later, New Orleans Square appeared on the souvenir map and promised a thieves' market, a pirate wax museum, and a haunted house walk-through. Anderson studied New Orleans and old plantations, landing on an image of the Shipley-Lydecker House in Baltimore, Maryland. He came up with a drawing of an antebellum manor with features from the Baltimore house, overgrown with weeds, dead trees, swarms of bats and boarded doors and windows topped by a screeching cat as a weathervane.
Disney, however, rejected the idea of having a run-down building in his park. He visited the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, and was captivated by the massive mansion with its stairs to nowhere, doors that opened to walls and holes, and elevators. Anderson envisioned stories for the mansion, including tales of a ghostly sea captain who killed his nosy bride and then hanged himself, a mansion home to an unfortunate family, and a ghostly wedding party with well-known Disney villains and spooks.
In 1961, handbills announcing a 1963 opening of the Haunted Mansion were given out at Disneyland's main entrance. Construction began a year later, and the exterior was completed in 1963. The attraction was previewed in a 1965 episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, but the attraction itself did not open until 1969. The six-year delay owed heavily to Disney's involvement in the New York World's Fair in 1964–1965 and to an attraction redesign after Disney's death in 1966.
After the fair, many Imagineers such as Marc Davis, X Atencio and Claude Coats contributed ideas to the project. By this time, Anderson had left the project. Rolly Crump showed Disney some designs for his version, which included bizarre objects like coffin clocks, candle men, talking chairs, man-eating plants, tiki-like busts, living gypsy wagons and a mirror with a face. Disney accepted these ideas and wanted to make the proclaimed "Museum of the Weird", a restaurant side to the now-named Haunted Mansion, similar to the Blue Bayou at Pirates of the Caribbean.
When Disney put Imagineers Crump and Yale Gracey in charge of creating illusions for the attraction, they intended to make the "Museum of the Weird" into a separate section that guests could walk through, where they could see transparent ghosts and other apparitions utilizing the Pepper's ghost technique used in the theater since the early 1800s. Crump and Gracey were eventually given a large workshop to develop their ideas. One night, the two Imagineers decided to play a prank on the night cleaning crew. As Crump explained:
We got a call from personnel saying that the janitors requested that we leave the lights on in there due to the creepiness of all the audio-animatronic ghosts and such. We complied, but put motion sensors in the room that would extinguish the lights and turn on all the ghost effects when triggered. The next morning, we came in and found all the ghost effects still running and a broom lying in the center of the floor. Personnel called and said that the janitors would not be back.
Davis and Coats, two of the Mansion's main designers, disagreed on whether the ride should be frightening or funny. Coats, originally a background artist, wanted a scary adventure, and produced renditions of moody surroundings like endless hallways, corridors of doors, and bleakly spooky environments. Davis, an animator and character designer, proposed a variety of mostly comical characters, and thought the ride should be silly and full of gags. In the end, both artists got their ways when Atencio combined their approaches and ideas, creating a transition from dark foreboding to "spirited" entertainment. The ride narration was performed by Paul Frees in the role of the Ghost Host. The attraction's theme song, "Grim Grinning Ghosts", was composed by Buddy Baker with lyrics by Atencio. Different versions of it can be heard in nearly every area of the ride.
After Disney's death in December 1966, the project evolved significantly. The Museum of the Weird restaurant idea was abandoned. The Imagineers objected to a walk-through attraction's low capacity, going so far as suggesting building two identical attractions to accommodate twice as many guests. A solution appeared with the development of the Omnimover system for Adventure Thru Inner Space. Renamed the Doom Buggy, the system's continuous chain of semi-enclosed vehicles offered high capacity. The cars could be set to rotate in any direction at any point, allowing the Imagineers to control what guests saw and heard. Because each car held from one to three people, it was a convenient way to divide guests into smaller groups—a better fit with the story of people wandering alone through a haunted house.
=== Debut ===
Employee previews of the Mansion were held August 6, 7, and the 8th, followed by "soft" openings on August 9 and 10 where limited numbers of park guests were allowed to ride. A "Midnight" Press Event was held on the evening of August 11. The Mansion opened to all guests on August 12, 1969.
In around 1977, WDI considered utilizing the unused designs, creatures and effects that Rolly Crump had originally created for the Haunted Mansion and the Museum of the Weird as part of Professor Marvel's Gallery—"a tent show of mysteries and delights, a carousel of magic and wonder," to be built as part of Disneyland's Discovery Bay expansion area. The idea was dropped when the expansion's plans fell through.
=== Updates ===
In 1994, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was updated. A phantom piano player sat at a run-down piano in the attic scene, whereas the original faceless bride was given a full-fleshed appearance. In 2001, a newer, more detailed safety spiel was added to the Doom Buggies' onboard audio as they left the loading area. Recorded by voice-over artist Joe Leahy in English and Fabio Rodriguez in Spanish, in a recreation of the character of original actor Paul Frees' Ghost Host, the bilingual spiel was part of a park-wide campaign to increase safety. The seasonal overlay Haunted Mansion Holiday also premiered in October, featuring characters from the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
In 2004, the Seance Room was updated so the crystal ball with the talking head of Madame Leota floated above its table rather than sitting stationary on it, with the original projection-mapped effect replaced by a rear-projection effect within the ball. In 2006, the original attic bride was replaced by Constance Hatchaway and a storyline for the new character.
In 2007, the attraction was renovated, with changes including the installation of the changing portraits and lightning-filled windows from the Disneyland version, and new vocals for most of the ghosts in the graveyard. In the Walt Disney World location, an endless staircase was added after being previously a dark space with spider webs. The portrait hall was originally decorated with portraits, known as the Sinister 11, situated on both sides and on a doorway, all of which have eyes that stared at guests as they pass through; these were later transferred to the load area during the refurbishment and their eyes no longer followed guests.
In March 2011, a new "interactive queue" debuted at the Walt Disney World location, with new crypts and tombstones honoring Imagineers; a murder mystery for guests to solve featuring the sinister Dread Family; the Composer Crypt, which features musical instruments that play variations of "Grim Grinning Ghosts" when touched, including a pipe organ made by the fictional "Ravenscroft" company, named for Thurl Ravenscroft, one of the vocalists for "Grim Grinning Ghosts"; the Mariner's brine-filled sepulcher, whose ghost sings and sneezes from within, and a crypt for Prudence Pock the poetess, which features haunted moving books and Prudence's ghost writing invisibly in her poem book. Guests can solve the unfinished poems by speaking into microphones located on the crypt. The FastPass+ line skips the queue altogether and leads guests straight to the Foyer doors. There is also an extended queue line that uses the former Mike Fink Keel Boats dock.
On April 10, 2015, it was officially confirmed that an iconic Haunted Mansion character, The Hatbox Ghost, would return to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. The character returned on May 9, 2015. The Hatbox Ghost was originally a part of the attraction when it opened in 1969, but was removed when the illusion involving the specter's head was not convincing enough. The Hatbox Ghost was added to Disney World's Haunted Mansion on November 30, 2023, as part of The Walt Disney Company's 100th Anniversary celebration.
On April 2, 2019, PhotoPass ride photography was added to the attraction at Magic Kingdom. A hidden camera takes pictures of the riders as the doom buggy passes the final portrait in the portrait gallery, with the flash disguised as flickering lightning. A black and white photo featuring the riders framed by several of the ghosts surrounding the photo is automatically added to the guests' PhotoPass account by reading the RFID data from the guest's second-generation MagicBand.
On January 21, 2020, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion was closed for an extensive refurbishment to add lighted steel panels, improved lighting, mechanical touch-ups, and new paint and trims to the exterior of the attraction. The changes were originally scheduled for completion in spring 2020, but an extended park closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic created uncertainty. It was later confirmed that the refurbished attraction would reopen with the park on April 30, 2021. This refurbishment came with a refreshed pet cemetery, now with new greenery and plants. The portrait gallery was given new drapes curtains and the loading area received more decorative with wallpaper and the return of one of the Haunted Mansion's original portraits being "April to December". Also featuring a statue of the one-eyed cat. The rest of the attraction was given repairs and new lighting. In addition, new secret entrance was added to the ride by using an exit. Once the crypt door opened, visitors would be directed down a flight of stairs and through a utility passageway usually used by cast members.
In January 2024, the Disneyland Haunted Mansion began another extensive refurbishment to reform and expand the outdoor queue, modify the nearby Magnolia Park in New Orleans Square, and add a gift shop at the ride's exit. The expansion opened on November 26, 2024; the new grounds include an accessible elevator while the gift shop, which is themed to be the mansion's carriage house, opened on December 23, 2024.
In January 2025, the attraction at Disneyland received a new bride inspired by the original version of the character and storyline. In addition, the hitchhiking ghosts scene was updated.
== Other versions ==
=== Haunted Mansion Holiday ===
The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland is transformed into Haunted Mansion Holiday during the Halloween and Christmas seasons and has been since 2001, inspired by Tim Burton's 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Haunted Mansion is closed in mid to late August for a few weeks as they revamp the attraction before opening again in September, replacing many of the props and Audio-Animatronics with characters and themes from the movie. The Haunted Mansion Holiday closes in early January to restore the attraction back to the original Haunted Mansion and reopens late January.
The Magic Kingdom does not have its own holiday edition of the Haunted Mansion and the regular ride operates continuously through the holiday season.
=== Related attractions ===
Disneyland Paris features Phantom Manor, a "re-imagined" version of the Haunted Mansion. The house is a Western Victorian, in the Second Empire architectural style, based on the look of the Fourth Ward School House in Virginia City, Nevada. Along with the Western architectural style, the attraction uses a Western plot to fit in with the Thunder Mesa and Frontierland backdrop. Unlike the Disneyland and Magic Kingdom attractions which have English narration from Paul Frees, Phantom Manor features Vincent Price throughout.
Mystic Manor opened at Hong Kong Disneyland in spring 2013. Unlike the Haunted Mansion, however, it does not include references to departed spirits or the afterlife, due to differences in traditional Chinese culture. Continuing the Society of Explorers and Adventurers theme of Tokyo DisneySea, the attraction tells the story of Lord Henry Mystic and his monkey Albert. Having recently acquired an enchanted music box with the power to bring inanimate objects to life, Albert opens the box and brings all of the house's artifacts to life. The attraction's exterior is that of a large Victorian mansion in an elaborate Queen Anne architectural style, and the experience features a trackless system and a musical score by Danny Elfman.
== Incidents ==
=== Disneyland ===
On October 5, 2025, a woman in her 60's was found unresponsive after riding The Haunted Mansion. Disneyland security administered CPR until Anaheim Fire and Rescue arrived. She was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy was not performed, and no issues were found with the ride itself.
== Adaptations ==
Walt Disney Pictures produced two standalone theatrical live-action feature film adaptations based on the attraction:
The first adaptation, The Haunted Mansion, was directed by Rob Minkoff and starred Eddie Murphy was released on November 26, 2003.
The second adaptation, Haunted Mansion, was directed by Justin Simien and released on July 28, 2023. In July 2010, Guillermo del Toro announced that he was set to write and produce a darker film adaptation also based on the attraction, saying that it would be both scary and fun. The film was officially confirmed in July 2021, with Tiffany Haddish playing a hired psychic that attempts to commune with the dead and LaKeith Stanfield playing a lackluster tour guide in New Orleans's French Quarter.
== In popular culture ==
In the 1970s, Lakeside introduced a "3-D board game" titled "Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion Game". A unique feature of the game were dancing figures linked as gears which, when rotated, would change the map of the game into one of four layouts.
In January 2014, Marvel Comics began publishing Seekers of the Weird, a five-issue miniseries and first under the Disney Kingdoms imprint. The miniseries was based on the Museum of the Weird, Rolly Crump's unused precursor designs for the attraction. In 2016 another miniseries was published under the same imprint, based on the haunted mansion itself.
In July 2014, it was announced that Disney Television Animation was developing an animated special based on the attraction, the project originally was going to be helm by Phineas and Ferb writers Joshua Prett and Scott D. Peterson with Gris Grimly as art director and executive producer, the project was later re-developed as a potential mini-series for Disney XD with Shannon Tindle as executive producer but executive changes at Disney Branded Television in 2017 shelved the production.
Madame Leota appears in the second half of the seventh season of ABC's Once Upon a Time, portrayed by Suzy Joachim.
From 2016 to 2019, Disney Press released Tales from the Haunted Mansion, a four volume children's horror anthology series presented as selections from the Mansion's library. Narrated by Mansion librarian Amicus Arcane, the stories ranged from homages to classic horror to origin stories for different members of the Mansion's ensemble.
In the 2018 film The Predator, the characters enter a large elevator room and a security guard recites part of the Haunted Mansion script "is this haunted room actually stretching?"
In October 2018, it was reported that the Magic Kingdom was turning into a popular place for families to deposit ashes of their deceased loved ones, with the Haunted Mansion picked as their favorite location. Disney considers this to be unacceptable and unlawful, and stated that anyone caught doing so will be escorted from Disney property.
The Bride, the Hatbox Ghost, the three Hitchhiking Ghosts, Madame Leota and Pickwick appear as playable characters in the video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, as limited time characters to unlock during Halloween Events, as well as both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom versions of The Haunted Mansion as attractions, and an attraction based on the Séance Circle.
Funko Games partnered with Disney to release family strategy board game The Haunted Mansion – Call of the Spirits in 2020.
Disney+ released the Muppets Halloween special Muppets Haunted Mansion in October 2021.
The Haunted Mansion is part of Disney Television Animation short series Chibi Tiny Tales, the first one is a crossover with The Ghost and Molly McGee. The ghosts making an appearance in this Tiny Tale are Madame Leota, the blondette ghost girl from the ballroom scene, the Hatbox Ghost and Constance Hatchaway. Along with them are two specter waltzers, the ghost organist, the dueling portraits and the five marble busts from the graveyard finale scene.
A Lego set based on the Haunted Mansion was released in 2022.
Another Tiny Tale, released in 2023, revolves around the Mansion's groundskeeper (alongside his dog, who tries to tell him about the Happy Haunts after seeing one of them through a window while on the front porch). The Hatbox Ghost and the singing busts make another appearance in this Tiny Tale, along with the King and Queen, the Duke and Duchess, the singing minstrels, one of the cycling ghosts and the duo of opera singers.
In 2023, Disney Television Animation released another The Ghost and Molly McGee crossover short, this time within the Random Rings shorts series using the show's artstyle, the short features Scratch calling the Mansion to see if there's space for him as part of the 999 Happy Haunts ghosts while getting rejected on the process, the short features the current voice actors of the attraction reprising their roles.
In the season 3 Chibiverse short "Quackstreet Boys", Dewey from DuckTales, Scott Denoga from Hailey's On It!, Barry Buns from Kiff and Cricket Green from Big City Greens toured the Haunted Mansion.
== References ==
== Further reading ==
"Disneyland's Ghost House". (2004). The "E" Ticket (41).This is the Fall 2004 issue of the magazine The "E" Ticket, which was dedicated to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.
Eastman, Tish. (1997). "Haunting Melodies: The Story Behind Buddy Baker's Score for the Haunted Mansion". Persistence of Vision (9) 39.Persistence of Vision is an irregularly published magazine "celebrating the creative legacy of Walt Disney." Back issues can be found at The Book Palace Archived September 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine.
Smith, Paul. (1997). "Tales from the Crypt: Life in the Haunted Mansion." Persistence of Vision (9) 89.
Surrell, J. (2003). The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movie. New York: Disney Editions. ISBN 0-7868-5419-7A book published by Disney giving a comprehensive history of the Haunted Mansion from early inception, in which it was a walk-through attraction, to its current form. It includes information on the 2003 Haunted Mansion movie.
== External links ==
Disneyland Haunted Mansion
Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion
Tokyo Disneyland Haunted Mansion |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD | Salvador Dalí | Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí de Púbol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known as Salvador Dalí ( DAH-lee, dah-LEE; Catalan: [səl.βə.ˈðo ðə.ˈli]; Spanish: [sal.βa.ˈðoɾ ða.ˈli]), was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Born in Figueres in Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts in Madrid. Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Spain in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his "nuclear mysticism" style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism, and recent scientific developments.
Dalí's artistic repertoire included painting, sculpture, film, graphic arts, animation, fashion, and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays, and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior often drew more attention than his artwork. His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art, popular culture, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
There are two major museums devoted to Salvador Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Salvador Dalí was born on 11 May 1904, at 8:45 am, on the first floor of Carrer Monturiol, 20 in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain. Dalí's older brother, who had also been named Salvador (born 12 October 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on 1 August 1903. His father, Salvador Luca Rafael Aniceto Dalí Cusí (1872–1950) was a middle-class lawyer and notary, an anti-clerical atheist and Catalan federalist, whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domènech Ferrés (1874–1921), who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors. In the summer of 1912, the family moved to the top floor of Carrer Monturiol 24 (presently 10). Dalí later attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descendants of the Moors.
Dalí was haunted by the idea of his dead brother throughout his life, mythologizing him in his writings and art. Dalí said of him, "[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections." He "was probably the first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute". Images of his brother would reappear in his later works, including Portrait of My Dead Brother (1963).
Dalí also had a sister, Anna Maria, who was three years younger, and whom Dalí painted 12 times between 1923 and 1926.
His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Emili Sagi-Barba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort town of Cadaqués, the trio played football together.
Dalí attended the Municipal Drawing School at Figueres in 1916 and also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris. The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre in Figueres in 1918, a site he would return to decades later. In early 1921 the Pichot family introduced Dalí to Futurism. That same year, Dalí's uncle Anselm Domènech, who owned a bookshop in Barcelona, supplied him with books and magazines on Cubism and contemporary art.
On 6 February 1921, Dalí's mother died of uterine cancer. Dalí was 16 years old and later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul." After the death of Dalí's mother, Dalí's father married her sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had great love and respect for his aunt.
=== Madrid, Barcelona and Paris ===
In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid and studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts). A lean 1.72 metres (5 ft 7+3⁄4 in) tall, Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He had long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee-breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century.
At the Residencia, he became close friends with Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, and others associated with the Madrid avant-garde group Ultra. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion, but Dalí said he rejected the poet's sexual advances. Dalí's friendship with Lorca was to remain one of his most emotionally intense relationships until the poet's death at the hands of Nationalist forces in 1936 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
Also in 1922, he began what would become a lifelong relationship with the Prado Museum, which he felt was, 'incontestably the best museum of old paintings in the world.' Each Sunday morning, Dalí went to the Prado to study the works of the great masters. 'This was the start of a monk-like period for me, devoted entirely to solitary work: visits to the Prado, where, pencil in hand, I analyzed all of the great masterpieces, studio work, models, research.'
Those paintings by Dalí in which he experimented with Cubism earned him the most attention from his fellow students, since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. Cabaret Scene (1922) is a typical example of such work. Through his association with members of the Ultra group, Dalí became more acquainted with avant-garde movements, including Dada and Futurism. One of his earliest works to show a strong Futurist and Cubist influence was the watercolor Night-Walking Dreams (1922). At this time, Dalí also read Freud and Lautréamont who were to have a profound influence on his work.
In May 1925, Dalí exhibited eleven works in a group exhibition held by the newly formed Sociedad Ibérica de Artistas in Madrid. Seven of the works were in his Cubist mode and four in a more realist style. Several leading critics praised his work. Dalí held his first solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, from 14 to 27 November 1925. This exhibition, before his exposure to Surrealism, included twenty-two works and was a critical and commercial success.
In April 1926, Dalí made his first trip to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró, a fellow Catalan who later introduced him to many Surrealist friends. As he developed his own style over the next few years, Dalí made some works strongly influenced by Picasso and Miró. Dalí was also influenced by the work of Yves Tanguy, and he later allegedly told Tanguy's niece, "I pinched everything from your uncle Yves."
Dalí left the Royal Academy in 1926, shortly before his final exams. His mastery of painting skills at that time was evidenced by his realistic The Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.
Later that year he exhibited again at Galeries Dalmau, from 31 December 1926 to 14 January 1927, with the support of the art critic Sebastià Gasch. The show included twenty-three paintings and seven drawings, with the "Cubist" works displayed in a separate section from the "objective" works. The critical response was generally positive with Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) singled out for particular attention.
From 1927, Dalí's work became increasingly influenced by Surrealism. Two of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1927) and Gadget and Hand (1927), were shown at the annual Autumn Salon (Saló de tardor) in Barcelona in October 1927. Dalí described the earlier of these works, Honey is Sweeter than Blood, as "equidistant between Cubism and Surrealism". The works featured many elements that were to become characteristic of his Surrealist period including dreamlike images, precise draftsmanship, idiosyncratic iconography (such as rotting donkeys and dismembered bodies), and lighting and landscapes strongly evocative of his native Catalonia. The works provoked bemusement among the public and debate among critics about whether Dalí had become a Surrealist.
Influenced by his reading of Freud, Dalí increasingly introduced suggestive sexual imagery and symbolism into his work. He submitted Dialogue on the Beach (Unsatisfied Desires) (1928) to the Barcelona Autumn Salon for 1928; however, the work was rejected because "it was not fit to be exhibited in any gallery habitually visited by the numerous public little prepared for certain surprises." The resulting scandal was widely covered in the Barcelona press and prompted a popular Madrid illustrated weekly to publish an interview with Dalí.
Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí was influenced by many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant-garde. His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbarán, Vermeer and Velázquez. Exhibitions of his works attracted much attention and a mixture of praise and puzzled debate from critics who noted an apparent inconsistency in his work by the use of both traditional and modern techniques and motifs between works and within individual works.
In the mid-1920s Dalí grew a neatly trimmed mustache. In later decades he cultivated a more flamboyant one in the manner of 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez, and this mustache became a well known Dalí icon.
=== 1929 to World War II ===
In 1929, Dalí collaborated with Surrealist film director Luis Buñuel on the short film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalí later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts. In August 1929, Dalí met his lifelong muse and future wife Gala, born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to Surrealist poet Paul Éluard.
In works such as The First Days of Spring, The Great Masturbator and The Lugubrious Game Dalí continued his exploration of the themes of sexual anxiety and unconscious desires. Dalí's first Paris exhibition was at the recently opened Goemans Gallery in November 1929 and featured eleven works. In his preface to the catalog, André Breton described Dalí's new work as "the most hallucinatory that has been produced up to now". The exhibition was a commercial success but the critical response was divided. In the same year, Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. The Surrealists hailed what Dalí was later to call his paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.
Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The final straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait". Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on 28 December 1929. His father told him that he would be disinherited and that he should never set foot in Cadaqués again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He soon bought the cabin, and over the years enlarged it by buying neighboring ones, gradually building his beloved villa by the sea. Dalí's father would eventually relent and come to accept his son's companion.
In 1931, Dalí painted one of his most famous works, The Persistence of Memory, which developed a surrealistic image of soft, melting pocket watches. The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.
Dalí had two important exhibitions at the Pierre Colle Gallery in Paris in June 1931 and May–June 1932. The earlier exhibition included sixteen paintings of which The Persistence of Memory attracted the most attention. Some of the notable features of the exhibitions were the proliferation of images and references to Dalí's muse Gala and the inclusion of Surrealist Objects such as Hypnagogic Clock and Clock Based on the Decomposition of Bodies. Dalí's last, and largest, the exhibition at the Pierre Colle Gallery was held in June 1933 and included twenty-two paintings, ten drawings, and two objects. One critic noted Dalí's precise draftsmanship and attention to detail, describing him as a "paranoiac of geometrical temperament". Dalí's first New York exhibition was held at Julien Levy's gallery in November–December 1933. The exhibition featured twenty-six works and was a commercial and critical success. The New Yorker critic praised the precision and lack of sentimentality in the works, calling them "frozen nightmares".
Dalí and Gala, having lived together since 1929, were civilly married on 30 January 1934 in Paris. They later remarried in a Church ceremony on 8 August 1958 at Sant Martí Vell. In addition to inspiring many artworks throughout her life, Gala would act as Dalí's business manager, supporting their extravagant lifestyle while adeptly steering clear of insolvency. Gala, who herself engaged in extra-marital affairs, seemed to tolerate Dalí's dalliances with younger muses, secure in her own position as his primary relationship. Dalí continued to paint her as they both aged, producing sympathetic and adoring images of her. The "tense, complex and ambiguous relationship" lasting over 50 years would later become the subject of an opera, Jo, Dalí (I, Dalí) by Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel.
Dalí's first visit to the United States in November 1934 attracted widespread press coverage. His second New York exhibition was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in November–December 1934 and was again a commercial and critical success. Dalí delivered three lectures on Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and other venues during which he told his audience for the first time that "[t]he only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad." The heiress Caresse Crosby, the inventor of the brassiere, organized a farewell fancy dress ball for Dalí on 18 January 1935. Dalí wore a glass case on his chest containing a brassiere and Gala dressed as a woman giving birth through her head. A Paris newspaper later claimed that the Dalís had dressed as the Lindbergh baby and his kidnapper, a claim which Dalí denied.
While the majority of the Surrealist group had become increasingly associated with leftist politics, Dalí maintained an ambiguous position on the subject of the proper relationship between politics and art. Leading Surrealist André Breton accused Dalí of defending the "new" and "irrational" in "the Hitler phenomenon", but Dalí quickly rejected this claim, saying, "I am Hitlerian neither in fact nor intention". Dalí insisted that Surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism. Later in 1934, Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he narrowly avoided being expelled from the Surrealist group. To this, Dalí retorted, "The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist."
In 1936, Dalí took part in the London International Surrealist Exhibition. His lecture, titled Fantômes paranoiacs authentiques, was delivered while wearing a deep-sea diving suit and helmet. He had arrived carrying a billiard cue and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds and had to have the helmet unscrewed as he gasped for breath. He commented that "I just wanted to show that I was 'plunging deeply into the human mind."
Dalí's first solo London exhibition was held at the Alex, Reid, and Lefevre Gallery the same year. The show included twenty-nine paintings and eighteen drawings. The critical response was generally favorable, although the Daily Telegraph critic wrote: "These pictures from the subconscious reveal so skilled a craftsman that the artist's return to full consciousness may be awaited with interest."
In December 1936, Dalí participated in the Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at MoMA and a solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. Both exhibitions attracted large attendances and widespread press coverage. The painting Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) attracted particular attention. Dalí later described it as, "a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto-strangulation". On 14 December, Dalí, aged 32, was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
From 1933, Dalí was supported by Zodiac, a group of affluent admirers who each contributed to a monthly stipend for the painter in exchange for a painting of their choice. From 1936 Dalí's main patron in London was the wealthy Edward James who would support him financially for two years. One of Dalí's most important paintings from the period of James' patronage was The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937). They also collaborated on two of the most enduring icons of the Surrealist movement: the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa.
Dalí was in London when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. When he later learned that his friend Lorca had been executed by Nationalist forces, Dalí's claimed response was to shout: "Olé!" Dalí was to include frequent references to the poet in his art and writings for the remainder of his life. Nevertheless, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic for the duration of the conflict.
In January 1938, Dalí unveiled Rainy Taxi, a three-dimensional artwork consisting of an automobile and two mannequin occupants being soaked with rain from within the taxi. The piece was first displayed at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris at the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. The Exposition was designed by artist Marcel Duchamp, who also served as host.
In March that year, Dalí met Sigmund Freud thanks to Stefan Zweig. As Dalí sketched Freud's portrait, Freud whispered, "That boy looks like a fanatic." Dalí was delighted upon hearing later about this comment from his hero. The following day Freud wrote to Zweig, "until now I have been inclined to regard the Surrealists, who have apparently adopted me as their patron saint, as complete fools. ... That young Spaniard, with his candid fanatical eyes and his undeniable technical mastery, has changed my estimate. It would indeed be very interesting to investigate analytically how he came to create that picture [i.e. Metamorphosis of Narcissus]."
In September 1938, Salvador Dalí was invited by Gabrielle Coco Chanel to her house "La Pausa" in Roquebrune on the French Riviera. There he painted numerous paintings he later exhibited at Julien Levy Gallery in New York. This exhibition in March–April 1939 included twenty-one paintings and eleven drawings. Life reported that no exhibition in New York had been so popular since Whistler's Mother was shown in 1934.
At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Dalí debuted his Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion, located in the Amusements Area of the exposition. It featured bizarre sculptures, statues, mermaids, and live nude models in "costumes" made of fresh seafood, an event photographed by Horst P. Horst, George Platt Lynes, and Murray Korman. Dalí was angered by changes to his designs, railing against mediocrities who thought that "a woman with the tail of a fish is possible; a woman with the head of a fish impossible."
Soon after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939, Dalí wrote to Luis Buñuel denouncing socialism and Marxism and praising Catholicism and the Falange. As a result, Buñuel broke off relations with Dalí.
In the May issue of the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, André Breton announced Dalí's expulsion from the Surrealist group, claiming that Dalí had espoused race war and that the over-refinement of his paranoiac-critical method was a repudiation of Surrealist automatism. This led many Surrealists to break off relations with Dalí. In 1949 Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars" (avid for dollars), an anagram for "Salvador Dalí". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune.
=== World War II ===
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 saw the Dalís in France. Following the German invasion, they were able to escape because on 20 June 1940 they were issued visas by Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, France. They crossed into Portugal and subsequently sailed on the Excambion from Lisbon to New York in August 1940. Dalí and Gala were to live in the United States for eight years, splitting their time between New York and the Monterey Peninsula, California.
Dalí spent the winter of 1940–41 at Hampton Manor, the residence of Caresse Crosby, in Caroline County, Virginia, where he worked on various projects including his autobiography and paintings for his upcoming exhibition.
Dalí announced the death of the Surrealist movement and the return of classicism in his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April–May 1941. The exhibition included nineteen paintings (among them Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire and The Face of War) and other works. In his catalog essay and media comments, Dalí proclaimed a return to form, control, structure and the Golden Section. Sales however were disappointing and the majority of critics did not believe there had been a major change in Dalí's work.
On 2 September 1941, he hosted A Surrealistic Night in an Enchanted Forest in Monterey, a charity event which attracted national attention but raised little money for charity.
The Museum of Modern Art held two major, simultaneous retrospectives of Dalí and Joan Miró from November 1941 to February 1942, Dalí being represented by forty-two paintings and sixteen drawings. Dalí's work attracted significant attention of critics and the exhibition later toured eight American cities, enhancing his reputation in America.
In October 1942, Dalí's autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí was published simultaneously in New York and London and was reviewed widely by the press. Time magazine's reviewer called it "one of the most irresistible books of the year". George Orwell later wrote a scathing review in the Saturday Book. A passage in the autobiography in which Dalí claimed that Buñuel was solely responsible for the anti-clericalism in the film L'Age d'Or may have indirectly led to Buñuel resigning his position at MoMA in 1943 under pressure from the State Department. Dalí also published a novel Hidden Faces in 1944 with less critical and commercial success.
In the catalog essay for his exhibition at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1943, Dalí continued his attack on the Surrealist movement, writing: "Surrealism will at least have served to give experimental proof that total sterility and attempts at automatizations have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system. ... Today's laziness and the total lack of technique have reached their paroxysm in the psychological signification of the current use of the college [collage]". The critical response to the society portraits in the exhibition, however, was generally negative.
In November–December 1945 Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery in New York. The exhibition included eleven oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and illustrations. Works included Basket of Bread, Atomic and Uranian Melancholic Ideal, and My Wife Nude Contemplating her own Body Transformed into Steps, the Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture. The exhibition was notable for works in Dalí's new classicism style and those heralding his "atomic period".
During the war years, Dalí was also engaged in projects in various other fields. He executed designs for a number of ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, and The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944). In 1945 he created the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound. He also produced artwork and designs for products such as perfumes, cosmetics, hosiery and ties.
=== Postwar in United States (1946–48) ===
In 1946, Dalí worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on an unfinished animated film Destino.
Dalí exhibited new work at the Bignou Gallery from November 1947 to January 1948. The 14 oil paintings and other works in the exhibition reflected Dalí's increasing interest in atomic physics. Notable works included Dematerialization Near the Nose of Nero (The Separation of the Atom), Intra-Atomic Equilibrium of a Swan's Feather, and a study for Leda Atomica. The proportions of the latter work were worked out in collaboration with a mathematician.
In early 1948, Dalí's 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship was published. The book was a mixture of anecdotes, practical advice on painting, and Dalínian polemics.
=== Later years in Spain ===
In 1948, Dalí and Gala moved back into their house in Port Lligat, on the coast near Cadaqués. For the next three decades, they would spend most of their time there, spending winters in Paris and New York. Dalí's decision to live in Spain under Franco and his public support for the regime prompted outrage from many anti-Francoist artists and intellectuals. Pablo Picasso refused to mention Dalí's name or acknowledge his existence for the rest of his life. In 1960, André Breton unsuccessfully fought against the inclusion of Dalí's Sistine Madonna in the Surrealist Intrusion in the Enchanter's Domain exhibition organized by Marcel Duchamp in New York. Breton and other Surrealists issued a tract to coincide with the exhibition denouncing Dalí as "the ex-apologist of Hitler ... and friend of Franco".
In December 1949, Dalí's sister Anna Maria published her book Salvador Dalí Seen by his Sister. Dalí was angered by passages that he considered derogatory towards his wife Gala and broke off relations with his family. When Dalí's father died in September 1950, Dalí learned that he had been virtually disinherited in his will. A two-year legal dispute followed over paintings and drawings Dalí had left in his family home, during which Dalí was accused of assaulting a public notary.
As Dalí moved further towards embracing Catholicism he introduced more religious iconography and themes in his painting. In 1949, he painted a study for The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version, 1949) and showed it to Pope Pius XII during an audience arranged to discuss Dalí's marriage to Gala. This work was a precursor to the phase Dalí dubbed "Nuclear Mysticism", a fusion of Einsteinian physics, classicism, and Catholic mysticism. In paintings such as The Madonna of Port Lligat, The Christ of Saint John on the Cross and The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, Dalí sought to synthesize Christian iconography with images of material disintegration inspired by nuclear physics. His later Nuclear Mysticism works included La Gare de Perpignan (1965) and The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968–70).
Dalí's keen interest in natural science and mathematics was further manifested by the proliferation of images of DNA and rhinoceros horn shapes in works from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. Dalí was also fascinated by the Tesseract (a four-dimensional cube), using it, for example, in Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus).
Dalí had been extensively using optical illusions such as double images, anamorphosis, negative space, visual puns and trompe-l'œil since his Surrealist period and this continued in his later work. At some point, Dalí had a glass floor installed in a room near his studio in Port Lligat. He made extensive use of it to study foreshortening, both from above and from below, incorporating dramatic perspectives of figures and objects into his paintings. He also experimented with the bulletist technique pointillism, enlarged half-tone dot grids and stereoscopic images. He was among the first artists to employ holography in an artistic manner. In Dalí's later years, young artists such as Andy Warhol proclaimed him an important influence on pop art.
In 1960, Dalí began work on his Theatre-Museum in his home town of Figueres. It was his largest single project and a main focus of his energy through to 1974, when it opened. He continued to make additions through the mid-1980s.
In 1955, Dalí met Nanita Kalaschnikoff, who was to become a close friend, muse, and model. At a French nightclub in 1965 Dalí met Amanda Lear, a fashion model then known as Peki Oslo. Lear became his protégée and one of his muses. According to Lear, she and Dalí were united in a "spiritual marriage" on a deserted mountaintop.
=== Final years and death ===
In 1968, Dalí bought the Castle of Púbol for Gala, and from 1971 she would retreat there for weeks at a time, Dalí having agreed not to visit without her written permission. His fears of abandonment and estrangement from his longtime artistic muse contributed to depression and failing health.
In 1980, at age 76, Dalí's health deteriorated sharply and he was treated for depression, drug addiction, and Parkinson-like symptoms, including a severe tremor in his right arm. There were also allegations that Gala had been supplying Dalí with pharmaceuticals from her own prescriptions.
Gala died on 10 June 1982, at the age of 87. After her death, Dalí moved from Figueres to the castle in Púbol, where she was entombed.
In 1982, King Juan Carlos bestowed on Dalí the title of Marqués de Dalí de Púbol (Marquess of Dalí de Púbol) in the nobility of Spain, Púbol being where Dalí then lived. The title was initially hereditary, but at Dalí's request was changed to life-only in 1983.
In May 1983, what was said to be Dalí's last painting, The Swallow's Tail, was revealed. The work was heavily influenced by the mathematical catastrophe theory of René Thom. However, some critics have questioned how Dalí could have executed a painting with such precision given the severe tremor in his painting arm.
From early 1984, Dalí's depression worsened and he refused food, leading to severe undernourishment. Dalí had previously stated his intention to put himself into a state of suspended animation as he had read that some microorganisms could do. In August 1984 a fire broke out in Dalí's bedroom and he was hospitalized with severe burns. Two judicial inquiries found that the fire was caused by an electrical fault and no findings of negligence were made. After his release from hospital Dalí moved to the Torre Galatea, an annex to the Dalí Theatre-Museum.
There have been allegations that Dalí was forced by his guardians to sign blank canvases that could later be used in forgeries. It is also alleged that he knowingly sold otherwise-blank lithograph paper which he had signed, possibly producing over 50,000 such sheets from 1965 until his death. As a result, art dealers tend to be wary of late graphic works attributed to Dalí.
In July 1986, Dalí had a pacemaker implanted. On his return to his Theatre-Museum he made a brief public appearance, saying:
When you are a genius, you do not have the right to die, because we are necessary for the progress of humanity.
In November 1988, Dalí entered hospital with heart failure. On 5 December 1988, he was visited by King Juan Carlos, who confessed that he had always been a serious devotee of Dalí. Dalí gave the king a drawing, Head of Europa, which would turn out to be Dalí's final drawing.
On the morning of 23 January 1989, Dalí died of cardiac arrest at the age of 84. He is buried in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre-Museum in Figueres. The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only 450 metres (1,480 ft) from the house where he was born.
==== Exhumation ====
On 26 June 2017, it was announced that a judge in Madrid had ordered the exhumation of Dalí's body in order to obtain samples for a paternity suit. Joan Manuel Sevillano, manager of the Fundación Gala Salvador Dalí (The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation), denounced the exhumation as inappropriate. The exhumation took place on the evening of 20 July, and his DNA was extracted. On 6 September 2017, the Foundation stated that the tests carried out proved conclusively that Dalí and the claimant were not related. On 18 May 2020, a Spanish court dismissed an appeal from the claimant and ordered her to pay the costs of the exhumation.
== Symbolism ==
From the late 1920s, Dalí progressively introduced many bizarre or incongruous images into his work which invite symbolic interpretation. While some of these images suggest a straightforward sexual or Freudian interpretation (Dalí read Freud in the 1920s) others (such as locusts, rotting donkeys, and sea urchins) are idiosyncratic and have been variously interpreted. Some commentators have cautioned that Dalí's own comments on these images are not always reliable.
=== Food ===
Food and eating have a central place in Dalí's thoughts and work. He associated food with beauty and sex and was obsessed with the image of the female praying mantis eating her mate after copulation. Bread was a recurring image in Dalí's art, from his early work The Basket of Bread to later public performances such as in 1958 when he gave a lecture in Paris using a 12-meter-long baguette an illustrative prop. He saw bread as "the elementary basis of continuity" and "sacred subsistence".
The egg is another common Dalínian image. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love. It appears in The Great Masturbator, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus and many other works. There are also giant sculptures of eggs in various locations at Dalí's house in Portlligat as well as at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres.
The radial symmetry of the sea urchin intrigued Dalí. He had enjoyed eating them with his father at Cadaqués and, along with other foods, they became a recurring theme in his work.
The famous "melting watches" that appear in The Persistence of Memory suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed. Dalí later claimed that the idea for clocks functioning symbolically in this way came to him when he was contemplating Camembert cheese.
=== Animals ===
The rhinoceros and rhinoceros horn shapes began to proliferate in Dalí's work from the mid-1950s. According to Dalí, the rhinoceros horn signifies divine geometry because it grows in a logarithmic spiral. He linked the rhinoceros to themes of chastity and to the Virgin Mary. However, he also used it as an obvious phallic symbol as in Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity.
Various other animals appear throughout Dalí's work: rotting donkeys and ants have been interpreted as pointing to death, decay, and sexual desire; the snail as connected to the human head (he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house when he first met him); and locusts as a symbol of waste and fear. The elephant is also a recurring image in his work; for example, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephants are inspired by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's sculpture base in Rome of an elephant carrying an ancient obelisk.
=== Science ===
Dalí's life-long interest in science and mathematics was often reflected in his work. His soft watches have been interpreted as references to Einstein's theory of the relativity of time and space. Images of atomic particles appeared in his work soon after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and strands of DNA appeared from the mid-1950s. In 1958 he wrote in his Anti-Matter Manifesto: "In the Surrealist period, I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today, the exterior world and that of physics have transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg."
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) harks back to The Persistence of Memory (1931) and in portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration has been interpreted as a reference to Heisenberg's quantum mechanics.
== Endeavors outside painting ==
Dalí was a versatile artist. Some of his more popular works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theater, fashion, and photography, among other areas.
=== Sculptures and other objects ===
From the early 1930s, Dalí was an enthusiastic proponent of the proliferation of three-dimensional Surrealist Objects to subvert perceptions of conventional reality, writing: "museums will fast fill with objects whose uselessness, size and crowding will necessitate the construction, in deserts, of special towers to contain them." His more notable early objects include Board of Demented Associations (1930–31), Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933), Venus de Milo with Chest of Drawers (1936) and Aphrodisiac Dinner Jacket (1936). Two of the most popular objects of the Surrealist movement were Lobster Telephone (1936) and Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) which were commissioned by art patron Edward James. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for Dalí who drew a close analogy between food and sex. The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his home. The Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who was previously the subject of Dalí's watercolor, The Face of Mae West which may be used as a Surrealist Apartment (1934–35). In December 1936 Dalí sent Harpo Marx a Christmas present of a harp with barbed-wire strings.
After World War II Dalí authorized many sculptures derived from his most famous works and images. In his later years other sculptures also appeared, often in large editions, whose authenticity has sometimes been questioned.
Between 1941 and 1970, Dalí created an ensemble of 39 pieces of jewelry, many of which are intricate, some containing moving parts. The most famous assemblage, The Royal Heart, is made of gold and is encrusted with 46 rubies, 42 diamonds, and four emeralds, created in such a way that the center "beats" like a heart.
Dalí ventured into industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Dalí decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's "Studio Linie". In 1969 he designed the Chupa Chups logo. He facilitated the design of the advertising campaign for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest and created a large on-stage metal sculpture that stood at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
=== Theater and film ===
In theater, Dalí designed the scenery for Federico García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. He executed designs for a number of other ballets including Labyrinth (1942), Sentimental Colloquy, Mad Tristan, The Cafe of Chinitas (all 1944) and The Three-Cornered Hat (1949).
Dalí became interested in film when he was young, going to the theater most Sundays. By the late 1920s he was fascinated by the potential of film to reveal "the unlimited fantasy born of things themselves" and went on to collaborate with the director Luis Buñuel on two Surrealist films: the 17-minute short Un Chien Andalou (1929) and the feature film L'Age d'Or (1930). Dalí and Buñuel agree that they jointly developed the script and imagery of Un Chien Andalou, but there is controversy over the extent of Dalí's contribution to L'Age d'Or. Un Chien Andalou features a graphic opening scene of a human eyeball being slashed with a razor and develops surreal imagery and irrational discontinuities in time and space to produce a dreamlike quality. L'Age d'Or is more overtly anti-clerical and anti-establishment, and was banned after right-wing groups staged a riot in the Parisian theater where it was being shown. Summarizing the impact of these two films on the Surrealist film movement, one commentator has stated: "If Un Chien Andalou stands as the supreme record of Surrealism's adventures into the realm of the unconscious, then L'Âge d'Or is perhaps the most trenchant and implacable expression of its revolutionary intent."
After he collaborated with Buñuel, Dalí worked on several unrealized film projects including a published script for a film, Babaouo (1932); a scenario for Harpo Marx called Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937); and an abandoned dream sequence for the film Moontide (1942). In 1945 Dalí created the dream sequence in Hitchcock's Spellbound, but neither Dalí nor the director was satisfied with the result. Dalí also worked with Walt Disney and animator John Hench on the short film Destino in 1946. After initially being abandoned, the animated film was completed in 2003 by Baker Bloodworth and Walt Disney's nephew Roy E. Disney. Between 1954 and 1961 Dalí worked with photographer Robert Descharnes on The Prodigious History of the Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, but the film was never completed.
In the 1960s Dalí worked with some directors on documentary and performance films including with Philippe Halsman on Chaos and Creation (1960), Jack Bond on Dalí in New York (1966) and Jean-Christophe Averty on Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dalí (1966).
Dalí collaborated with director José-Montes Baquer on the pseudo-documentary film Impressions of Upper Mongolia (1975), in which Dalí narrates a story about an expedition in search of giant hallucinogenic mushrooms. In the mid-1970s film director Alejandro Jodorowsky initially cast Dalí in the role of the Padishah Emperor in a production of Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert. However, Jodorowsky changed his mind after Dalí publicly supported the execution of alleged ETA terrorists in December 1975. The film was ultimately never made.
In 1972 Dalí began to write the scenario for an opera-poem called Être Dieu (To Be God). The Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán wrote the libretto and Igor Wakhévitch the music. The opera poem was recorded in Paris in 1974 with Dalí in the role of the protagonist.
=== Fashion and photography ===
Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli worked with Dalí from the 1930s and commissioned him to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. In 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045" with Christian Dior.
Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. Halsman produced the Dalí Atomica series (1948) – inspired by Dalí's painting Leda Atomica – which in one photograph depicts "a painter's easel, three cats, a bucket of water, and Dalí himself floating in the air".
=== Architecture ===
Dalí's architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués, as well as his Theatre Museum in Figueres. A major work outside of Spain was the temporary Dream of Venus Surrealist pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, which contained several unusual sculptures and statues, including live performers posing as statues. In 1958, Dalí completed Crisalida, a temporary installation promoting a drug, which was exhibited at a medical convention in San Francisco.
=== Literary works ===
In his only novel, Hidden Faces (1944), Dalí describes the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolizes the decadence of the 1930s. The Comte de Grandsailles and Solange de Cléda pursue a love affair, but interwar political turmoil and other vicissitudes drive them apart. It is variously set in Paris, rural France, Casablanca in North Africa, and Palm Springs in the United States. Secondary characters include aging widow Barbara Rogers, her bisexual daughter Veronica, Veronica's sometime female lover Betka, and Baba, a disfigured U.S. fighter pilot. The novel was written in New York, and translated by Haakon Chevalier.
His other literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1966), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1971). Dalí also published poetry, essays, art criticism, and a technical manual on art.
=== Graphic arts ===
Dalí worked extensively in the graphic arts, producing many drawings, etchings, and lithographs. Among the most notable of these works are forty etchings for an edition of Lautréamont's The Songs of Maldoror (1933) and eighty drypoint reworkings of Goya's Caprichos (1973–77). From the 1960s, however, Dalí would often sell the rights to images but not be involved in the print production itself. In addition, a large number of fakes were produced in the 1980s and 1990s, thus further confusing the Dalí print market.
Book illustrations were an important part of Dalí's work throughout his career. His first book illustration was for the 1924 publication of the Catalan poem Les bruixes de Llers ("The Witches of Liers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. His other notable book illustrations, apart from The Songs of Maldoror, include 101 watercolors and engravings for The Divine Comedy (1960) and 100 drawings and watercolors for The Arabian Nights (1964).
== Politics and personality ==
=== Politics and religion ===
As a youth, Dalí identified as communist, anti-monarchist and anti-clerical, and in 1924 he was briefly imprisoned by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as a person "intensely liable to cause public disorder". When Dalí officially joined the Surrealist group in 1929 his political activism initially intensified. In 1931, he became involved in the Workers' and Peasants' Front, delivering lectures at meetings and contributing to their party journal. However, as political divisions within the Surrealist group grew, Dalí soon developed a more apolitical stance, refusing to publicly denounce fascism. In 1934, André Breton accused him of being sympathetic to Hitler and Dalí narrowly avoided being expelled from the group. In 1935 Dalí wrote a letter to Breton suggesting that non-white races should be enslaved. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Dalí avoided taking a public stand for or against the Republic. However, immediately after Franco's victory in 1939, Dalí praised Catholicism and the Falange and was expelled from the Surrealist group.
After Dalí's return to his native Catalonia in 1948, he publicly supported Franco's regime and announced his return to the Catholic faith. Dalí was granted an audience with Pope Pius XII in 1949 and with Pope John XXIII in 1959. He had official meetings with General Franco in June 1956, October 1968, and May 1974. In 1968, Dalí stated that on Franco's death there should be no return to democracy and Spain should become an absolute monarchy. In September 1975, Dalí publicly supported Franco's decision to execute three alleged Basque terrorists and repeated his support for an absolute monarchy, adding: "Personally, I'm against freedom; I'm for the Holy Inquisition." In the following days, he fled to New York after his home in Port Lligat was stoned and he had received numerous death threats. When King Juan Carlos visited the ailing Dalí in August 1981, Dalí told him: "I have always been an anarchist and a monarchist."
Dalí espoused a mystical view of Catholicism and in his later years he claimed to be a Catholic and an agnostic. He was interested in the writings of the Jesuit priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin and his Omega Point theory. Dalí's painting Tuna Fishing (Homage to Meissonier) (1967) was inspired by his reading of Chardin.
=== Sexuality ===
Dalí's sexuality had a profound influence on his work. He stated that as a child he saw a book with graphic illustrations of venereal diseases, and this provoked a life-long disgust of female genitalia and a fear of impotence and sexual intimacy. Dalí frequently stated that his main sexual activity involved voyeurism and masturbation and his preferred sexual orifice was the anus. Dalí said that his wife Gala was the only person with whom he had achieved complete coitus. From 1927, Dalí's work featured graphic and symbolic sexual images usually associated with other images evoking shame and disgust. Anal and fecal imagery is prominent in his work from this time. Some of the most notable works reflecting these themes include The First Days of Spring (1929), The Great Masturbator (1929), and The Lugubrious Game (1929). Several of Dalí's intimates in the 1960s and 1970s have stated that he would arrange for selected guests to perform choreographed sexual activities to aid his voyeurism and masturbation.
=== Personality ===
Dalí was renowned for his eccentric and ostentatious behavior throughout his career. In 1941, the Director of Exhibitions and Publications at MoMA wrote: "The fame of Salvador Dalí has been an issue of particular controversy for more than a decade. ... Dalí's conduct may have been undignified, but the greater part of his art is a matter of dead earnest." When Dalí was elected to the French Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, one of his fellow academicians stated that he hoped Dalí would now abandon his "clowneries".
In 1936, at the premiere screening of Joseph Cornell's film Rose Hobart at Julien Levy's gallery in New York City, Dalí knocked over the projector in a rage. "My idea for a film is exactly that," he said shortly afterward, "I never wrote it down or told anyone, but it is as if he had stolen it!" In 1939, after creating a window display for Bonwit Teller, he became so enraged by unauthorized changes to his work that he pushed a display bathtub through a plate glass window. In 1955, he delivered a lecture at the Sorbonne, arriving in a Rolls-Royce full of cauliflowers. To promote Robert Descharnes' 1962 book The World of Salvador Dalí, he appeared in a Manhattan bookstore on a bed, wired up to a machine that traced his brain waves and blood pressure. He would autograph books while thus monitored, and the book buyer would also be given the paper chart recording.
After World War II, Dalí became one of the most recognized artists in the world, and his long cape, walking stick, haughty expression, and upturned waxed mustache became icons of his brand. His boastfulness and public declarations of his genius became essential elements of the public Dalí persona: "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí".
Dalí frequently traveled with his pet ocelot Babou, even bringing it aboard the luxury ocean liner SS France.
Dalí's fame meant he was a frequent guest on television in Spain, France and the United States, including appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on 7 January 1963, The Mike Wallace Interview and the panel show What's My Line?. Dalí appeared on The Dick Cavett Show on 6 March 1970 carrying an anteater. He also appeared in numerous advertising campaigns such as Lanvin chocolates and Braniff International Airlines in 1968.
== Legacy ==
Two major museums are devoted to Dalí's work: the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.
Dalí's life and work have been an important influence on pop art, other Surrealists, and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. He has also had a continuing influence on contemporary culture. He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes (2008), by Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris (2011), and by Ben Kingsley in Dalíland. The Spanish television series Money Heist (2017–2021) includes characters wearing a costume of red jumpsuits and Dalí masks. The creator of the series stated that the Dalí mask was chosen because it was an iconic Spanish image. The Salvador Dalí Desert in Bolivia and the Dalí crater on the planet Mercury are named for him. The container ship MV Dali was also named after him in 2015.
The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate. The US copyright representative for the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation is the Artists Rights Society.
== Honors ==
1964: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
1972: Associate member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1978: Associate member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France
1981: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III
1982: Created 1st Marquess of Dalí de Púbol, by King Juan Carlos
== Selected works ==
Dalí produced over 1,600 paintings and numerous graphic works, sculptures, three-dimensional objects, and designs. Some of his major works are:
Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) (1929) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
The Great Masturbator (1929)
L'Age d'Or (The Golden Age) (1930) (film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Lobster Telephone (1936)
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937)
The Burning Giraffe (1937)
Mae West Lips Sofa (1937)
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee (1944)
The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949)
Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (c. 1954) (also known as Hypercubic Christ)
Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)
The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958)
Perpignan Railway Station (c. 1965)
The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1970)
== Dalí museums and permanent exhibitions ==
Dalí Theatre-Museum – Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, holds the largest collection of Dalí's work
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Reina Sofia Museum) – Madrid, Spain, holds a significant collection
Salvador Dalí House Museum – Port Lligat, Catalonia, Spain
Salvador Dalí Museum – St Petersburg, Florida, contains the collection of Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, and over 1500 works by Dalí, including seven large "masterworks".
== Gallery ==
== See also ==
List of Spanish artists
Salvador Dalí and dance
== Notes ==
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Important books by or about Salvador Dalí readily available in English include:
Ades, Dawn, Salvador Dalí, Thames and Hudson, 1995 (2nd ed.)
Dalí, Salvador, Oui: the paranoid-critical revolution: writings 1927–1933, (edited by Robert Descharnes, translated by Yvonne Shafir), Boston: Exact Change, 1998
Dalí, Salvador, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, Dover, 1993 (translated by Haakon M. Chevalier, first published 1942)
Dalí, Salvador, The Diary of a Genius, London, Hutchinson, 1990 (translated by Richard Howard, first published 1964)
Dalí, Salvador, The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí, London, Quartet Books, 1977 (first published 1973)
Descharnes, Robert, Salvador Dalí (translated by Eleanor R. Morse), New York, Abradale Press, 1993
Gibson, Ian, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, London, Faber and Faber, 1997
Shanes, Eric, Salvador Dalí, Parkstone International, 2014
== External links ==
Morley, Sarah (23 February 2022). "Big Bold Botanicals". State Library of NSW.
Salvador Dalí on What's My Line?
"Sound: Salvador Dalí". UbuWeb. Interview and bank advertisement.
"Video: Salvador Dalí". INA Archives. A collection of interviews and footage of Dalí in the French television
Mike Wallace interviews Salvador Dalí Archived 15 December 2015. Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin
Panorama: Salvador Dali – Malcolm Muggeridge BBC interview, first transmitted 4 May 1955 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granat | Granat | The International Astrophysical Observatory "GRANAT" (usually known as Granat; Russian: Гранат, lit. pomegranate), was a Soviet (later Russian) space observatory developed in collaboration with France, Denmark and Bulgaria. It was launched on 1 December 1989 aboard a Proton rocket and placed in a highly eccentric four-day orbit, of which three were devoted to observations. It operated for almost nine years.
In September 1994, after nearly five years of directed observations, the gas supply for its attitude control was exhausted and the observatory was placed in a non-directed survey mode. Transmissions finally ceased on 27 November 1998.
With seven different instruments on board, Granat was designed to observe the universe at energies ranging from X-ray to gamma ray. Its main instrument, SIGMA, was capable of imaging both hard X-ray and soft gamma-ray sources. The PHEBUS instrument was meant to study gamma-ray bursts and other transient X-Ray sources. Other experiments such as ART-P were intended to image X-Ray sources in the 35 to 100 keV range. One instrument, WATCH, was designed to monitor the sky continuously and alert the other instruments to new or interesting X-Ray sources. The ART-S spectrometer covered the X-ray energy range while the KONUS-B and TOURNESOL experiments covered both the X-ray and gamma ray spectrum.
== Spacecraft ==
Granat was a three-axis-stabilized spacecraft and the last of the 4MV Bus produced by the Lavochkin Scientific Production Association. It was similar to the Astron observatory which was functional from 1983 to 1989; for this reason, the spacecraft was originally known as the Astron 2. It weighed 4.4 metric tons and carried almost 2.3 metric tons of international scientific instrumentation. Granat stood 6.5 m tall and had a total span of 8.5 m across its solar arrays. The power made available to the scientific instruments was approximately 400 W.
== Launch and orbit ==
The spacecraft was launched on 1 December 1989 aboard a Proton-K from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakh SSR. It was placed in a highly eccentric 98-hour orbit with an initial apogee/perigee of 202,480 km/1,760 km respectively and an inclination of 51.9 degrees. This meant that solar and lunar perturbations would significantly increase the orbits inclination while reducing its eccentricity, such that the orbit had become near-circular by the time Granat completed its directed observations in September 1994. (By 1991, the perigee had increased to 20,000 km; by September 1994, the apogee/perigee was 59,025 km / 144,550 km at an inclination of 86.7 degrees.)
Three days out of the four-day orbit were devoted to observations. After over nine years in orbit, the observatory finally reentered the Earth's atmosphere on May 25, 1999.
== Instrumentation ==
=== SIGMA ===
The hard X-ray and low-energy gamma-ray SIGMA telescope was a collaboration between CESR (Toulouse) and CEA (Saclay). It covered the energy range 35–1300 keV, with an effective area of 800 cm2 and a maximum sensitivity field of view of ~5°×5°. The maximum angular resolution was 15 arcmin. The energy resolution was 8% at 511 keV. Its imaging capabilities were derived from the association of a coded mask and a position sensitive detector based on the Anger camera principle.
=== ART-P ===
The ART-P X-ray telescope was the responsibility of the IKI in Moscow. The instrument covered the energy range 4 to 60 keV for imaging and 4 to 100 keV for spectroscopy and timing. There were four identical modules of the ART-P telescope, each consisting of a position sensitive multi-wire proportional counter (MWPC) together with a URA coded mask. Each module had an effective area of approximately 600 cm2, producing a field of view of 1.8° by 1.8°. The angular resolution was 5 arcmin; temporal and energy resolutions were 3.9 ms and 22% at 6 keV, respectively. The instrument achieved a sensitivity of 0.001 of the Crab Nebula source (= 1 "mCrab") in an eight-hour exposure. The maximum time resolution was 4 ms.
=== ART-S ===
The ART-S X-ray spectrometer, also built by the IKI, covered the energy range 3 to 100 keV. Its field of view was 2° by 2°. The instrument consisted of four detectors based on spectroscopic MWPCs, making an effective area of 2,400 cm2 at 10 keV and 800 cm2 at 100 keV. The time resolution was 200 microseconds.
=== PHEBUS ===
The PHEBUS experiment was designed by CESR (Toulouse) to record high energy transient events in the range 100 keV to 100 MeV. It consisted of two independent detectors and their associated electronics. Each detector consisted of a bismuth germanate (BGO) crystal 78 mm in diameter by 120 mm thick, surrounded by a plastic anti-coincidence jacket. The two detectors were arranged on the spacecraft so as to observe 4π steradians. The burst mode was triggered when the count rate in the 0.1 to 1.5 MeV energy range exceeded the background level by 8 sigma in either 0.25 or 1.0 seconds. There were 116 energy channels.
=== WATCH ===
Starting in January 1990, four WATCH instruments, designed by the Danish Space Research Institute, were in operation on the Granat observatory. The instruments could localize bright sources in the 6 to 180 keV range to within 0.5° using a Rotation Modulation Collimator. Taken together, the instruments' three fields of view covered approximately 75% of the sky. The energy resolution was 30% FWHM at 60 keV. During quiet periods, count rates in two energy bands (6 to 15 and 15 to 180 keV) were accumulated for 4, 8, or 16 seconds, depending on onboard computer memory availability. During a burst or transient event, count rates were accumulated with a time resolution of 1 second per 36 energy channels.
=== KONUS-B ===
The KONUS-B instrument, designed by the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, consisted of seven detectors distributed around the spacecraft that responded to photons of 10 keV to 8 MeV energy. They consisted of NaI(Tl) scintillator crystals 200 mm in diameter by 50 mm thick behind a Be entrance window. The side surfaces were protected by a 5 mm thick lead layer. The burst detection threshold was 500 to 50 microjoules per square meter (5 × 10-7 to 5 × 10-8 erg/cm2), depending on the burst spectrum and rise time. Spectra were taken in two 31-channel pulse height analyzers (PHAs), of which the first eight were measured with 1/16 s time resolution and the remaining with variable time resolutions depending on the count rate. The range of resolutions covered 0.25 to 8 s.
The KONUS-B instrument operated from 11 December 1989 until 20 February 1990. Over that period, the "on" time for the experiment was 27 days. Some 60 solar flares and 19 cosmic gamma-ray bursts were detected.
=== TOURNESOL ===
The French TOURNESOL instrument consisted of four proportional counters and two optical detectors. The proportional counters detected photons between 2 keV and 20 MeV in a 6° by 6° field of view. The visible detectors had a field of view of 5° by 5°. The instrument was designed to look for optical counterparts of high-energy burst sources, as well as performing spectral analysis of the high-energy events.
== Science results ==
Over the initial four years of directed observations, Granat observed many galactic and extra-galactic X-ray sources with emphasis on the deep imaging and spectroscopy of the Galactic Center, broad-band observations of black hole candidates, and X-ray novae. After 1994, the observatory was switched to survey mode and carried out a sensitive all-sky survey in the 40 to 200 keV energy band.
Some of the highlights included:
A very deep imaging (more than 5 million seconds duration) of the Galactic Center region.
Discovery of electron-positron annihilation lines from the galactic microquasar 1E1740-294 and the X-ray Nova Muscae.
Study of spectra and time variability of black hole candidates.
Across eight years of observations, Granat discovered some twenty new X-ray sources, i.e. candidate black holes and neutron stars. Consequently, their designations begin with "GRS" meaning "GRANAT source". Examples are GRS 1915+105 (the first microquasar discovered in our galaxy) and GRS 1124-683.
== Impact of the dissolution of the Soviet Union ==
After the end of the Soviet Union, two problems arose for the project. The first was geopolitical in nature: the main spacecraft control center was located at the Yevpatoria facility in the Crimea region. This control center was significant in the Soviet space program, being one of only two in the country equipped with a 70 m RT-70 dish antenna. With the breakup of the Union, the Crimea region found itself part of the newly independent Ukraine and the center was put under Ukrainian national control, prompting new political hurdles.
The main and most urgent problem, however, was in finding funds to support the continued operation of the spacecraft amid the spending crunch in post-Soviet Russia. The French space agency, having already contributed significantly to the project (both scientifically and financially), took upon itself to fund the continuing operations directly.
== See also ==
Astron, a previous space observatory based on the Venera spacecraft.
Spektr-RG
== References ==
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
== External links ==
Media related to Granat (space observatory) at Wikimedia Commons
Official GRANAT Observatory homepages: English Russian
NASA's HEASARC – Observatories – Granat
Encyclopedia Astronautica: On This Day
Global Telescope Network: Granat
Gunter's Space Page: Granat (Astron 2) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrovica,_Kosovo#:~:text=two%20municipalities%20had-,97%2C686,-inhabitants%20of%20which | Mitrovica, Kosovo | Mitrovica or Kosovska Mitrovica, also referred to as South Mitrovica or South Kosovska Mitrovica, is a city in northern Kosovo and administrative center of the district of Mitrovica. In 2013, the city was split into two municipalities, South Mitrovica and North Mitrovica. Settled 10 km (6.2 mi) from Ujmani/Gazivoda Lake, on the confluence of the rivers Ibër, Sitnica, Lushta, and Trepça, the city is surrounded by the mountains of Kopaonik, Rogozna, Mokna, and Çyçavica. According to the 2024 census, the municipality had 72,662 inhabitants of which 64,742 reside in southern Mitrovica and 7,920 in northern Mitrovica.
The history of Mitrovica is rooted in antiquity, with evidence of early settlements of Neolithic and Roman-era artifacts discovered in the region. During the Middle Ages, the area played an important role in the Byzantine and Serbian Empires, while the modern city was founded during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, being first mentioned in the 17th century. Its strategic location along trade routes made it an important center for commerce and cultural exchange during this time. The complex historical context of these foreign influences contributed to the diverse heritage and cultural mosaic of Mitrovica, which continues to be a notable aspect of the city's identity.
In the modern era, Mitrovica's history has been marked by various events, including the industrial development of Trepça Mines, a major mining and metallurgy complex, during the Yugoslav period; the Kosovo War and the ethnic divisions that emerged in its aftermath in 1999. In 2013, following the North Kosovo crisis, the city was divided by the Ibar River into two separate municipalities, South Mitrovica with an ethnic Albanian majority and North Mitrovica with an ethnic Serb majority.
Following the Kosovo War in 1999 and the city's ethnic division, Mitrovica suffered economic collapse, turning from the economic center of Kosovo before 1999 to the poorest region in Kosovo after. According to the Kosovo Statistics Agency, of all urban municipalities in Kosovo, Mitrovica has the highest unemployment rate and the highest number of dependents from state transfers.
Mitrovica is also an important university center with the University of Mitrovica “Isa Boletini” in the south, the faculties of the parallel institution of University of Pristina in the north and several private universities.
== Etymology ==
The name of Mitrovica derives from the name Demetrius. It was most probably named after the 8th century Byzantine church St. Demetrius which was built near Zvečan Fortress, just above the modern Mitrovica, in honor of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki.
The earliest evidence of the name of this city dates back to 1430 when it was mentioned in a Roman document as 'Dimitrovica.' In the Republic of Ragusa, in the documents 'Lamenta de foris' from 1446, the city was referred to as De Dimitruic. Throughout the late Middle Ages and Ottoman era, various travelers documented the name of the city. The German traveler Arnold von Harff mentioned Mitrovica in 1499 as Mitrix, while Benedikt Kuripečič, in 1530, referred to the city as Bazar Mitrovica. In 1660, the Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi mentioned the city with the name Mitrovica for the first time. From 1878 to 1890, the city was known as Mitrovica of Bazar, most probably due to the fact that it was under the Sanjak of Novi Pazar (Jenipazar)".
After President Tito's death in 1980, each of the constituent parts of Yugoslavia had to have one place named with the word "Tito" (or "Tito's") included, the city was then known as Titova Mitrovica (Титова Митровица) in Serbian or Mitrovica e Titos in Albanian, until 1991.
The official name of the city in the Republic of Kosovo is Mitrovicë or Mitrovica (in Albanian) and Mitrovica (in Serbian), reflecting its bilingual character and regional context. In Serbian context, the name is Kosovska Mitrovica (Serbian Cyrillic: Косовска Митровица) is used to distinguish it from Sremska Mitrovica, a city in Vojvodina, Serbia. In Turkish, the city is called Mitroviça.
Since the split of the Municipality of Mitrovica into two municipalities in 2013, with the creation of Serb-majority municipality in the northern side, the official names of the municipalities have changed. The original Municipality of Mitrovica is now officially known as South Mitrovica (Albanian: Mitrovica e Jugut; Serbian: Јужна Митровица, romanized: Južna Mitrovica) while the newly formed municipality is North Mitrovica (Albanian: Mitrovica e Veriut; Serbian: Ceвepнa Митровица, romanized: Severna Mitrovica).
== History ==
=== Antiquity ===
There is archaeological evidence that proves the region of Mitrovica has been inhabited since the Neolithic era. The oldest settlements discovered in the area are the archeological sites of Zhitkoc, Karagaç and Vallaç, near Zvecan (around 5 km north of Mitrovica) and archaeological site of Fafos which is situated in the suburban area of Mitrovica.
The archaeological site of Fafos is located in the suburban area of Mitrovica, within the industrial zone adjacent to the a phosphates production factory. This site underwent excavation between 1955 and 1961, covering a total area of approximately 1,200 square meters. The findings confirmed the presence of two separate Neolithic settlements associated with the Vinča culture, situated about 200 meters apart from each other. The earlier settlement, referred to as Fafos I, consisted of characteristic semi-subterranean huts used for shelter. In contrast, the later settlement, known as Fafos II, featured house-huts arranged in a row. Notably, archaeological research indicated that a significant portion of the huts in both settlements had been destroyed by an extensive fire. Artifacts discovered in these settlements included various everyday objects such as cult items, ritual vases, and anthropomorphic figurines.
The Neolithic site of Zhitkoc, situated approximately 3 km north of Zveçan, is positioned on a plateau near the Zhitkoc train station. In 1958, a series of preliminary excavations were conducted near the banks of the Ibër River, revealing the remains of a typical Neolithic settlement that belonged to both the earlier Starčevo culture and the later Vinča culture.
The adjacent archaeological site of Karagaç is found on a lower terrace along the riverbank and was investigated between 1955 and 1960. The archaeological findings indicated occupation during the middle Neolithic period. The settlement mainly consisted of semi-subterranean, elliptical huts, protected by ditches. Inside these dwellings, a significant amount of pottery associated with the Starcevo culture was uncovered. Furthermore, the settlement persisted into a later phase, with huts constructed from interwoven timber beams coated with earth/mud. Evidence from ceramic fragments and anthropomorphic figurines suggests that this settlement was also inhabited during the earlier stage of the Late Neolithic, specifically the Vinca culture. In addition to Neolithic artifacts, traces of a settlement and cemetery from the Bronze and Iron Ages were discovered in the same area, underscoring the continuity of human habitation from prehistoric times.
=== Middle Ages ===
While there is limited historical evidence regarding the early Middle Ages when the region was under Byzantine rule, the period between the 9th and 15th centuries witnessed a series of significant events that made the area a focal point for conflicts involving the Byzantine Empire, the Medieval Kingdom of Serbia, the Bulgarian Empire and Ottoman Empire, being ruled by each of them in different periods.
During this time, the fortified settlement of Zvečan emerged as a key location, playing a pivotal role in the expansion and development of the Kingdom of Serbia under Nemanjić rule. Its strategic position made it a center of power in the region.
Simultaneously, the settlement of Trepca began to evolve into a thriving mining town. The development of mining activities and trade significantly contributed to the region's significance and economic growth.
Notable structures were constructed during this era, including the Banjska Monastery, Sokolica Monastery, and the Saxon St. Peter's Basilica Church, Stari Trg. The Saxon Church in Stan Terg, built by Saxons, underlines the importance of the mining industry during this period in the region.
With the Ottoman occupation in 1389, after the Battle of Kosovo, the fortified town of Zvecan turned into an active military site well into the 18th century, after which it was abandoned. During this time the population settled along the valley of Ibar and Sitnica, founding this way the modern settlement of Mitrovica. Mitrovica probably got the name after the 8th century Byzantine church St. Demetrius which was built near Zvečan Fortress, just above the modern Mitrovica, in honor of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki.
Several Roman and Ragusian documents mention the city respectively as Dimitrovica in 1430 and 'De Dimitruic' 1446, while the German traveler Arnold von Harff mentioned the city in 1499 as 'Mitrix.
=== Ottoman Empire ===
Several neighborhoods in the area of Trepča according to the Ottoman defter of the 16th century were Islamised and the other neighborhoods contained people with a mixture of Christian, Albanian and Slavic names. According to Selami Pulaha, the Ottoman defters of 1591 indicate that the area of Trepča in the 16th century had a significant Albanian population, with some Albanian names being combined with other Christian or Slavic names.
Under Ottoman rule Mitrovica was a small city typical to the region. Rapid development came in the 19th century after lead ore was discovered and mined in the region, providing what has historically been one of Kosovo's largest industries.
It became an industrial town, formerly the economic centre of Kosovo because of the nearby Trepça Mines. It grew in size as a centre of trade and industry with the completion of the railway line to Skopje in 1873–1878, which linked Mitrovica to the port of Thessaloniki. Another line later linked the town to Belgrade and Western Europe.
By 1890, Mitrovica had a population of 7,000 and it had a strategic importance. For this reason, Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary opened consulates in the town.
=== World War II ===
During World War II, it took the Germans one week to conquer the whole of Kosovo. Kosovo was then divided into three occupation zones specifically into the German, Italian and Bulgarian zones. The Germans, however, reserved the right to control the mines in Mitrovica, namely the Trepça Mines, and the railway line passing through Kosovo. Mitrovica became the head of an Austrian infantry division. The city was part of Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia. In 1948, Mitrovica had a population of 13,901 and in the early 1990s of about 75,000.
=== Kosovo war and city division ===
Both the town and municipality were badly affected by the 1999 Kosovo War. According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the area had been the scene of guerrilla activity by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) prior to the war. It came under the command of NATO's French sector; 7,000 French troops were stationed in the western sector with their headquarters in Mitrovica. They were reinforced with a contingent of 1,200 troops from the United Arab Emirates, and a small number of Danish troops.
Most of the approximately 6,000 Roma fled to Serbia, or were relocated to one of two resettlement camps, Cesmin Lug, or Osterode, in North Mitrovica. In the north, live some 17,000 Kosovo Serbs, with 2,000 Kosovo Albanians and 1,700 Bosniaks inhabiting discrete enclaves on the north bank of the Ibar River. Almost all of the Serbs living on the south bank were displaced to North Mitrovica after the Kosovo War. In 2011, the city had an estimated total population of 71,601.
Mitrovica became the focus for ethnic clashes between the two communities, exacerbated by the presence of nationalist extremists on both sides. The bridges linking the two sides of the town were guarded by armed groups determined to prevent incursions by the other side. Because of the tense situation in the town, KFOR troops and the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) police were stationed there in large numbers to head off trouble. However, violence and harassment was often directed against members of the "wrong" ethnic community on both sides of the river, necessitating the presence of troops and police checkpoints around individual areas of the city and even in front of individual buildings.
On 17 March 2004, the drowning of three Albanian children in the river prompted major ethnic violence in the town and a Serbian teenager was killed. Demonstrations by thousands of angry Albanians and Serbs mobilised to stop them crossing the river degenerated into rioting and gunfire, leaving at least eight Albanians dead and at least 300 injured. The bloodshed sparked off the worst unrest in Kosovo seen since the end of the 1999 war (in which 16 Serbs were killed).
The local prison was the scene of an international incident on 18 April 2004 when a Jordanian policeman working as a UN prison guard opened fire on a group of UN police officers leaving a class, killing three.
=== After Kosovo's independence ===
Tensions rose considerably in the city of Mitrovica after Kosovo declared independence on 17 February 2008. Some 150 Kosovo Serb police officers refused to take orders from the ethnic Albanian authorities and were suspended. Serb protesters prevented ethnic Albanian court employees from crossing the bridge over the Ibar River. UN police raided and seized the courthouse on 14 March using tear gas against Serbs and leaving some of them wounded. The explosion of a hand-grenade injured several UN and NATO staff on 17 March; UN forces were later withdrawn from the northern part of Mitrovica.
The Serbian minority initially formed the Community Assembly of Kosovo and Metohija in the city, but it has no police force. Serbs refused to accept the jurisdiction of Kosovo courts.
Kosovar leaders have expressed concern over the future of the region, stating their commitment to keep Mitrovica part of Kosovo and prevent crime or war there. With the 2013 Brussels Agreement Kosovo Serbs accepted the Pristina-run police force and courts and vote on ballots with republic of Kosovo logos. Elected Serbs swear oaths to Republic of Kosovo.
Since 2012 the northern and the southern part of the city, and in particular the New Bridge over the Ibar River are patrolled 24/7 by Italian Carabinieri from KFOR-MSU.
== Demography ==
The city of Mitrovica in 2024 had 72,662 inhabitants, 64,742 of which were living in the southern municipality, while 7,920 in North Mitrovica municipality. Kosovo Agency of Statistics, in cooperation with international experts, has evaluated the population in the four Serb-majority municipalities of North Kosovo. This assessment was necessary due to a significant boycott of the census, driven by calls from Serbian political entities. Based on this evaluation, North of Mitrovica in 2024 had 7,920 inhabitants.
According to KAS, in 2011, 58,458 inhabitants were living in the urban area of the city: 46,132 of them in southern municipality, 12,326 in the north.
The Kosovo war and post-war conflicts, the destruction of economy, especially the operating stoppage of industrial sector, as well as other socio-economic factors, have influenced high emigration (both internal and external). After 1948 (32,800 inhabitants) the city had continual high population growth tripling by 1991 to 104,885 inhabitants, but in 2011 only 84,235 inhabitants were living in Mitrovica, a decrease of 19.29% from 1991.
In 2015, a wave of mass migration of approximately 100,000 Kosovo people occurred towards Western Europe with the total population of Kosovo declining by almost 5%. During this period, 4,889 people fled south Mitrovica, which resulted in a population decline to 68,400 inhabitants. By 2015 the population of North Mitrovica municipality slightly increased to 12,223 inhabitants. In total, according to Kosovo Agency of Statistics estimation, at the end of 2015, 80,623 people were living in the city of Mitrovica.
=== Ethnic groups ===
Mitrovica as a whole is characterized with a large ethnic diversity, dominated by Albanians and followed by Serbs, Ashkali, Bosniaks, Roma, Turks, and other ethnic groups. In 2024 census conducted by Kosovo Agency of Statistics, in both municipalities of Mitrovica live 72,662 inhabitants.
According to 2024 census, in south municipality of Mitrovica, of 64,742 inhabitants Albanians made 96.8%, while other ethnic groups were Ashkali, Roma, Bosniaks Turks, Egyptians, Serbs, Gorani and others. Only 18 Serbs lived in south Mitrovica municipality in 2024.
Based on the evaluation of the population in the four Serb-majority municipalities of North Kosovo, North of Mitrovica in 2024 had 7,920 inhabitants, of which, 5,594 were Serbian, 1,489 were Albanian, 360 Bosniaks, 104 Gorani, 85 Turks, 29 Ashkali, 1 Roma, and 221 others.
=== Religion ===
The main religious group is Muslim. Small numbers of Serbian Orthodox and Roman Catholics exist in the city. Albanians, Bosniaks, Turks, Roma and other smaller ethnic groups are mainly Muslim.
In the results of 2011 census, 71,422 people or 99.32% of total population of southern municipality of Mitrovica, were Muslims. Orthodox Christians comprised 11 or 0.02% of total population of municipality, while Catholics comprised 42 or 0.06%.
As North Mitrovica municipality was not covered by population estimation in 2011 by Kosovo Agency of Statistics, there are no official data on religion.
== Economy ==
The Trepça Mines are located in Mitrovica. Once one of Europe's largest mines, its production has since dwindled and most of its operations closed off following the war. Due to Mitrovica's political instability and divisions between the Albanian and Serb communities, the city's unemployment rate is 65%. Publicly owned enterprises and local administration is largely responsible for the functioning of the economy, along with Serbian government assistance and EU donations.
== Infrastructure ==
=== Education ===
In the southern municipality of Mitrovica there are 31 primary and lower secondary schools, which, since some of the schools function in separate parallels in different areas, operate in 42 educational facilities. In the southern municipality exists also 5 upper secondary schools. Although there is only one kindergarten, it has a large capacity, available for 300 kids. The higher education is also provided through the Public University of Mitrovica "Isa Boletini" and University of Applied Sciences.
In North Mitrovica there are 11 primary schools, four secondary schools and one kindergarten. Regarding the higher education institutions:
• The public University of Pristina is functional. It hold the name University of Priština after the Serbian faculties of the University of Pristina were relocated from Pristina to North Mitrovica after the Kosovo War. However, many institutions refer to it as University of Mitrovica, including UNMIK and EUA.• The public International Business College Mitrovica (IBC-M) with 2 campuses, in both municipalities of Mitrovica. IBC-M was founded in 2010 and became public in July 2023 after the formal ratification of its new status by the Kosovo Parliament.• The private college "Fama" in South-Mitrovica.
=== Energy ===
The Bajgora Wind Farm is located in the village of Bajgorë in Mitrovica. It is the largest wind farm in Kosovo consisting of 27 turbines, with a total installed capacity of 102.6 MW. The wind farm produces approximately 320 GWh of electricity annually and it costed around €157 million.
== Culture ==
Mitrovica is one of the most important cultural centers in Kosovo. The city has the Cultural Center “Rexhep Mitrovica”, City Library “Latif Berisha”,City Museum of Mitrovica, the Professional City Theater, various ensembles, several galleries, and alternative social/cultural spaces. Additionally, it is home to many sports clubs and venues, including the Adem Jashari Olympic Stadium, Riza Lushta Stadium, Fatime Xhaka Stadium, Minatori Sports Hall and Omni Sports Center.
In the village of Stantërg, the National Museum of Crystals and Minerals is located with over 2000 exhibits of various types of crystals from the mines of the area.
The municipality of Mitrovica has seven public libraries with a collection of 152,858 books. The main library of Mitrovica has collections of 111,546, while the branch libraries have 41,312 books. The war and violent Serbian measures during the 1990s have damaged the libraries of this city in Bare, Vllahi, Banjë and Ibër with 27,061 books.
Among the most important historical monuments in the region are the 13th century remains of St. Peter's Catholic Church, the 14th century monasteries of Banjska and Sokolica, and the mosque of Mazhiq, Zveçan Fortress and Rashan and Isa Boletini Towers Complex, all located outside of the city. In the city several buildings from the past few centuries have remained, such as the former Jadran Hotel building, the house of Xhafer Deva, the Ottoman period city hamam, the house of Koroglu Family, several house buildings of Xhafer Deva, the former Jadran Hotel, the cultural house, and the Miners Monument.Ura e Ibrit has become a symbol of division and the city's main landmark.
=== Sights ===
The strategic position of the region of Mitrovica in the middle of two great rivers Ibar and Sitnica and its mineral wealth in Albanik (Monte Argentarum), made this location populated since prehistoric period. This region was populated by Illyrians, respectively Dardan tribe. The first data for the archaeological sites in the region of Mitrovica, begin with the researches of Sir Arthur John Evans, who was the first to pinpoint the Roman town of the Municipium Dardanorum.
In the archaeological sites of the region of Mitrovica were found traces and objects from different periods such as; Neolithic, Roman, late antiquity and medieval period. Objects and figurines include: fortress vestiges, necropolis, Terpsichore figure, statues, sarcophagus, altar, jewellery, etc.
=== Sports ===
Mitrovica is the home to several sports club while the most known and most successful clubs are those representing Trepça. KF Trepça and KF Trepça'89 (Minatori 89) the two southern club's play in the Football Superleague of Kosovo and won many titles being part of best clubs in the country. KF Trepça plays at the Adem Jashari Olympic Stadium, which hosted Kosovo's first FIFA-recognized friendly international football match on 5 March 2014, playing 0–0 against Haiti. Other active football clubs are KF Mitrovica or KF Bardhi while KF Remonti, KF Shala, KF Bashkimi Shipol, KF Elektroliza or KF Birliku are defunct clubs. The football women's club is called KFF Mitrovica and is the most successful club in the country. Basketball is also a popular sport in the city and is represented by KB Trepça which is one of the top three clubs in Kosovo. Handball is represented by KH Trepça.
== Notable people ==
== Twin towns – sister cities ==
Mitrovica is twinned with:
== See also ==
Populated places in Kosovo by Albanian name
Monuments in Mitrovica
== Annotations ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Photo essay about serbian part of Mitrovica (2011) Archived 30 May 2018 at the Wayback Machine
OSCE:Profile of Mitrovicë / Mitrovica
HCIC, Mitrovica Situation – HCIC, UNHCR, WEU, KFOR (22 Mar 2000)
Mitrovica Situation – HCIC, UNHCR, WEU, KFOR (24 Feb 2000)
Mitrovica: North and South of a Divided City Video about displacement and reconstruction in Mitrovica.
Burning of St. Sava church in south Mitrovica 17 March
Andrew Purvis (4 June 2008). "Postcard from Mitrovica: Almost Mellow at Kosovo's Front-Line Cafe". TIME Magazine. Archived from the original on 6 June 2008. Retrieved 17 May 2010.
ESI report: People Or Territory? A Proposal For Mitrovica (16 February 2004) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley_Griggs#:~:text=Griggs%20died%20in%20Birmingham%2C%20Alabama%20in%201996%20at%20age%2071. | Wiley Griggs | Wiley Lee Griggs III (March 24, 1925 – August 23, 1996), nicknamed "Diamond Jim", was an American Negro league infielder in the 1940s and 1950s.
A native of Union Springs, Alabama, Griggs was the brother of fellow Negro leaguer Acie Griggs. Younger brother Wiley attended A. H. Parker High School, and served in the US Army during World War II. He broke into the Negro leagues in 1948 with the Birmingham Black Barons, and was a reserve infielder that year as the team reached the Negro World Series. In 1951, he was selected to represent the Houston Eagles in the East–West All-Star Game. Griggs died in Birmingham, Alabama in 1996 at age 71.
== References ==
== External links ==
Career statistics from MLB · Baseball Reference and Seamheads
Wiley Griggs biography from Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Wolf | Max Wolf | Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory from 1902 until his death in 1932.
== Early life ==
Max Wolf was born in Heidelberg, Germany on 21 June 1863, the son of medical doctor Franz Wolf. His father encouraged an interest in science and built an observatory for his son in the garden of the family home. It is from here that Wolf was credited with his first astronomical discovery, comet 14P/Wolf, in 1884.
== Life at the university ==
Wolf attended his local university and, in 1888, at the age of 25, was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Heidelberg. He spent one year of post-graduate study in Stockholm, the only significant time he would spend outside of Heidelberg in his life. He returned to the University of Heidelberg and accepted the position of privat-docent in 1890. A popular lecturer in astronomy, he declined offers of positions from other institutions. In 1902 he was appointed Chair of Astronomy and Director of the new Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl observatory, positions he would hold until his death in 1932.
While the new observatory was being built, Wolf was appointed to supervise the construction and outfitting of the astrophysics half of the observatory. He proved to be not only a capable supervisor but also a successful fundraiser. When sent to America to study the construction of the large new telescopes being built there, he returned not only with telescope plans but also with a grant of $10,000 from the American philanthropist Catherine Wolfe Bruce. Wolf immediately designed and ordered a double refractor telescope from American astronomer and instrument builder John Brashear. This instrument, known as the Bruce double-astrograph, with parallel 16 in (41 cm) lenses and a fast f/5 focal ratio, became the observatory's primary research telescope. Wolf also raised money for a 28 in (71 cm) reflector telescope, the first for the observatory, used for spectroscopy.
In 1910, Wolf proposed to the Carl Zeiss optics firm the creation of a new instrument which would become known as the planetarium. World War I intervened before the invention could be developed, but the Carl Zeiss company resumed this project after peace was restored. The first official public showing was at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany on 21 October 1923.
During his trip to America, Wolf was interested in learning more about the relatively new field of astrophotography. He met the American astronomer and astrophotographer E.E. Barnard, and the two became lifelong correspondents, competitors, collaborators and friends. Wolf wrote a long obituary for Barnard upon his death in 1923.
== Later life and death ==
Heidelberg University became well known for astronomy under Wolf's leadership. Wolf himself was an active researcher, contributing numerous papers in many areas of astronomy up to the end of his life. He died in Heidelberg on 3 October 1932, at the age of 69. He was survived by his wife and three sons.
== Comets and novae ==
Wolf started his career as a comet hunter and continued to discover them throughout his life. He discovered or co-discovered several comets, including 14P/Wolf and 43P/Wolf-Harrington. Wolf won a competition with E. E. Barnard on who would be the first to observe the return of Halley's Comet (P1/Halley) in April 1910.
He discovered Nova Aquilae 1927, a classical nova.
He discovered or co-discovered four supernovae: SN 1895A (a.k.a. VW Vir), SN 1909A (a.k.a. SS UMa), SN 1920A, and, with Reinmuth, SN 1926A.
== Dark nebulae ==
One of the many significant contributions Wolf made was in the determination of the nature of dark nebulae. These areas of the sky, thought since William Herschel's time to be "holes in the sky", were a puzzle to astronomers of the time. In collaboration with E. E. Barnard, Wolf proved, by careful photographic analysis, that dark nebulae were huge clouds of fine opaque dust.
== Star catalog ==
Along with E. E. Barnard, Wolf applied astrophotography to the observation of stars. The Bruce double-astrograph was originally designed to hunt dim asteroids but it was found to be ideally suited for the study of the proper motion of low-luminosity stars using much the same technique. In 1919 Wolf published a catalog of the locations of over one thousand stars along with their measured proper motion. These stars are still commonly identified by his name and catalog number. Among the stars he discovered is Wolf 359, a dim red dwarf that was later found to be one of the nearest stars to the Solar System. He continued to add proper motion star discoveries to this catalog throughout his life, with the catalog eventually totaling over 1500 stars, many more than all of his competitors combined. These stars are significant because stars with low luminosity and high proper motion, such as Barnard's Star and Wolf 359, are usually relatively close to the Earth and thus the stars in Wolf's catalog remain popular subjects for astronomical research. The methods used by E. E. Barnard and Wolf were continued by Frank Elmore Ross and George Van Biesbroeck through the mid-20th century. Since that time, photographic plates have been gradually replaced with more sensitive electronic photodetectors for astronomical surveys.
== Asteroids ==
In 1891, Wolf discovered his first asteroid, 323 Brucia, and named it after Catherine Wolfe Bruce. He pioneered the use of astrophotographic techniques to automate the discovery of asteroids, as opposed to older visual methods, as a result of which asteroid discovery rates sharply increased. In time-exposure photographs, asteroids appear as short streaks due to their planetary motion with respect to fixed stars. Wolf discovered 248 asteroids in his lifetime.
Among his many discoveries was 588 Achilles (the first Trojan asteroid) in 1906, as well as two other Trojans: 659 Nestor and 884 Priamus. He also discovered 887 Alinda in 1918, which is now recognized as an Earth-crossing Amor asteroid (or sometimes classified as the namesake of its own Alinda family). Wolf's then-record number of discoveries was surpassed by his pupil Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth on 24 July 1933.
=== List of discovered minor planets ===
Superscript letters indicate co-discovery made with:
A A. Schwassmann
B L. Carnera
C P. Götz
D A. Kopff
E M. Ferrero
== Awards and honors ==
Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France, the French astronomical society, in 1912.
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1914.
Bruce Medal in 1930.
The lunar crater Wolf as well as the main-belt asteroids 827 Wolfiana and 1217 Maximiliana were named in his honor.
Minor planet 1152 Pawona is named after both Johann Palisa and Max Wolf, in recognition of their cooperation. The name was proposed by Swedish astronomer Bror Ansgar Asplind. Pawona is a combination of "Palisa" and "Wolf" (Pa, Wo) joined with a Latin feminine suffix.
== Other astronomers named Wolf ==
Marek Wolf, a Czech astronomer who is also a discoverer of minor planets. He is credited as "M. Wolf" by the Minor Planet Center, while the discoveries by Max Wolf are credited with "M. F. Wolf".
Charles Wolf, a French astronomer and co-discoverer of the Wolf-Rayet stars.
German astronomers Christian Wolf and Ulrich Wolff (amateur from Berlin), as well as American astronomer Chris Wolfe have also discovered minor planets.
== References ==
== External links ==
Max Wolf at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
The Bruce Medalists Archived 2017-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
=== Obituaries ===
MacPherson, Hector, Observatory 55, 355–359 (1932)
Reynolds, J.H., MNRAS 93, 236–238 (1933) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattahoochee_State_Park | Chattahoochee State Park | Chattahoochee State Park was a public recreation area located in the extreme southeast corner of Alabama operated by the government of Houston County, Alabama. The park occupied 596 acres (241 ha) along Irwin's Mill Creek on the Florida-Alabama border. It closed following the destruction of much of the park by Hurricane Michael in 2018.
== History ==
Land near the park was the site of an 1818 skirmish in the First Seminole War.
The state park was developed by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s. Their handiwork included a natural stone dam built to create the 23-acre (9.3 ha) CC Pond and the park's dirt roads. At one time, chimneys and other remnants of the camp where CCC workers lived could be found.
The majority of the park's facilities and trees were destroyed by Hurricane Michael in October 2018; subsequently the park was permanently closed due to the state lacking sufficient funds to clear, repair and rebuild the park. In 2022, slow progress was being made on reopening the park; it was hoped to have the park reopened in 2024.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenjiro_Shoda | Kenjiro Shoda | Kenjiro Shoda (Japanese: 正田 建次郎 Shōda Kenjirō; February 25, 1902 – March 20, 1977) was a Japanese mathematician.
== Early life and career ==
Kenjiro Shoda was born on February 25, 1902, in Tatebayashi, Gunma to a wealthy family. He was the second son of Teiichiro Shoda, who was the founder of Nisshin Seifun Group, one of the biggest companies in Japan, a member of the House of Peers, and a great-grandfather of the Emperor. He was educated in Tokyo until he finished junior high school. He went to the National Eighth High School in Nagoya, today succeeded to Faculty of Liberal Arts of Nagoya University.
After Shoda finished the Eighth High School, he returned to Tokyo and studied mathematics at Imperial University of Tokyo. Shoda was supervised by Teiji Takagi, one of the best mathematicians in Japan at that time, and Takagi inspired Shoda to study algebra. Shoda graduated at Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science at Tokyo University in 1925 and continued his graduate study under Takagi's supervision.
In 1925, in his second year at the Graduate School of Tokyo University, Shoda got a scholarship which allowed him to study in Germany. With an interest in group theory, he went to Berlin to work with Issai Schur. After one year in Berlin, Shoda went to Göttingen to study with Emmy Noether. Noether's school brought a mathematical growth to him. In 1929 he returned to Japan. Soon afterwards, he began to write Abstract Algebra, his mathematical textbook in Japanese for advanced learners. It was published in 1932 and soon recognised as a significant work for mathematics in Japan. It became a standard textbook and was reprinted many times. In 1931 he defended his thesis, titled "Über direkt zerlegbare Gruppen".
== Osaka University ==
In 1933, Shoda was appointed as professor in the Faculty of Science at Imperial Osaka University, which was founded in 1931, as the eighth Imperial University of Japan and hence the second one in the Kansai region, to promote industries in Osaka, therefore focusing on natural science, engineering and medicine in particular.
The decades from the 1930s were a hard time for Japanese researchers. However, Shoda continued to apply himself to learning. After World War II, he was elected the first Chairman of the Mathematical Society of Japan in 1946, when the predecessor was divided into the Mathematical Society of Japan and the Physical Society of Japan. In this role he managed to reconstruct Japanese mathematics both theoretically and organisationally. Also, he was eager to attempt to keep the educational standard at Osaka University as its faculty staff. In this period, he published General Algebra, another textbook in Japanese. In 1949 Shoda was awarded the Japan Academy Prize in recognition of his fine achievements. Also that year he was elected the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Osaka University.
In 1955, Shoda was appointed as President of Osaka University, a role in which he remained for six years. His achievements as president include foundations of two new faculties: the Faculty of Letters and the Faculty of Engineering Science, both based at Toyonaka, Osaka. The Faculty of Engineering Science was an ambitious attempt to synthesise two traditional disciplines: science and engineering. Some criticise the Faculty of Engineering Science as being nothing less than a duplicate of the Faculty of Engineering, while others recognise it as having helped to promote academic collaboration between multiple disciplines, including science, engineering and sometimes medical science.
Shoda is remembered by the students and alumni of Osaka University as the founder of the Shoda Cup, which is given for the winning team of five people in an athletics contest. Shoda worried that most students were lacking in physical education and paid too little attention to it. With this Cup, he attempted to invoke interest for sporting activities among students. It succeeded and the Shoda Cup has been contested yearly by many students.
When his term as president ended in 1961, Shoda left Osaka University but suddenly returned as a professor in the Faculty of Engineering Science founded that year, and was appointed its first dean. After retirement from Osaka University, he still worked to improve the Japanese educational system in this field. He taught in Musashi University in Tokyo and became its president. In 1969, he was awarded the Order of Culture, and awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1974.
On March 20, 1977, Shoda died unexpectedly while driving with his family. He was posthumously raised to the second degree in the official order of precedence, and awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun.
== Marriage and family ==
Kenjiro Shoda married twice. His first wife was Tami Hirayama, the daughter of astronomer Shin Hirayama. He fathered one son and two daughters during this marriage. After the death of his first wife, Shoda married Sadako Ito, daughter of Eisaburo Ito, an engineering scientist and professor at Kyushu University. The remarried couple had one son.
After his death, his family contributed a part of his legacy to some academic institutions including Osaka University. Osaka University used the money to make a small garden near to two of his former workplaces: the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering Science and named it after him. "Shoda Garden", a silent cozy space, is at the corner of main street of the campus, beside the building of the Cyber Media Center at Toyonaka, backed by dense bamboo woods. Sometimes people at Toyonaka hold their parties there, like a welcoming party for freshmen, or a barbecue just for fun and communication.
Empress Michiko is one of his nieces.
== References ==
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Kenjiro Shoda", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evi_Nemeth#Awards | Evi Nemeth | Evi Nemeth (born June 7, 1940 – missing-at-sea June or July 2013) was an engineer, author, and teacher known for her expertise in computer system administration and networks. She was the lead author of the "bibles" of system administration: UNIX System Administration Handbook (1989, 1995, 2000), Linux Administration Handbook (2002, 2006), and UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (2010, 2017). Evi Nemeth was known in technology circles as the matriarch of system administration.
Nemeth was best known in mathematical circles for originally identifying inadequacies in the "Diffie–Hellman problem", the basis for a large portion of modern network cryptography.
== Career ==
Nemeth received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Penn State in 1961 and her PhD in mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Ontario in 1971. She taught at Florida Atlantic University and the State University of New York at Utica (SUNY Tech) before joining the computer science department at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder) in 1980. She served as manager of the college's computing facility from 1982 to 1986. She also was a visiting Associate Professor at Dartmouth College in 1990, and at UC San Diego in 1998, while on sabbatical from CU-Boulder.
While at CU-Boulder, Nemeth was well known for her undergraduate systems administration activity, in which students over the years had the opportunity to develop in-depth knowledge and skills in Unix system administration. Together with Steve Wozniak, Nemeth established the Woz scholarship program at CU-Boulder which funded inquisitive undergraduates for many years. Nemeth also had a special talent for inspiring and teaching young people. She mentored numerous middle- and high-school students, who worked with her to support computing in the college and came to be known as "the munchkins". She also mentored talented young undergraduates, taking them to national meetings where they installed networks and broadcast the meetings' sessions on the Internet on the multicast backbone. She coached the university's student programming teams in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.
From 1998 to 2006, Nemeth worked with Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) at the University of California, San Diego, on various Internet measurement and visualization projects.
Outside the United States, Nemeth helped bring Internet technology to the developing world through her involvement with programs of the Internet Society and the United Nations Development Programme.
A network guru T-shirt
from the 1980s shows OSI Model layers with additional Layer 8 as the "financial" layer, and Layer 9 as the "political" layer. The design was credited to Evi Nemeth.
During the Summer 1994 USENIX conference in Boston, a commemorative deck of playing cards was created celebrating the 25th anniversary of UNIX. Evi Nemeth coordinated the production of the card deck.
== Later life ==
After her retirement, Nemeth sailed her 40-foot sailboat Wonderland around various parts of the world, including a circuit of the Atlantic; the Panama Canal; and across the Pacific to New Zealand.
=== Disappearance at sea ===
In late May 2013 she, along with six other people aboard the vintage yacht Niña, traveled across the Tasman Sea en route to Australia from New Zealand. On June 4, the day the last message, sent by Nemeth, was received from Niña, the Tasman Sea had 65 mile-per-hour winds and swell height reaching 26 feet. A natural disaster (e.g., a rogue wave) might have led to the disappearance of the boat. On July 5 New Zealand authorities officially ended the search for the Niña, though relatives of the crew of Niña continued to search.
== Selected publications ==
Nemeth, E., Hein, T., Snyder, G., and Whaley, B., Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook, 4th edition, Prentice Hall, 2010.
Nemeth, E., Snyder, G., Hein, T., Whaley, B., and Makin, D., Unix and Linux System Administration Handbook, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, 2017.
Brownlee, N.; Claffy, K. C.; Nemeth, E. (2001). "DNS measurements at a root server". GLOBECOM'01. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (Cat. No.01CH37270). Vol. 3. p. 1672. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.18.3882. doi:10.1109/GLOCOM.2001.965864. ISBN 978-0-7803-7206-1. S2CID 10140817.
Broido, A.; Nemeth, E.; Claffy, K. (2002). "Internet expansion, refinement and churn". European Transactions on Telecommunications. 13: 33–51. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.18.3182. doi:10.1002/ett.4460130105.
Mullin, R., Nemeth, E. and Weidenhofer, N., "Will Public Key Crypto Systems Live up to Their Expectations? HEP Implementation of the Discrete Log Codebreaker", Proc. of the 1984 Intl Conf on Parallel Processing, Aug. 21–24, 1984, pp. 193–196. Selected for the best paper award for this conference.
"Otter: A general-purpose network visualization tool". International Networking Conference (INET) '99. June 1999. Retrieved 2013-06-28.
== Awards ==
1984 - Best Paper Award, International Parallel Processing Conference, Chicago, August 1984
1995 - USENIX/LISA Lifetime Achievement Award
1999 - Top 25 Women on the Web Award
2007 - Distinguished Engineering Honoree at CU-Boulder
5th Annual Telluride Tech Fest Honoree
2018 - NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award
== See also ==
List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea
Layer 8
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascarin_Peak | Mascarin Peak | Mascarin Peak (until 2003 called State President Swart Peak), is the highest mountain on Marion Island, with a height of 1,230 metres (4,040 ft). Marion Island is the largest island of the Prince Edward Islands in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean. The islands belong to South Africa and are administered by the South African National Antarctic Programme. Mascarin Peak is ranked 37th by topographic isolation.
Mascarin Peak is South Africa's only active volcano. The last eruption occurred in 2004. Renamed in 2003 after Marion du Fresne's frigate Le Mascarin.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratan_Parimoo | Ratan Parimoo | Ratan Parimoo is an Indian art historian from Kashmir, who has worked as an art educator, pedagogue, artist and former director of the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, Ahmedabad. Ratan Parimoo was one of the founder members of Baroda Group. In January 2025, he was honored with the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, by the Government of India.
He publishes on the arts of Ajanta, Ellora, Jain, Rajasthani, Pahari and Mughal paintings and drawings. He authored Art of Three Tagores- From Revival to Modernity. He is married to artist Naina Dalal.
== Books ==
=== Books Authored ===
Paintings of the three Tagores, Abanindranath, Gaganendranath, Rabindranath – Chronology and Comparative Study (PhD Thesis), MS University of Baroda, Vadodara,1973.
Studies in Modern Indian Art, Kanak Publications-Books India, New Delhi, 1975.
Life of Buddha in Indian Sculpture, Kanak Publications, New Delhi, 1982. Enlarged edition, DK Printworld, Delhi, 2009.
Sculptures of Sheshashayi Vishnu, MS University of Baroda, Vadodara, 1983.
The Pictorial World of Gaganendranath Tagore, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 1995.
Studies in Indian Sculptures, Essays in New Art History, Books & Books, New Delhi, 2000.
Studies on the Art of Raja Ravi Varma, Thrissur (Kerala), 2006.
NC Mehta Collection Vol I, Gujarati School and Jaina Manuscript Paintings, Ahmedabad, 2010.
The Art of Three Tagores, From Revival to Modernity, Kumar Gallery, New Delhi, 2011.
NC Mehta Collection Vol II, Rajasthani, Central Indian, Pahari and Mughal Paintings, Ahmedabad, 2013
Treasures from the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum], Ahmedabad, 2013.
Gaganendranath Tagore, A Retrospective, an Exhibition Catalogue, Victoria Memorial Hall in collaboration with Rabindra Bharati Society, Kolkata, 2014.
From the Earthly World to the Realm of Gods, Kasturbhai Lalbhai Collection of Indian Drawings. Ahmedabad, 2019.
=== Books Edited ===
Proceedings of Workshop in History of Art, 1977, published on behalf of University Grant Commission, New Delhi, by MS University of Baroda, Vadodara, 1979.
Vaiṣhnavism in Indian Art and Culture, Books & Books, New Delhi, 1987.
Ellora Caves – Sculptures and Architecture, Books & Books, New Delhi, 1988.
The Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1989. Revised edition, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 2008.
The Arts of Ajanta – New Perspectives, Books & Books, New Delhi, 1991.
Creative Arts in Modern India, Books & Books, New Delhi, 1995.
The Legacy of Raja Ravi Varma – The Painter, Maharaja Fatehsingh Museum Trust, Baroda, 1998.
(with Sandip Sarkar) Historical Development of Contemporary Indian Art 1800 – 1947, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 2009.
Ellora Caves – Sculptures and Architecture, Books & Books, New Delhi, 1988. Revised edition, Aparant Books, Pune, 2018.
Shridhar Andhare, (ed) Ratan Parimoo, Calligraphy and Art of Writing in Jain Manuscripts, Ahmedabad, 2020.
=== Felicitations Published in His Honour ===
Towards a New Art History: Studies in Indian Art, Essays in Honour of Prof Ratan Parimoo, (ed) Shivaji Panikkar, Parul Dave Mukherji, et al., DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2003.
RATNA DiPAh, New Dimensions of Indian Art History & Theory, Essays in Honour of Prof Ratan Parimoo, (ed) Gauri Parimoo Krishnan, RH Kulkarni, Agam Kala Prakashan, 2021.
== Art exhibitions ==
1955 onwards — National Exhibitions of Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi.
1956,57,58,59 — Baroda Group of Artists Exhibitions in Bombay.
1958 — First one-man show, Srinagar.
1962 — South Asian Artists, Durham, U.K.
1964,65,75 — Joint shows with wife Naina Dalal, at Bombay, Delhi and I.P.C.L., Baroda.
1972 — Retrospective Exhibition at Delhi, Rabindra Bhawan.
1975,1976 — Alumni Exhibition, Faculty of Fine Arts, Silver Jubilee, Bombay, Baroda.
1973,75 — One-man shows at Bombay.
1976 — One-man show in Delhi.
1979 — One-man show in Ahmedabad.
1990 — Organized and exhibited with EIGHT BARODA ARTISTS, CMC Ltd., New Delhi.
1991-1992 — Artists Against Communalism, Delhi.
1992 — Birla Akademi of Art, Calcutta, Silver Jubilee Exhibition, West Zone.
1995 — Bharat Bhavan Biennale, Bhopal.
1995 — Tribute to Husain on 80th Birthday, Aurodhan Gallery, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Delhi.
1996 — Contemporary Indian Painting, Bombay Art Society, Bombay.
1997 — Major Trends in Indian Art, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi.
1999 — Retrospective Exhibitions, Jehangir Art Gallery, Cymroza Art Gallery, Bombay.
2000 — Retrospective Exhibitions, Natarani Theatre, Ahmedabad & Welcome Hotel, Baroda.
2002 — Allahabad Museum, Allahabad. — Exhibitions-Auctions of OSIAN'S, Mumbai, curated by Shri Neville Tuli
2001, February — India: The Passionate Detachment
2002, July — India in Making, 1757–1950
2002, November — Masterpieces and Museum Quality Indian Modern and Contemporary Paintings.
2005, February — Masterpieces and Museum Quality Indian Modern and Contemporary Paintings.
2004 — Art for Vision (For Shankara Netralaya) LKA, New Delhi.
2006 — Parimini Shakla, Fifty years of Ratan Parimoo's Paintings (1956-2006), Baroda, Delhi.
2008 — Parimoo's Chaurapanchashika: Iconography of A Nayika, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai.
2009 — Parimoo's Chaurapanchashika: Iconography of A Nayika, Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
2010–11 — Ratan Parimoo's Early Phase, (1956-1960), Sponsored by Marvel Gallery, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Mumbai.
2018 — CONCOURSE, 9th Annual Contemporary Art Show Exhibition of Kashmiri Muslim and Pandit Artists Srinagar (Kashmir).
== Artists' camp ==
Participated in artists' camps:
1969 — Pavagarh
1976 — Srinagar, Kashmir
2005 — Regional Centre, Lalit Kala Akademi, Lucknow
== Awards ==
1957 Cultural Scholarship for Painting, Govt. of India
1960-1963 Commonwealth Scholarship to study in London
1966 First prize in Painting, Annual Exhibition, J & K, Cultural Akademi.
1974 Rockefeller IIIrd Grant to study & travel in USA.
1991-1993 Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship for Jataka Stories in Buddhist Art.
2000 Gaurav Puraskar, Gujarat State Lalit Kala Akademi.
2016 Raja Ravi Varma Chitrakar Sanman award, Megh Mandal Sansthan Mumbai.
2019 'Rabindranath Tagore Birth Centenary Medal' by Asiatic Society in Kolkata at 235th annual meet for contribution to human culture (2018).
== Collections ==
Hermitage, Lenningrad
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Punjab University, Chandigarh
Air India, Bombay
Shyamal Builders, Baroda
Gujarat State Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi Sahitya Kala Parishad, Madhavan Nair Foundation, Cochin, Cymroza Art Gallery, Mumbai
Welcome Hotel, Vadodara. & Private Collections
== Major Lecture Series ==
1980 – Radhakamal Mukherji Memorial Lecture, U.P. State Lalit Kala Akademi, Lucknow.
1983 – UGC National Lectures at Chandigarh, Santiniketan & Madurai.
1989 – Hindi Sahitya Parishad, Ahmedabad.
1990 – Somashekhar Memorial Lecture, Dept. of Archaeology, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad.
1999 – Abanindranath Memorial Lecture, Calcutta.
2005 – Raja Ravi Varma Death Centenary Lecture, Cochin.
== Foreign Travels ==
1960-61 – Commonwealth Fellowship to study in London University.
1967 – One month's traveling in USSR under Indo-Soviet Cultural Programme.
1974 – JDR Rockefeller IIIrd Fund, New York, USA.
1978 – Invited to participate in the world Congress of International Society for Education Through Art, Adelaide, Australia.
1993 – Travelled to London, Paris, Berlin.
== Membership(s) of Societies/ Associates being held ==
1981-1984 – Member, Executive Board, Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi.
1982 – Member, UGC Panel Art History / Museology.
1982-1988 – Executive Secretary, Indian Association of Art Historians.
1985 – Member, UGC Pay Scale Revision committee.
1987 – Member, Central Advisory Board of Museums, Govt. of India.
1993-1995 – Member, History of Science Panel, Indian National Science Akademi, New Delhi.
1994-1997 – Member, UGC Panel for Art History / Fine Arts.
1998-2000 – Art Purchase Committee, NGMA, Delhi.
2003-2005 – Programme Advisory Committee, NGMA, Mumbai.
2003- 2005 – Board of Studies, Jawahar Nehru University, New Delhi. Board of Studies, National Council of Educational Research and Teaching, New Delhi.
2011 – Authentication Committee appointed by Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, to access the exhibition of 20 fake paintings of Rabindranath Tagore held at College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata.
2012-2014 – Member, Board of Studies, School of Art and Aesthetics, JNU.
2014-2016 – Member, Acquisition Committee, NGMA, New Delhi.
2015-2020 – Chief Advisor, Textbooks in Fine Arts for class XI and Class XII, National Council of Educational Research and Training.
== External links ==
https://web.archive.org/web/20070929082616/http://www.ratanparimoo.com/
https://aaa.org.hk/en/collections/search/archive/ratan-parimoo-archive
https://independent.academia.edu/RatanParimoo
https://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/art/artist-ratan-parimoo-on-raja-ravi-varmas-contributions/article8589618.ece
https://www.amazon.in/Books-Ratan-Parimoo/s?rh=n%3A976389031%2Cp_27%3ARatan+Parimoo
https://www.youtube.com/live/Rig4CaRh5FY?si=421jszWgIUONmwvU
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwgcMUuFtYD_sh2x5yyegIvtxwrq24jIg&si=l7alVdurBadcZmAi
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Zwerg | James Zwerg | James Zwerg (born November 28, 1939) is an American retired minister who was involved with the Freedom Riders in the early 1960s.
== Early life ==
Zwerg was born in Appleton, Wisconsin where he lived with his parents and older brother, Charles. His father was a dentist who once a month provided free dental care to the poor. Zwerg was very involved in school and took part in the student protests in high school.
Zwerg was also very active in the Christian church, where he attended services regularly. Through the church, he became exposed to the belief in civil equality. He was taught that all people are created equal, no matter what race or religion they are.
== College and SNCC ==
Zwerg attended Beloit College, where he studied sociology and graduated in 1962. He developed an interest in civil rights from his interactions with his roommate, Robert Carter, an African-American from Georgia. Zwerg recalled: "I witnessed prejudice against him… we would go to a lunch counter or cafeteria and people would get up and leave the table. I had pledged a particular fraternity and then found out that he was not allowed in the fraternity house. I decided that his friendship was more important than that particular fraternity, so I depledged."
Zwerg participated in a one-semester student exchange program in January 1961 at Nashville's Fisk University, a predominantly black school. At Fisk, Zwerg met John Lewis, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and was immediately impressed with the way Lewis handled himself and his commitment to the movement. Lewis was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student organized Civil Rights activist group focused on nonviolent direct action. Zwerg joined SNCC and suggested that the group attend a movie. SNCC members explained to Zwerg that Nashville theaters were segregated. Zwerg began attending SNCC nonviolence workshops, often playing the angry bigot in role-play. His first test was to buy two movie tickets and try to walk in with a black man. When trying to enter the theater on February 21, 1961, Zwerg was hit with a monkey wrench and knocked unconscious.
== Freedom Rides ==
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began to organize Freedom Rides. The first departed from Washington, D.C. and involved 13 black and white riders who rode into the South challenging white only lunch counters and restaurants. When they reached Anniston, Alabama one of the buses was ambushed and attacked. Meanwhile, at an SNCC meeting in Tennessee, Lewis, Zwerg and 11 other volunteers decided to be reinforcements. Zwerg was the only white male in the group. Although scared for his life, Zwerg never had second thoughts. He recalled, "My faith was never so strong as during that time. I knew I was doing what I should be doing."
The group traveled by bus to Birmingham, where Zwerg was first arrested for not moving to the back of the bus with his black seating companion, Paul Brooks.
Three days later, the riders regrouped and headed to Montgomery. At first the bus station there was an eerie quiet, but the scene turned into an ambush, with the riders attacked from all directions. "Mr. Zwerg was hit with his own suitcase in the face. Then he was knocked down and a group pummeled him" (qtd. in Loory 577). The prostrate activist was beaten into unconsciousness somewhere around the time a man took Zwerg's head between his knees while others took turns pounding and clawing at his face. At one point while Zwerg was unconscious, three men held him up while a woman kicked him in the groin. After it seemed that the worst of the onslaught was over, Zwerg gained semi-consciousness and tried to use the handrails to the loading platform to pull himself to his feet. As he struggled to get upright, a white man came and threw Zwerg over the rail. He crashed to the ground below, landing on his head. He was only the first to be beaten that day, but the attack on him may have been the most ruthless (Loory 573–79). Zwerg recalls, "There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did. If you want to talk about heroism, consider the black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said 'Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital. I don't know if he lived or died."
Zwerg was denied prompt medical attention because there were no white ambulances available. He was quoted as saying "I suppose a person has to be dead before anyone will call an ambulance in Montgomery," as he lay in the hospital bed after being brutally beaten. He remained unconscious for two days and stayed in the hospital for five days. His post-riot photos were published in many newspapers and magazines across the country. After his beating, Zwerg claimed he had had an incredible religious experience and God helped him to not fight back. In a 2013 interview recalling the incident, he said, "In that instant, I had the most incredible religious experience of my life. I felt a presence with me. A peace. Calmness. It was just like I was surrounded by kindness, love. I knew in that instance that whether I lived or died, I would be OK." In a famous moving speech from his hospital room, Zwerg stated, "Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue.... We're dedicated to this, we'll take hitting, we'll take beating. We're willing to accept death. But we're going to keep coming until we can ride from anywhere in the South to any place else in the South without anybody making any comments, just as American citizens."
== Post-Freedom Rides ==
Later in 1961, Martin Luther King presented Zwerg with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Freedom Award. After a conversation with King, Zwerg decided to enroll at Garrett Theological Seminary. He met his future wife Carrie. Zwerg was ordained a minister, serving for five years in three rural Wisconsin communities. The Zwergs settled in Tucson, Arizona in 1970 and had three children. He changed his career several times, including charity organization work and a stint in community relations at IBM. Zwerg retired in 1993 after which the couple built a cabin in rural New Mexico about 50 miles (80 km) from the nearest grocery store. Zwerg continues to spread awareness to this day about the trials and tribulations of the Freedom Rides and how love is what is most important. He gave a speech on May 18, 2011, at Troy University Rosa Parks Museum. He spoke about the effect the Freedom Rides had on his life. In an interview with Lisa Simeone, Zwerg talked about how blessed he was to have been a part of the Movement. "Everywhere we've stopped people have been so gracious and so kind and one of the things that has certainly been rewarding to me has been to see how many people brought their children; seeing a little eight-year-old boy come up to me and talk to me and say, 'May I please have your autograph? Thank you for what you did.' That was pretty special. I appreciated that."
== References ==
== External links ==
Blake, John (May 16, 2011). "Shocking photo created a hero, but not to his family". CNN. Retrieved May 16, 2011.
== Further reading ==
Arsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199755813. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Vel%C3%A1zquez_(footballer) | Miguel Velázquez (footballer) | Miguel Gerardo Velázquez Olivares (born 2 July 1990) is a former Mexican professional footballer who last played as a right-back for Atlante.
== Honours ==
Morelia
Liga de Expansión MX: Clausura 2022
== Notes ==
== References ==
Miguel Velázquez at Soccerway
ascensomx.net
== External links ==
Miguel Gerardo Velázquez at Soccerway.com
Miguel Gerardo Velázquez at FBref.com |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajaz_Ahmed_Khan | Ajaz Ahmed Khan | Aijaz Ahmad Khan, popularly known as Sher-e-Gool Gulabgarh, is an Indian politician and was a member of the 10th, 11th and 12th Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly from Gool Arnas constituency. He served as Minister of various portfolios from 2002 to 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir Govt under the Chief Ministership of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah. He also served as Deputy Leader of Congress Legislative Party from 2014 to 2018. He left Congress and became founding member of Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party (JKAP) formed on 8 March 2020. He was also the Vice President of PAC (Political Affairs Committee) and member CWC of Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party. Prior to Assembly Elections in Jammu and Kashmir 2024, Khan left Apni Party and contested elections as Independent candidate from Gulabgarh Assembly constituency in which he got defeated and secured runner-up position.Currently, Ajaz Ahmed Khan is also patron of Gujjar Bakerwal Conference (GBC), a social and political platform, which was founded by his father and veteran leader Haji Buland Khan who established Gujjar Bakerwal Conference in 2000 which has played a crucial role in the upliftment of Gujjar Bakerwal Community.
== Personal life ==
Ajaz Ahmad Khan was born on 21 November 1968 in Thuroo, Dharmari to a renowned Gujjar leader Haji Buland Khan from Jammu & Kashmir who held various posts in the state government. Ajaz did his early schooling from Govt. High School, Thuroo located at Reasi. He did his B.A. from Jammu University Jammu. In 1996, he completed his LLB from Jammu University.
He married Farhat Un Nisa Khan in 2003. His younger brother Haji Mumtaz Ahmad Khan was also a member of 12th Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly from Gulabgarh constituency. His one sister is married to Chowdhary Zulfikar Ali.
== Political career ==
Ajaz joined politics in 1996 soon after completing LLB. In 1996, he contested elections on the ticket of NC from Gulabgarh assembly and got defeated by as margin of 956 votes only. Then he got appointed as District President of NC from Reasi District, i.e. Udhampur II. In 2002, he again contested as an independent candidate from two assembly segments; Gool Arnas and Gulabgarh and he got victory from Gool Arnas. And thus in 2002, he joined Indian National Congress. Then in 2008 and 2014, he got victory from Gool Arnas.
He remained minister since 2002 up to 2014 in the Govt of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah. He held various departments in the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah Government. He was such an efficient leader that once he had charge of 13 departments. In 2020, he along with Altaf Bukhari formed a new political party, Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party.
=== Positions held in J&K Government ===
MoS Finance, Planning and Development, Revenue, Forest, Agriculture, Higher and Technical Education and various other portfolios: 2002
MoS (Independent) Haj, Auqaf and Fisheries: 2009
MoS Law and Justice, Parliamentary Affairs, Rural Development and Panchayats, Social Welfare, Animal Husbandry and Hospitality and Protocol: 2009
MoS (Independent) Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation: 2013
=== Legislative experience ===
2002 – 2008 Member, 10th Legislative Assembly (Gool-Arnas Constituency)
2008 – 2014 Member, 11th Legislative Assembly (Gool-Arnas Constituency)
2014 – 2018 Member, 12th Legislative Assembly (Gool-Arnas Constituency)
Chairman of Joint Commission Land Conservation of J&K Assembly
Chairman of Subordinate Legislation of J&K Assembly
Member of Ethics Committee of J&K Assembly
Member of Committee on Joint Heritage Preservation of J&K Assembly
Member of Public Accounts Committee for three times of J&K Assembly
=== Awards and honors ===
Rashtriya Gourav Award
Best citizen of India Award
== Social Work ==
Ajaz Ahmed Khan is also patron of Gujjar Bakerwal Conference (GBC), a social and political platform which was founded by his father and veteran leader Haji Buland Khan who established Gujjar Bakerwal Conference in 2000 which has played a crucial role in the upliftment of Gujjar Bakerwal Community.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Kalicki#:~:text=Kalicki%20published%2013%20papers%20on,five%20years%20before%20his%20death. | Jan Kalicki | Jan Kalicki (28 January 1922 – 25 November 1953) was a Polish mathematician who investigated logical matrices.
== Biography and education ==
Jan Kalicki graduated from high school in Warsaw in May 1939 just months before Germany invaded Poland on 1 September. He wanted to go to the University of Warsaw but it was closed down on 27 September when Poland surrendered.
Famous mathematicians present at the University of Warsaw such as Borsuk, Łukasiewicz, Mazurkiewicz, Sierpiński, Mostowski, and Kuratowski opened up an underground University of Warsaw. This was repressed by the Nazis who wanted to stop all intellectual efforts and they imprisoned or killed several.
Nevertheless, Kalicki completed his studies in mathematics and philosophy at this underground university but it would have to wait until the end of the war in 1945 before he would be awarded an MA in mathematics and philosophy.
He taught for two years after the war at the Universities of Łódź and University of Warsaw he went to London on a British Council Scholarship for two years. There, Kalicki received his doctorate in mathematical logic in July 1948 at the University of London. While studying in London he married Mireya Jaimes-Freyre in 1947 and had a son named after his father.
Feeling that going back to Poland at this time would be restrictive he decided to stay in London and lectured in mathematics at Woolwich Polytechnic. A year later he went to University of Leeds and stayed there until 1951 when he went to the US to become Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics in the University of California, Berkeley.
== Later life and death ==
In 1953, just after a year he was appointed Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Davis campus he returned to Berkeley, to become Assistant Professor of Philosophy. He died three months later in a car accident north of Berkeley, California. A tribute published by the University of California emphasized that he was beloved by colleagues and students alike.
== Works ==
Kalicki published 13 papers on logical matrices and equational logic in the five years before his death.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabon#:~:text=Digital%20releases,-Several%20digital%20versions&text=Adobe%20had%20its%20own%20version,the%20name%20of%20Classical%20Garamond. | Sabon | Sabon is an old-style serif typeface designed by the German-born typographer and designer Jan Tschichold (1902–1974) in the period 1964–1967. It was released jointly by the Linotype, Monotype, and Stempel type foundries in 1967. The design of the roman is based on types by Claude Garamond (c. 1480–1561), particularly a specimen printed by the Frankfurt printer Konrad Berner. Berner had married the widow of a fellow printer Jacques Sabon, the source of the face's name, who had bought some of Garamond's type after his death. The italics are based on types designed by a contemporary of Garamond's, Robert Granjon. It is effectively a Garamond revival, though a different name was chosen as many other modern typefaces already carry this name.
A classic typeface for body text, Sabon's longstanding popularity has transcended its origin as a commission to fit a tight set of business requirements. Tschichold was commissioned by a coalition of German printers to create a typeface that could be printed identically on Linotype, Monotype or letterpress equipment, simplifying the process of planning lines and pagination when printing a book. The italic and bold styles were to take up exactly as much space as the roman, a feature imposed by the duplexing system of Linotype hot metal typesetting machines of the period. Finally, the new font was to be five per cent narrower than their existing Monotype Garamond, in order to save space and money. Sabon's name was therefore considered appropriate: a Frenchman who had moved to Frankfurt, he had played a role in bringing Garamond's type into use in German printing four hundred years before.
== History ==
Sabon was developed in the early 1960s for a group of German printers who sought a "harmonized" or uniform font that would look the same whether set by hand or on a Monotype or Linotype hot metal typesetting machine. They were specific about the kind of font that might work, rejecting the modern and fashionable in favour of solid 16th century tradition - something modelled on the work sixteenth-century engravers Claude Garamond and Robert Granjon. The requirement that all weights have the same width was influenced by the 'duplex' system of lead casting on the Linotype system: each Linotype-matrix can cast two different characters: roman or italic, roman or bold, which must have the same width. It also meant that the typeface then only required one set of copyfitting data (rather than three) when compositors had to estimate the length of a text prior to actual typesetting (a common practice before computer-assisted typesetting). Another hint of the design's origins in hot-metal typesetting technology is the narrow 'f', since Linotype machines cannot cast an 'f' that kerns, or extends beyond the letter's body.
Tschichold was well known as an eminent book designer in his own right, having promoted the now-popular ragged right style of book layout. A modernist, after the war, from 1947 to 1949, he played a hugely significant role in British book design, creating a unified, simple and inexpensive layout design for Penguin Books, a publisher which specialised in issuing cheap paperbacks. In his early life, he had lived in Leipzig and in the 1920s had devised a "universal alphabet" for German, improving its non-phonetic spellings and promoting the replacement of the jumble of fonts with a simple sans serif. Tschichold had become more interested in classical book design as his career progressed, and Sabon is a relatively faithful, organic book typeface strongly rooted in tradition. The name "Sabon" was proposed by Stanley Morison, an influential British Monotype artistic advisor and historian of printing. Different drawings were used for machining the larger sizes. Tschichold used an Egenolff-Berner specimen sheet from 1592 to provide initial models to work from, choosing a Garamond face for the roman letters and a Granjon face for the italics.
An early first use of Sabon was the setting of the Washburn College Bible in 1973 by the American graphic designer Bradbury Thompson. All books of the King James biblical text were set by hand in a process called thought-unit typography, where Thompson broke the lines at their spoken syntactical breaks.
Sabon was also used as the typeface in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church (United States), as well as all of that church's secondary liturgical texts (such as the Book of Occasional Services and Lesser Feasts and Fasts).
Sabon was used in the 2000s as the official logo typeface of Stanford University until 2012. It is also used by Örebro University, together with the typeface Trade Gothic. Vogue and Esquire use a slightly modified version of it for headlines. Since 2010, First Things has used Sabon for the page text in its print edition. The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting uses Sabon for its Law Reports.
=== Digital releases ===
Several digital versions of Sabon exist, sold by Linotype and Monotype. Monotype Sabon is lighter than the Linotype version. Linotype also released Sabon Georgian and Sabon Paneuropean with extended language support. Adobe had its own version called Adobe Sabon, but it is not widely available as of 2022.
Fontsite released a version under the name Savoy, while Bitstream released a less faithful version under the name of Classical Garamond.
== Sabon Next (2002) ==
Jean-François Porchez designed the revival of Sabon known as Sabon Next. Sabon Next is based upon Tschichold's 1967 Sabon design for the Stempel foundry and Porchez' study of original Garamond and Le Bé models. Unlike in the original Sabon, Porchez rejected the approach of a matching-width italic for a more traditional design, narrower than the roman style, and chose to take advantage of digital typesetting technology to include a wide 'f' in the sixteenth-century style.
=== Commercial Version (Sabon Next LT Pro) ===
The commercial version of Sabon Next is commonly called Sabon Next LT Pro or Sabon Next Pro.
Sabon Next Pro consists of 6 weights (Display, Regular, Demi, Bold, Extra Bold, and Black). Despite its designation, the 'Display' weight is considered as another grade of the 'Roman weight' and Porchez recommended it for 11pt or above, while the 'Regular' weight is designed for smaller text sizes such as 8pt.
Sabon Next Pro includes Latin Extended characters, but does not have Greek and Cyrillic support. OpenType features include Small caps (except in Black weight), Ligatures, Special ligatures, Alternates, Caps figures, Oldstyle figures, Tabular figures, Fractions, Superiors, Ornaments, Swash, Proportional Lining figures. Except in Black weights, the fonts include a collection of printers' ornaments and dingbats. These ornaments are also offered independently as a font named Sabon Next Ornaments.
=== Microsoft Office Version (Sabon Next LT) ===
Users of Microsoft Office can download two weights (Regular and Bold) of Sabon Next via the cloud fonts feature. This version is called Sabon Next LT, without the 'Pro' label.
This version of Sabon Next does have support for Greek, Cyrillic, and Turkish characters, but some OpenType features (e.g., stylistic sets and alternative numeric figures) are not available.
== Sabon eText (2013) ==
Sabon eText is a version of Sabon optimized for screen use, designed by Steve Matteson. Changes include increased x-heights, heavier hairline and serifs, wider inter-character spacing, more open counters, adjusted thicks to thins ratio.
The family includes four fonts in two weights (regular, bold), with complementary italics. OpenType features include case-sensitive forms, fractions, ligatures, lining/old style figures, ordinals, superscript, small capitals.
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
Friedl, Friederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An encyclopedic survey of type design and techniques through history. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
Lawson, Alexander S., Anatomy of a Typeface. Godine: 1990. ISBN 978-0-87923-333-4.
Meggs, Philip B. and Rob Carter.Typographic Specimens: The Great Typefaces. Wiley: 1993. ISBN 0-471-28429-7.
Meggs, Philip B. and McKelvey, Roy.Revival of the Fittest: Digital Versions of Classic Typefaces. RC Publications: 2000. ISBN 1-883915-08-2.
Meggs, Philip B. History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons: 1998. ISBN 0-470-04265-6.
Perfect, Christopher & Rookledge, Gordon. Rookledge's Classic International Typefinder. Laurence King Publishing: 2004. ISBN 978-1-85669-406-3.
== External links ==
Brochure about Sabon Next, part I, Linotype GmbH 2009
Linotype updates a classic: Sabon Next – new life for an old font
1969 advertisement comparing type set in Sabon on the three release versions |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicki_Draves | Vicki Draves | Victoria Manalo Draves (née Manalo; December 31, 1924 – April 11, 2010) was a Filipino American competitive diver who won gold medals in both platform and springboard diving at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Draves became the first woman to be awarded gold medals for both the ten-meter platform and the three-meter springboard. In a pioneering achievement, she was the first American woman to win two gold medals in diving, and the first Asian American to win Olympic gold medals. She was born in San Francisco.
== Early life and education ==
Manalo was born in the South-of-Market district of San Francisco to Philippine chef and musician Teofilo Manalo and English maid Gertrude Taylor. Her parents met and married in San Francisco. She grew up with her parents, her twin sister Connie, her older sister Frankie, and a younger brother, Sonny, who died as a child. Manalo couldn't afford to take swimming lessons until she was 10 years old and took summer swimming lessons from the Red Cross, paying five cents for admission to a pool in the Mission District. Draves played badminton, basketball, and softball in high school. She graduated from Commerce High School on Van Ness Avenue in 1942 and worked a temporary civil service job in the Army Port Surgeon's office to add to the family's meager income.
== Career ==
Manalo was introduced to diving at age 16 by Jack Lavery. It was Lavery who introduced her to Phil Patterson, swimming coach of the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club. Due to racial discrimination and prejudice for being a Filipino, she changed her name to Vicki Taylor to be accepted in Patterson's school. Patterson's military stint during World War II caused Manalo to stop diving for a year. She instead found a job at the Presidio military base. Manalo later joined the swimming program at the Crystal Plunge in North Beach headed by Charlie Sava and was assigned Jimmy Hughes as her diving coach. Her 50–100 dive after-school practices continued even to her enrollment at San Francisco Junior College (now City College of San Francisco). At age 19, Coach Hughes guided her to a third-place finish in her first national AAU diving competition at the Indiana national meet in 1943.
At the 1944 national AAU championships, the men's 1942 platform champion, Sammy Lee, befriended her and introduced her to his coaching friend, Lyle Draves, who ran the swimming and diving program at the prestigious Athens Athletic Club in Oakland. Manalo then started training with Lyle Draves, adding platform diving to her springboard diving repertoire. Lyle Draves left the San Francisco Bay Area for Los Angeles in disgust at the racism in the Fairmont Hotel Swimming and Diving Club. Manalo commuted to Los Angeles, and placed second and third at the Outdoor Nationals. In 1945, on the death of her father, she returned to her old job as a secretary in the Army Port Surgeon's office in San Francisco.
When the war ended, Manalo finally moved to Southern California for good. She married her coach on July 12, 1946, and won the National Tower Diving Championship (10 meter platform), in 1946, 1947 and 1948. Prior to competing in the 1948 Olympics, Draves won a total of five United States diving championships. Despite not finishing first in either springboard or platform events of the Olympic trials in Detroit, Draves made the team.
On August 3, 1948, she won her first springboard title in the London Summer Olympics. Draves followed up that win with the gold medal in the 10-meter platform on Aug. 6, becoming the first woman to win both titles.
After her Olympic victory, the Manalo-Draves couple visited the Philippines for the first time upon the invitation from the Manila Jaycees. The 29-day visit to the Philippines had them staying in a Malacañang Palace suite and visiting her father's relatives in Orani, Bataan, where he was born. She gave platform diving exhibitions at the Rizal Stadium and in other Philippine venues, and also for Philippine president Elpidio Quirino. Draves appeared in a Life layout in 1949, being named one of the magazine's top two U.S. athletes at the 1948 Olympics.
Draves turned professional after the Olympics, joining Larry Crosby's "Rhapsody in Swimtime" aquatic show for her pro debut at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1948. She also performed in the L.A. Coliseum with headliner Esther Williams and the General Motors convention in Detroit. In 1949 and 1950, Draves toured the U.S., Canada, and Europe with Buster Crabbe's "Aqua Parade". After performing regularly in the Coachella Valley's El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs and at the Shadow Mountain Resort & Club in Palm Desert, Draves retired from diving. In 1949, Al Sheehan recruited Callen to perform as part of the Aqua Follies, a water ballet show including diving acts.
After starting a family in the early 1950s in Glendale, Draves and her husband operated a swimming and diving training program at Indian Springs in Montrose and later moved the program to Encino. They continued to reside in Tarzana for 35 years, raising their four sons – David, Jeffery, Dale and Kim – to be skilled divers. Draves worked as a secretary while her husband remained a coach and swimming director.
== Later life and death ==
In the mid-1960s, Draves was an advocate for the Filipino Education Center when the second wave of Filipino immigrants came to America and largely settled in the South of Market district.
In 1968, she joined sprinter Jesse Owens, football player Tommy Harmon and race car driver Sam Hanks at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas to help raise $700,000 for the City of Hope National Medical Center.
=== Honors ===
Draves was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969.
In 2005, Draves was selected for the year's Most Outstanding Alumnus of City College of San Francisco. On May 27, 2005, she received her award and spoke at the commencement ceremonies of City College at the SF Masonic Auditorium. She received a resounding ovation from the 2000 graduating students in attendance. In the same year, she was acknowledged as one of Los Angeles Athletics Club's outstanding athletes.
In October 2006, a two-acre park (one acre per gold medal) in San Francisco was named Victoria Manalo Draves Park in her honor. It was on the same site, on Folsom and Sherman streets, where she had formerly attended Franklin Elementary School, four blocks from where she was born and raised.
Draves and her husband moved to Palm Springs, California in 1995. She died on April 11, 2010, aged 85, from pancreatic cancer aggravated by pneumonia.
== Legacy ==
On August 3, 2020, Draves was honored with a Google Doodle in recognition of her achievements.
== See also ==
List of members of the International Swimming Hall of Fame
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Hyung-chan, Kim (1999). Distinguished Asian Americans : a biographical dictionary. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313289026.
Draves, Vicki; Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. (1999). An Olympian's oral history : Vicki Draves, 1948 Olympic Games, diving. Los Angeles: Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles. OCLC 45944250.
== External links ==
Media related to Vicki Draves at Wikimedia Commons |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handwara#:~:text=According%20to%20the%202011%20Indian,average%20literacy%20rate%20of%2064.39%25. | Handwara | Handwara (Urdu pronunciation: [ɦənd̪ʋɑːɽɑː] ; Kashmiri pronunciation: [hand̪ʋoːr]) is a town in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is located on Baramulla-Handwara National Highway NH-701 and is governed by a municipal committee. Handwara is known for its high-quality walnuts, which are a major agricultural product of the region. The area's climate and soil are ideal for walnut cultivation. Handwara is also famous for its apple orchards alongside walnut production.
== History ==
=== Sikh rule ===
During Sikh rule, Raja Zabardast Khan, chieftain of the Bomba tribe, led guerrilla warfare against the forces of the Sikh Empire, targeting their garrisons and posts in Handwara.
== Geography ==
Handwara is located at 34.40°N 74.28°E / 34.40; 74.28 at an average elevation of 1,582 metres (5,190 feet) above sea level. The region boasts breathtaking natural beauty, with the Pohru River (locally called 'Talri river')—a tributary of the Jhelum—flowing through the town.
Famous volcanic peak, 'Soyamji' (1860 metres), locally known as 'Paput' is situated in North Machhipura (Handwara). It is known for its unique conical shape. It continued eruption of lava for about 13 months during 1934 and has been dormant since then.
== Demographics ==
According to the 2011 Indian census, Handwara has a population of 13,600. Males constitute 54.26% of the population and females 45.74%. Handwara has an average literacy rate of 64.39%. The dominant religion in the town is Islam.
=== Literacy ===
The Census of 2011 showed the literacy rate of Handwara at 64.39%, lower than the national average of 67.16%. There is a gender difference in literacy, with a male literacy rate of 75.62% and a much lower female literacy rate of 51.88%.
== Educational Institutions ==
Government Medical College, Handwara
Government Degree College, Handwara
Shaheen Public Secondary School, Handwara
New Millennium Public School
AIIMS School of Learning
Monarch Secondary School of Education
Sunrise Public School
Hill Grange Public School
GD Goenka Public School
Government Higher Secondary School Boys
Government Higher Secondary School Girls
Industrial Training Institute
Sheikh-ul-Alam Public School, Handwara
Webcom Industrial Training Institute, Handwara
== Politics ==
Handwara is a region of considerable strategic significance, primarily due to its proximity to the Line of Control (LoC). This geographical positioning renders it a critical and sensitive zone in military and security discussions. Handwara was the home constituency of the late separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone. The current MLA of Handwara is Sajjad Gani Lone of the Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference, who defeated Chowdhary Mohammad Ramzaan of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference by over 600 votes in the 2024 assembly elections.
Municipal Committee Handwara is an Urban Local Body with 13 elected members, which administers the town.
== Transportation ==
=== Air ===
The nearest airport is Sheikh ul-Alam International Airport in Srinagar located 78.8 kilometres from Handwara. There are plans to construct an airport in Panzgam near Kupwara.
=== Rail ===
Handwara is not yet connected to railways. The nearest railway station is Baramulla railway station located 30 kilometres from Handwara.
=== Road ===
Handwara is well-connected with roads and highways. The NH 701 passes through Handwara alongside other intra-town roads.
== Tourist Spots ==
Bungus Valley
Reshwari
Nagarwari
Poshnaar
== Notable people ==
Ali Mohammad Shahbaz (Poet)
Abdul Gani Lone (Politician)
Sajad Lone (Politician)
Engineer Rashid (Politician)
Noor Mohammad (Singer)
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nydia_Vel%C3%A1zquez | Nydia Velázquez | Nydia Margarita Velázquez Serrano ( NID-ee-ə, Spanish: [ˈniðja βeˈlaskes]; born March 28, 1953) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 7th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented New York's 12th congressional district from 1993 to 2013, prior to redistricting. She chaired the Congressional Hispanic Caucus from 2009 to 2011. Velázquez is the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress.
On November 20, 2025, Velázquez announced she would not run for re-election in 2026.
== Early life, education and career ==
Velázquez was born in Limones in the municipality of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, on March 28, 1953. She grew up in a small house on the Río Limones with eight other siblings. Her mother was Carmen Luisa Serrano Medina, and her father, Benito Velázquez Rodríguez, was a low-income worker in the sugarcane fields who became a self-taught political activist and the founder of a local political party; he was also listed as "Black" on the 1940 U.S. census. Political conversations at the Velázquez dinner table focused on workers' rights.
Velázquez attended public schools and skipped three grades as a child. She became the first person in her family to graduate from high school. At age 16, she became a student at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. In 1974, she received a B.A. degree in political science, magna cum laude, and became a teacher. In college, Velázquez supported Puerto Rican independence; by the time she ran for Congress in 1992, Velázquez no longer addressed the issue, saying that it must be left up to the Puerto Rican people. In the 2024 gubernatorial elections of Puerto Rico, Velázquez was among many prominent figures including representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who endorsed Juan Dalmau Ramírez of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) for the governership as part of the Alianza de País.
In 1976, Velázquez received an M.A. degree in political science from New York University. She served as an instructor of political science at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao from 1976 to 1981. After returning to New York City, Velázquez was an adjunct professor of Puerto Rican studies at Hunter College from 1981 to 1983.
== Political career ==
In 1983, Velázquez was special assistant to Representative Edolphus Towns, a Democrat representing New York's 10th congressional district in Brooklyn.
In 1984, Howard Golden (then the Brooklyn Borough president and chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party) named Velázquez to fill a vacant seat on the New York City Council, making her the first Hispanic woman to serve on the council. Velázquez ran for election to the council in 1986, but lost to a challenger.
From May 1986 to July 1989, Velázquez was national director of the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources' Migration Division Office. In 1989 the governor of Puerto Rico named her the director of the Department of Puerto Rican Community Affairs in the United States. In this role, according to a 1992 The New York Times profile, "Velazquez solidified her reputation that night as a street-smart and politically savvy woman who understood the value of solidarity and loyalty to other politicians, community leaders and organized labor."
Velázquez pioneered Atrévete Con Tu Voto, a program that aims to politically empower Latinos in the United States through voter registration and other projects. The Atrévete project spread from New York to Hartford, Connecticut; New Jersey; Chicago; and Boston, helping Hispanic candidates secure electoral wins.
=== Puerto Rico ===
Velázquez has been an advocate for human and civil rights of the Puerto Rican people. In the late 1990s and the 2000s, she was a leader in the Vieques movement, which sought to stop the United States military from using the inhabited island as a bomb testing ground. In May 2000, Velázquez was one of nearly 200 people arrested (including fellow Representative Luis Gutiérrez) for refusing to leave the natural habitat the US military wished to continue using as a bombing range. Velázquez was ultimately successful: in May 2003, the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility on Vieques Island was closed, and in May 2004, the U.S. Navy's last remaining base on Puerto Rico, the Roosevelt Roads Naval Station – which employed 1,000 local contractors and contributed $300 million to the local economy – was closed.
== U.S. House of Representatives ==
=== Elections ===
==== 1992 ====
Velázquez ran for Congress in the 1992 election, seeking a seat in the New York's newly drawn 12th congressional district, which was drawn as a majority-Hispanic district. She won the Democratic primary, defeating nine-term incumbent Stephen J. Solarz, who was heavily damaged by the House banking scandal, and four Hispanic candidates.
==== 2010 ====
Velázquez's 2010 campaign income was $759,359. She came out of this campaign about $7,736 in debt. Her top contributors included Goldman Sachs, the American Bankers Association, the National Roofing Contractors Association and the National Telephone Cooperative Association.
==== 2012 ====
Velázquez, who was redistricted into the 7th congressional district, defeated her challengers to win the Democratic nomination. Her top contributors included Goldman Sachs, the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America.
=== Tenure ===
On September 29, 2008, Velázquez voted for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. On November 19, 2008, she was elected by her peers in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to lead the group in the 111th Congress.
Before removing her name from consideration, she was considered a possible candidate to be appointed to the United States Senate by Governor David Paterson after Senator Hillary Clinton resigned to become secretary of state.
Among Velázquez's firsts are: the first Hispanic woman to serve on the New York City Council; the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress; and the first woman Ranking Democratic Member of the House Small Business Committee in 1998. She became the first woman to chair the United States House Committee on Small Business in January 2007 as well as the first Hispanic woman to chair a House standing committee.
Valazquez voted with President Joe Biden's stated position 100% of the time in the 117th Congress, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.
In September 2024, Nydia M. Velázquez presented a federal bill called the "Mel Law," which guarantees posthumous degrees to students who die before completing their mandatory studies.
In April 2024, Velázquez and nearly 20 other congresspeople voted against military aid to Israel.
=== Committee assignments ===
Committee on Financial Services
Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit;
Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity;
Committee on Small Business (chair)
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
=== Caucus memberships ===
Black Maternal Health Caucus
Congressional Equality Caucus
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Congressional Progressive Caucus
Women's Issues Caucus
Urban Caucus
House Baltic Caucus
Congressional Arts Caucus
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
Climate Solutions Caucus
Medicare for All Caucus
Blue Collar Caucus
Rare Disease Caucus
United States–China Working Group
Velázquez was formerly a member of the Congressional Out of Iraq Caucus.
== Personal life ==
Velázquez, also known as "la luchadora", married Brooklyn-based printer Paul Bader in 2000. It was her second marriage. In November 2002, New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson controversially hired Bader as an administrative manager in the Bureau of Law and Adjudications, joining Joyce Miller, wife of Representative Jerry Nadler, and Chirlane McCray, wife of City Councilman Bill de Blasio. In 2010, Velázquez and Bader were in the process of divorce.
In October 1992, during her first campaign for the House, an unknown person at Saint Clare's Hospital in Manhattan anonymously faxed to the press Velázquez's hospital records pertaining to a suicide attempt in 1991. At a subsequent press conference, Velázquez acknowledged that she had attempted suicide that year while suffering from clinical depression. She said that she underwent counseling and "emerged stronger and more committed to public service." She expressed outrage at the leak of personal health records and asked the Manhattan district attorney and the state attorney general to investigate. Velázquez sued the hospital in 1994, alleging that the hospital had failed to protect her privacy. The lawsuit was settled in 1997.
Velázquez is Catholic.
== See also ==
List of Puerto Ricans
History of women in Puerto Rico
List of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States Congress
Women in the United States House of Representatives
== References ==
== External links ==
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez official U.S. House website
Nydia Velázquez for Congress
Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress
Profile at Vote Smart
Appearances on C-SPAN |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars#:~:text=On%20April%2026%2C%202012%2C%20scientists,German%20Aerospace%20Center%20(DLR). | Terraforming of Mars | The terraforming of Mars is a hypothetical procedure that would consist of a planetary engineering project or concurrent projects aspiring to transform Mars from a planet hostile to life to one that could sustainably host humans and other lifeforms free of protection or mediation. The process would involve the modification of the planet's extant climate, atmosphere, and surface through a variety of resource-intensive initiatives, as well as the installation of a novel ecological system or systems.
Justifications for choosing Mars over other potential terraforming targets include the presence of water and a geological history that suggests it once harbored a dense atmosphere similar to Earth's. Hazards and difficulties include low gravity, toxic soil, low light levels relative to Earth's, and the lack of a magnetic field.
Although new techniques have emerged that could raise Mars's average global temperature by tens of degrees within a few decades, the terraforming of Mars is considered to be infeasible using present-day technology. Disagreement exists about whether future technology should render the planet habitable. Reasons for supporting terraforming the planet include allaying concerns about resource consumption and depletion on Earth and arguments that the alteration and settlement of other planets decreases the odds of humanity's extinction. Reasons for objecting to terraforming the planet include ethical concerns about terraforming, and the considerable energy and resource costs that such an undertaking would involve.
== Motivation and side effects ==
Future population growth, demand for resources, and an alternate solution to the doomsday argument may require human colonization of bodies other than Earth, such as Mars, the Moon, and other objects. Space colonization would facilitate harvesting the Solar System's energy and material resources.
In many aspects, Mars is the most Earth-like of all the other planets in the Solar System. It is thought that Mars had a more Earth-like environment early in its geological history, with a thicker atmosphere and abundant water that was lost over the course of hundreds of millions of years through atmospheric escape. Given the foundations of similarity and proximity, Mars would make one of the most plausible terraforming targets in the Solar System.
Side effects of terraforming include the potential displacement or destruction of any indigenous life if such life exists.
== Challenges and limitations ==
The Martian environment presents several terraforming challenges to overcome and the extent of terraforming may be limited by certain key environmental factors. The process of terraforming aims to mitigate the following distinctions between Mars and Earth, among others:
Reduced light levels (about 60% of Earth)
Low surface gravity (38% of Earth's)
Unbreathable atmosphere
Low atmospheric pressure (about 1% of Earth's; well below the Armstrong limit)
Ionizing solar and cosmic radiation at the surface
Average temperature −63 °C (210 K; −81 °F) compared to Earth average of 14 °C (287 K; 57 °F)
Molecular instability — bonds between atoms break down in critical molecules such as organic compounds
Global dust storms
No natural food source
Toxic soil
No global magnetic field to shield against the solar wind
=== Countering the effects of space weather ===
Mars has no intrinsic global magnetic field, but the solar wind directly interacts with the atmosphere of Mars, leading to the formation of a magnetosphere from magnetic field tubes. This poses challenges for mitigating solar radiation and retaining an atmosphere.
The lack of a magnetic field, its relatively small mass, and its atmospheric photochemistry, all would have contributed to the evaporation and loss of its surface liquid water over time. Solar wind–induced ejection of Martian atmospheric atoms has been detected by Mars-orbiting probes, indicating that the solar wind has stripped the Martian atmosphere over time. The current loss rate of CO2 from Mars's atmosphere to space is equivalent to approximately 1 millibar per billion years. For comparison, while Venus has a dense atmosphere, it has only traces of water vapor (20 ppm) as it lacks a large, dipole-induced, magnetic field.
Earth's ozone layer provides additional protection. Ultraviolet light is blocked before it can dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
=== Low gravity and pressure ===
The surface gravity on Mars is 38% of that on Earth. It is not known if this is enough to prevent the health problems associated with weightlessness.
Mars's CO2 atmosphere has about 1% the pressure of the Earth's at sea level. It is estimated that there is sufficient CO2 ice in the regolith and the south polar cap to form a 30 to 60 kilopascals [kPa] (4.4 to 8.7 psi) atmosphere if it is released by planetary warming. The reappearance of liquid water on the Martian surface would add to the warming effects and atmospheric density, but the lower gravity of Mars requires 2.6 times Earth's column airmass to obtain the optimum 100 kPa (15 psi) pressure at the surface. Additional volatiles to increase the atmosphere's density must be supplied from an external source, such as redirecting several massive asteroids (40–400 billion tonnes total) containing ammonia (NH3) as a source of nitrogen.
=== Breathing on Mars ===
Current conditions in the Martian atmosphere, at less than 1 kPa (0.15 psi) of atmospheric pressure, are significantly below the Armstrong limit of 6 kPa (0.87 psi) where very low pressure causes exposed bodily liquids such as saliva, tears, and the liquids wetting the alveoli within the lungs to boil away. Without a pressure suit, no amount of breathable oxygen delivered by any means will sustain oxygen-breathing life for more than a few minutes. In the NASA technical report Rapid (Explosive) Decompression Emergencies in Pressure-Suited Subjects, after exposure to pressure below the Armstrong limit, a survivor reported that his "last conscious memory was of the water on his tongue beginning to boil". In these conditions humans die within minutes unless a pressure suit provides life support.
If Mars's atmospheric pressure could rise above 19 kPa (2.8 psi), then a pressure suit would not be required. Visitors would only need to wear a mask that supplied 100% oxygen under positive pressure. A further increase to 24 kPa (3.5 psi) of atmospheric pressure would allow a simple mask supplying pure oxygen. This might look similar to mountain climbers who venture into pressures below 37 kPa (5.4 psi), also called the death zone, where an insufficient amount of bottled oxygen has often resulted in hypoxia with fatalities. However, if the increase in atmospheric pressure was achieved by increasing CO2 (or other toxic gas) the mask would have to ensure the external atmosphere did not enter the breathing apparatus. CO2 concentrations as low as 1% cause drowsiness in humans. Concentrations of 7% to 10% may cause suffocation, even in the presence of sufficient oxygen. (See Carbon dioxide toxicity.)
In 2021, the NASA Mars rover Perseverance was able to make oxygen on Mars. However, the process is complex and takes a considerable amount of time to produce a small amount of oxygen.
== Advantages ==
Mars exists on the outer edge of the habitable zone, a region of the Solar System where liquid water on the surface may be supported if concentrated greenhouse gases could increase the atmospheric pressure. The lack of both a magnetic field and geologic activity on Mars may be a result of its relatively small size, which allowed the interior to cool more quickly than Earth's, although the details of such a process are still not well understood.
There are strong indications that Mars once had an atmosphere as thick as Earth's during an earlier stage in its development, and that its pressure supported abundant liquid water at the surface. Although water appears to have once been present on the Martian surface, ground ice currently exists from mid-latitudes to the poles. The soil and atmosphere of Mars contain many of the main elements crucial to life, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon.
Any climate change induced in the near term is likely to be driven by greenhouse warming produced by an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and a consequent increase in atmospheric water vapor. These two gases are the only likely sources of greenhouse warming that are available in large quantities in Mars's environment. Large amounts of water ice exist below the Martian surface, as well as on the surface at the poles, where it is mixed with dry ice, frozen CO2. Significant amounts of water are located at the south pole of Mars, which, if melted, would correspond to a planetwide ocean 5–11 meters deep. Frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) at the poles sublimes into the atmosphere during the Martian summers, and small amounts of water residue are left behind, which fast winds sweep off the poles at speeds approaching 400 km/h (250 mph). This seasonal occurrence transports large amounts of dust and water ice into the atmosphere, forming Earth-like ice clouds.
Most of the oxygen in the Martian atmosphere is present as carbon dioxide (CO2), the main atmospheric component. Molecular oxygen (O2) only exists in trace amounts. Large amounts of oxygen can be also found in metal oxides on the Martian surface, and in the soil, in the form of per-nitrates. An analysis of soil samples taken by the Phoenix lander indicated the presence of perchlorate, which has been used to liberate oxygen in chemical oxygen generators. Electrolysis could be employed to separate water on Mars into oxygen and hydrogen if sufficient liquid water and electricity were available. However, if vented into the atmosphere it would escape into space.
== Proposed methods and strategies ==
Terraforming Mars would entail three major interlaced changes: building up the magnetosphere, building up the atmosphere, and raising the temperature. The atmosphere of Mars is relatively thin and has a very low surface pressure. Because its atmosphere consists mainly of CO2, a known greenhouse gas, once Mars begins to heat, the CO2 may help to keep thermal energy near the surface. Moreover, as it heats, more CO2 should enter the atmosphere from the frozen reserves on the poles, enhancing the greenhouse effect. This means that the two processes of building the atmosphere and heating it would augment each other, favoring terraforming. However, it would be difficult to keep the atmosphere together because of the lack of a protective global magnetic field against erosion by the solar wind.
=== Importing ammonia ===
One method of augmenting the Martian atmosphere is to introduce ammonia (NH3). Large amounts of ammonia are likely to exist in frozen form on minor planets orbiting in the outer Solar System. It might be possible to redirect the orbits of these or smaller ammonia-rich objects so that they collide with Mars, thereby transferring the ammonia into the Martian atmosphere. Ammonia is not stable in the Martian atmosphere, however. It breaks down into (diatomic) nitrogen and hydrogen after a few hours. Thus, though ammonia is a powerful greenhouse gas, it is unlikely to generate much planetary warming.
=== Importing hydrocarbons ===
Another way to create a Martian atmosphere would be to import methane (CH4) or other hydrocarbons, which are common in Titan's atmosphere and on its surface; the methane could be vented into the atmosphere where it would act to compound the greenhouse effect. However, like ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4) is a relatively light gas. It is in fact even less dense than ammonia and so would similarly be lost into space if it was introduced, and at a faster rate than ammonia. Even if a method could be found to prevent it escaping into space, methane can exist in the Martian atmosphere for only a limited period before it is destroyed. Estimates of its lifetime range from 0.6–4 years.
=== Use of fluorine compounds ===
Especially powerful greenhouse gases, such as sulfur hexafluoride, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), or perfluorocarbons (PFCs), have been suggested both as a means of initially warming Mars and of maintaining long-term climate stability. These gases are proposed for introduction because they generate a greenhouse effect thousands of times stronger than that of CO2. Fluorine-based compounds such as sulphur hexafluoride and perfluorocarbons are preferable to chlorine-based ones as the latter destroys ozone. It has been estimated that approximately 0.3 microbars of CFCs would need to be introduced into Mars's atmosphere to sublimate the south polar CO2 glaciers. This is equivalent to a mass of approximately 39 million tonnes, that is, about three times the amount of CFCs manufactured on Earth from 1972 to 1992 (when CFC production was banned by international treaty). Maintaining the temperature would require continual production of such compounds as they are destroyed due to photolysis. It has been estimated that introducing 170 kilotons of optimal greenhouse compounds (CF3CF2CF3, CF3SCF2CF3, SF6, SF5CF3, SF4(CF3)2) annually would be sufficient to maintain a 70-K greenhouse effect given a terraformed atmosphere with earth-like pressure and composition.
Typical proposals envision producing the gases on Mars using locally extracted materials, nuclear power, and a significant industrial effort. The potential for mining fluorine-containing minerals to obtain the raw material necessary for the production of CFCs and PFCs is supported by mineralogical surveys of Mars that estimate the elemental presence of fluorine in the bulk composition of Mars at 32 ppm by mass (as compared to 19.4 ppm for the Earth).
Alternatively, CFCs might be introduced by sending rockets with payloads of compressed CFCs on collision courses with Mars. When the rockets crashed into the surface they would release their payloads into the atmosphere. A steady barrage of these "CFC rockets" would need to be sustained for a little over a decade while Mars is changed chemically and becomes warmer.
=== Use of conductive nanorods ===
A 2024 study proposed using nanorods consisting of a conductive material, such as aluminum or iron, made by processing Martian minerals. These nanorods would scatter and absorb the thermal infrared upwelling from the surface, thus warming the planet. This process is claimed to be over 5,000 times more effective (in terms of warming per unit mass) than warming using fluorine compounds.
=== Use of orbital mirrors ===
Mirrors made of thin aluminized PET film could be placed in orbit around Mars to increase the total insolation it receives. This would direct the sunlight onto the surface and could increase Mars's surface temperature directly. The 125 km radius mirror could be positioned as a statite, using its effectiveness as a solar sail to orbit in a stationary position relative to Mars, near the poles, to sublimate the CO2 ice sheet and contribute to the warming greenhouse effect. However, certain problems have been found with this. The main concern is the difficulty of launching large mirrors from Earth.
It has been proposed that small solar sails launched into a 1000 km sun synchronous Earth orbit could self-navigate to Mars.
=== Use of nuclear weapons ===
Elon Musk has proposed terraforming Mars by detonating nuclear weapons on the Martian polar ice caps to vaporize them and release carbon dioxide and water vapor into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are greenhouse gases, and the resultant thicker atmosphere would trap heat from the Sun, increasing the planet's temperature. The formation of liquid water could be very favorable for oxygen-producing plants, and thus, human survival.
Studies suggest that even if all the CO2 trapped in Mars's polar ice and regolith were released, it would not be enough to provide significant greenhouse warming to turn Mars into an Earth-like planet.
Another criticism is that it would stir up enough dust and particles to block out a significant portion of the incoming sunlight, causing a nuclear winter, the opposite of the goal.
=== Albedo reduction ===
Reducing the albedo of the Martian surface would also make more efficient use of incoming sunlight in terms of heat absorption. This could be done by spreading dark dust from Mars's moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are among the blackest bodies in the Solar System; or by introducing dark extremophile microbial life forms such as lichens, algae and bacteria. The ground would then absorb more sunlight, warming the atmosphere. However, Mars is already the second-darkest planet in the solar system, absorbing over 70% of incoming sunlight so the scope for darkening it further is small.
If algae or other green life were established, it would also contribute a small amount of oxygen to the atmosphere, though not enough to allow humans to breathe. The conversion process to produce oxygen is highly reliant upon water, without which the CO2 is mostly converted to carbohydrates. In addition, because on Mars atmospheric oxygen is lost into space (unless an artificial magnetosphere were to be created; see "Protecting the atmosphere" below), such life would need to be cultivated inside a closed system.
On April 26, 2012, scientists reported that lichen survived and showed remarkable results on the adaptation capacity of photosynthetic activity within the simulation time of 34 days under Martian conditions in the Mars Simulation Laboratory (MSL) maintained by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
One final issue with albedo reduction is the common Martian dust storms. These cover the entire planet for weeks, and not only increase the albedo, but block sunlight from reaching the surface. This has been observed to cause a surface temperature drop which the planet takes months to recover from. Once the dust settles it then covers whatever it lands on, effectively erasing the albedo reduction material from the view of the Sun.
=== Funded research: ecopoiesis ===
Since 2014, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program and Techshot Inc have been working together to develop sealed biodomes that would employ colonies of oxygen-producing cyanobacteria and algae for the production of molecular oxygen (O2) on Martian soil. But first they need to test if it works on a small scale on Mars. The proposal is called Mars Ecopoiesis Test Bed. Eugene Boland is the Chief Scientist at Techshot, a company located in Greenville, Indiana. They intend to send small canisters of extremophile photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria aboard a future rover mission. The rover would cork-screw the 7 cm (2.8 in) canisters into selected sites likely to experience transients of liquid water, drawing some Martian soil and then release oxygen-producing microorganisms to grow within the sealed soil. The hardware would use Martian subsurface ice as its phase changes into liquid water. The system would then look for oxygen given off as metabolic byproduct and report results to a Mars-orbiting relay satellite.
If this experiment works on Mars, they will propose to build several large and sealed structures called biodomes, to produce and harvest oxygen for a future human mission to Mars life support systems. Being able to create oxygen there would provide considerable cost-savings to NASA and allow for longer human visits to Mars than would be possible if astronauts have to transport their own heavy oxygen tanks. This biological process, called ecopoiesis, would be isolated, in contained areas, and is not meant as a type of global planetary engineering for terraforming of Mars's atmosphere, but NASA states that "This will be the first major leap from laboratory studies into the implementation of experimental (as opposed to analytical) planetary in situ research of greatest interest to planetary biology, ecopoiesis, and terraforming."
Research at the University of Arkansas presented in June 2015 suggested that some methanogens could survive in Mars's low pressure. Rebecca Mickol found that in her laboratory, four species of methanogens survived low-pressure conditions that were similar to a subsurface liquid aquifer on Mars. The four species that she tested were Methanothermobacter wolfeii, Methanosarcina barkeri, Methanobacterium formicicum, and Methanococcus maripaludis. Methanogens do not require oxygen or organic nutrients, are non-photosynthetic, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide (CO2) as their carbon source, so they could exist in subsurface environments on Mars.
=== Protecting the atmosphere ===
One key aspect of terraforming Mars is to protect the atmosphere (both present and future-built) from being lost into space. Some scientists hypothesize that creating a planet-wide artificial magnetosphere would be helpful in resolving this issue. According to two NIFS Japanese scientists, it is feasible to do that with current technology by building a system of refrigerated latitudinal superconducting rings, each carrying a sufficient amount of direct current.
In the same report, it is claimed that the economic impact of the system can be minimized by using it also as a planetary energy transfer and storage system (SMES).
==== Magnetic shield at L1 orbit ====
During the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop in late February 2017, NASA scientist Jim Green proposed a concept of placing a magnetic dipole field between the planet and the Sun to protect it from high-energy solar particles. It would be located at the Mars Lagrange orbit L1 at about 320 R♂, creating a partial and distant artificial magnetosphere. The field would need to be "Earth comparable" and sustain 50 μT as measured at 1 Earth-radius. The paper abstract cites that this could be achieved by a magnet with a strength of 1–2 teslas (10,000–20,000 gauss). If constructed, the shield may allow the planet to partially restore its atmosphere.
==== Plasma torus along the orbit of Phobos ====
A plasma torus along the orbit of Phobos by ionizing and accelerating particles from the moon may be sufficient to create a magnetic field strong enough to protect a terraformed Mars.
=== Oxygen from electrolysis of water ===
An abundance of groundwater on Mars was discovered in 2024. It is estimated that 7 Zettawatt-hours of electricity would need to be produced from nuclear fusion or fission to produce oxygen levels equivalent to Earth's atmosphere, by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis. 120 trillion tons of hydrogen and 880 trillion tons of oxygen would be produced in the process, along with water vapor from the power plants.
=== Paraterraforming and GMO designer plants ===
Paraterraforming is a concept to build habitable greenhouses or bio-domes to help build plant life on other planets. NASA's NIAC is sponsoring NC State which is working on designer plants/trees or genetically modified vegetation that could survive better on Mars. Using CRISPR gene editing from Extremophiles on Earth to help withstand the harsh Martian regolith and atmosphere, such as ultraviolet radiation, extreme cold, low atmospheric pressure, perchlorates, and drought tolerance. The plants could be tested outdoors to try and start an ecosystem for the full terraforming of Mars. A JPL-Harvard team has shown that insulating silica aerogel can enable local Martian habitability via the solid-state greenhouse effect. Harvard scientists have demonstrated growth of green algae in a 3D printed bioplastic habitat under Mars-relevant conditions of a 600 Pa CO2 background atmosphere. This result shows that the products of biology itself can be used to create habitats in extraterrestrial environments.
Another source of potential Mars-adaptive mutations is gene editing, the direct change of genes already found in a plant. A 2023 study showed that regular rice can germinate in Mars-like soil, represented by a mixture of the MMS1 Martian regolith simulant with potassium perchlorate, though the growth is reduced. Perchlorate tolerance appears to depend on the presence of two stress-resistance genes SnRK1a and TOR. It was proposed that future editing of SnRK1a could create rice with higher perchlorate resistance.
== Thermodynamics of terraforming ==
The overall energy required to sublimate the CO2 from the south polar ice cap was modeled by Zubrin and McKay in 1993. If using orbital mirrors, an estimated 120 MW-years of electrical energy would be required to produce mirrors large enough to vaporize the ice caps. This is considered the most effective method, though the least practical. If using powerful halocarbon greenhouse gases, an order of 1,000 MW-years of electrical energy would be required to accomplish this heating. However, if all of this CO2 were put into the atmosphere,
it would only double the current atmospheric pressure from 6 mbar to 12 mbar, amounting to about 1.2% of Earth's mean sea level pressure. The amount of warming that could be produced today by putting even 100 mbar of CO2 into the atmosphere is small, roughly of order 10 K. Additionally, once in the atmosphere, it likely would be removed quickly, either by diffusion into the subsurface and adsorption or by re-condensing onto the polar caps.
The surface or atmospheric temperature required to allow liquid water to exist has not been determined, and liquid water
conceivably could exist when atmospheric temperatures are as low as 245 K (−28 °C; −19 °F). However, a warming of 10 K is much less than thought necessary to produce liquid water.
== See also ==
Astrobotany – Study of plants grown in spacecraft
Areography (geography of Mars)
Colonization of Mars – Proposed concepts for human settlements on Mars
Human mission to Mars – Proposed concepts
Mars habitat – Facility where humans could live on Mars
Mars in fiction § Terraforming
Mars to Stay – Mars colonization architecture proposing no return vehicles
Terraforming of Venus – Engineering the global environment of Venus to make it suitable for humans
Colonization of the Solar System – Concept of permanent human habitation outside of EarthPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
Groundwater on Mars – Water held in permeable ground
== References ==
== External links ==
NASA – Aerospace Scholars: Terraforming Mars at the Wayback Machine (archived September 15, 2007)
Recent Arthur C Clarke interview mentions terraforming
Red Colony
Terraformers Society of Canada
Research Paper: Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars
Peter Ahrens The Terraformation of Worlds |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_McClurkin | Donnie McClurkin | Donald Andrew McClurkin Jr. (born November 9, 1959) is an American gospel singer and minister. He has won three Grammy Awards, ten Stellar Awards, two BET Awards, two Soul Train Awards, one Dove Award and one NAACP Image Awards. He is one of the top selling gospel artists, selling over 13 million albums. Variety dubbed McClurkin as a "Reigning King of Urban Gospel".
== Early life ==
McClurkin was born in Copiague, New York. When he was eight years old, his two-year-old brother was hit and killed by a speeding driver, which generated family turmoil. Shortly thereafter, McClurkin was a victim of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of his great uncle and, years later, by his great uncle's son. Two of his sisters dealt with substance abuse, and that's when the young McClurkin found solace in going to church and also through an aunt who sang background vocals with gospel musician Andraé Crouch.
By the time he was a teenager, he had formed the McClurkin Singers and later formed the New York Restoration Choir, with recordings as early as 1975. He released three albums with the New York Restoration Choir before departing to launch a solo career.
== Ministry ==
He was hired as an associate minister at Marvin Winans' Perfecting Church in Detroit, Michigan, in 1989. McClurkin served as an assistant to Winans for over a decade.
In 1991, a sharp pain and swelling, followed by internal bleeding, led, he says, to his diagnosis with leukemia. The doctor recommended immediate treatment, but McClurkin, who was then 31, decided instead to take his own advice. "I tell people to believe that God will save you," he says, "[and] I had to turn around and practice the very thing that I preached."
He was ordained and sent out by Marvin Winans in 2001 to establish Perfecting Faith Church in Freeport, New York, where he is senior pastor.
== Music ==
A friendship with a Warner Alliance executive resulted in his signing to the label for his 1996 self-titled LP, with producers Bill Maxwell, Mark Kibble of Take 6, Cedric and Victor Caldwell plus Andraé Crouch. The disc, which featured the perennially popular "Stand," went gold shortly after being publicly lauded by Oprah Winfrey. At the 48th Annual Grammy Awards, he won in the category Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album for "Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs." McClurkin is best known for his hit songs "Stand" and "We Fall Down," which were played in heavy rotation on both Gospel and Urban radio. His three solo albums have topped the Billboard Charts
Dovetailing off the success of his near double platinum selling album, "Live in London and More," McClurkin released "Psalms,Hymns and Spiritual Songs" in 2005 and "We All Are One: Live In Detroit" in 2009, which also topped Billboard charts across various musical genres.
In 2014, McClurkin released "Duets" a collaborative album that features artists like Mary Mary’s Erica and Tina Campbell, Fred Hammond, John P. Kee, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Tramaine Hawkins, Israel Houghton and Tye Tribbett. The album debuted at No. 45 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the Gospel Billboard charts. This was followed by his 2016 album, "The Journey," which debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart. It marked his seventh solo release and features live performances of some of his classics like “Speak to My Heart,” "Great Is Your Mercy," "Stand," and “That’s What I Believe.” His last recorded album is "A Different Song", which was released in 2019 and debuted at No. 2 on the Gospel Billboard charts.
McClurkin's love for people and desire to share gospel music globally is the reason he includes a language medley—Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Dutch — in most live performances.
== Radio and television ==
Tom Versen and Tony Sisti of T&T Creative signed McClurkin to a radio syndication deal with advertising giant Dial Global Local and syndicator Gary Bernstein. T&T Creative provided a mobile recording studio in Pastor Donnie's church that he can also take on the road. He is quoted as saying, "As much as I love music and singing, I really love doing radio and the direct feedback I get from my listeners all over the country. I never thought I would be having this much fun doing radio, and I could touch and impact so many beautiful people."[19]
In 2009, he also broadcast his own television series, Perfecting Your Faith, on cable television. His television appearances include Good Morning America, CBS’s The Early Show, The View, Girlfriends and The Parkers. He has also been featured in such films as The Gospel and The Fighting Temptations. He played a Single man or a church pastor.
== Personal life ==
McClurkin, in 2002, told a Christian website that, due to sexual abuse and porn, he had struggled with homosexuality. "McClurkin believes he "turned" gay because of childhood molestation and traumatic exposure to pornography but was able to reverse his orientation through "will and prayer." He also said that he had rejected that "lifestyle": "I’ve been through this and have experienced God’s power to change my lifestyle. I am delivered, and I know God can deliver others, too."
McClurkin's listing as a headlining performer for then-Senator Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign stirred controversy because of his views on homosexuality. As a result, McClurkin was removed from the performance roster but he still performed at one of the concerts. In August 2013, McClurkin was disinvited from the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom as his ex-gay status was seen as disruptive. In 2015 he spoke out against same-sex marriage in response to the U.S. Supreme Court making it legal nationwide.
McClurkin has a son, Matthew, born in 2000. McClurkin is also related to singer Marsha McClurkin of the short-lived new jack swing group Abstrac.
In 2018, McClurkin survived a serious road accident after he lost consciousness while driving.
== Discography ==
=== Studio albums ===
=== Live albums ===
=== Compilations ===
=== Singles ===
==== As a lead artist ====
==== As a featured artist ====
== Videography ==
Live in London and More... (VHS) (2001)
Again (VHS) (2004)
Psalms, Hymns & Spiritual Songs (VHS) (2005)
Music Videos
"Stand"
"We Fall Down"
"The Prayer" (with Yolanda Adams)
"Ooh Child" (with Kirk Franklin)
"I Need You"
== Filmography ==
Film
1998: The Prince of Egypt (wrote and sang "I Am" & "Humanity")
2003: The Fighting Temptations
2004: Apollo at 70: A Hot Night in Harlem
2004: The Donnie McClurkin Story: From Darkness to Light
2005: The Gospel
Television
2001: Girlfriends (TV show)- Season 2 Ep 7 “Trick or Truth”
2002: The Parkers (TV show)- Season 3 Ep 16 “Make a Joyful Noise”
2002: 17th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – co-host
2004: 19th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – co-host
2005: 20th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – co-host
2006: 21st Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – co-host
2006: An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Stevie Wonder (documentary)
2009: 24th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – co-host
2010–15: BET's Sunday Best – judge
2010: 25th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards – host
== Awards and nominations ==
=== BET Awards ===
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. McClurkin has received 2 awards from 5 nominations.
=== Dove Awards ===
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. McClurkin has won 4 awards from 13 nominations.
=== Grammy Awards ===
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. McClutkin has won 3 awards from 5 nominations.
=== Soul Train Awards ===
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. McClurkin has received 2 awards from 5 nominations.
=== Stellar Awards ===
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. McClurkin has received 12 awards from 24 nominations.
=== Miscellaneous honors ===
== Notes ==
== References ==
== External links ==
Official website
The Donnie McClurkin Show: radio broadcast
Exclusive Interview on BlackGospel.com (October 2008): Interview
Música de Donnie McClurkin |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Waheed_Khan_(UNESCO_official) | Abdul Waheed Khan (UNESCO official) | Abdul Waheed Khan (born 1947) was the Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a role he has held from 2001 to 2010. He was President of a start-up business university in Manama, Bahrain until March 2013.
Dr Abdul Waheed Khan is currently retired and spends his time between India, his native land and Canada, the country where he chose to settle down after leaving Bahrain.
== Education ==
Khan attended Agra University in India, earning a master's degree in agricultural extension in 1965, before relocating to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. There, he earned a second master's degree in agricultural journalism in 1970 before earning his Doctor of Philosophy in mass communication in 1973.
He was born in Agya (Sant kabir Nagar).
== Early career ==
Prior to joining the United Nations, Khan was affiliated with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) in New Delhi, India and Commonwealth of Learning in Canada. Founding director of the former, Khan was also Professor of its Communications Division until 1992. In his last year in that capacity, he simultaneously acted as a visiting professor at the National Institute of Multimedia Education in Chiba, Japan. He began working at Commonwealth of Learning as Senior Programme Officer in 1992. In 1995, he spent a year as Acting Head of the Communications and Information Technologies Division before transition into the Principal Communications Specialist, a role he retained until 1998. In 1998, he returned to IGNOU as President and Chief Executive Officer (Vice-Chancellor). He remained there until 2000, when he spent a year as Director of Training and Development at Commonwealth of Learning. In 2001, he accepted the appointment to UNESCO.
== University of the People ==
Abdul Waheed Khan is a member of the Council of Presidents for the University of the People. His experience in the field of education has helped establish the first non-profit, tuition-free, online academic institution that seeks to revolutionize higher education by making college-level studies accessible to students worldwide.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Centre_for_Genetic_Engineering_and_Biotechnology | International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology | The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) was established as a project of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 1983. The Organisation has three Component laboratories with over 45 ongoing research projects in Infectious and Non-communicable diseases, Medical, Industrial and Plant Biology Biotechnology in: Trieste (Italy), New Delhi (India) and Cape Town (South Africa).
On February 3, 1994, under the direction of Arturo Falaschi the ICGEB became an autonomous International Organisation and now has over 65 Member States across world regions.
Its main pillars of action comprise: Research, Advanced Education through PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowships, International Scientific Meetings and Courses, competitive Grants for scientists in Member States and Technology Transfer to industry.
== References ==
== External links ==
ICGEB official Website |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polanyi_Medal#:~:text=1998,Akkihebbal%20Ravishankara | 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/Pirro_Ligorio | Pirro Ligorio | Pirro Ligorio (c. 1512 – October 30, 1583) was an Italian architect, painter, antiquarian, and garden designer during the Renaissance period. He worked as the Vatican's Papal Architect under Popes Paul IV and Pius IV, designed the fountains at Villa d’Este at Tivoli for Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este, and served as the Ducal Antiquary in Ferrara. Ligorio emphasized and showed a deep passion for classical Roman antiquity.
== Early life and career ==
Due to lack of accurate documentation, very little is known about the first three decades of Ligorio's life. It is estimated that he was born in Naples, Italy, in 1512 or 1513 while the city was still under Spanish rule. His parents, Achille and Gismunda Ligorio, were rumored to be members of the noble class in Seggio di Portanova, a section of Naples. Around age twenty, Pirro Ligorio left the tumultuous and poverty-stricken city of Naples to pursue a more flourishing livelihood in Rome. The city was home to a thriving art community, especially under the patronage of the Vatican.
For his first job in Rome, Ligorio painted and decorated the façades of homes and palaces. This role had previously been filled by Polidoro da Caravaggio, who fled in 1527, allowing Ligorio to enter the field with very little formal artistic training. His first documented contract was signed on 12 May 1542 when Ligorio decorated the loggia on the palace of the archbishop of Benevento. He was chosen specifically for his knowledge of the grotesque style, which was popularized by Raphael and his followers in the sixteenth century. Ligorio greatly appreciated this style, and incorporated its elements (friezes, scenes from Roman history, trophies, etc.) into his work often.
Many of the paintings from his early career, unfortunately, were destroyed or repainted less than a century later. However, several surviving drawings from that time period have been recovered and attributed to Ligorio. This identification was often made based on the subject matter; many of the drawings featured façade paintings, Roman characters, and antique Renaissance objects. These loose connections allowed historians to name Ligorio as the rightful artist of these drawings, which are now held in collections across the world (including one at the Art Institute of Chicago).
In the mid sixteenth century, Ligorio was commissioned to assist in the decoration of the Oratory of San Giovanni Decollato in Rome. In particular, he painted a fresco of The Dance of Salome. Exact dates are unclear, but it is estimated he painted the fresco between 1544 and 1553. Early drawing drafts and the fresco itself shows Ligorio's commitment to the Raphaelesque and Manneristic styles. Notably, this is one of the few surviving large works of his early career.
Around the same time, Ligorio began to explore the subject of classical antiquity. He spent a large portion of the 1540s learning as much as possible about Roman antiques, and preserved valuable information while the pope destroyed artifacts in excavation projects. In the following decade, Ligorio worked to publish this knowledge. He published one book, Delle antichità di Roma, in 1553, and engraved several antiques. He also attempted to write an encyclopedia of Roman and Greek antiquity at least twice, some parts of which can now be found in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples. Despite its important contributions to the Italian knowledge base of Roman antiquities, Ligorio's writings were met with some criticism; in particular, he was charged with widespread forgery. However, no substantial evidence of forgery has been identified.
Finally, Ligorio's period of archeological exploration and writing was accompanied by another pursuit: cartography. Between 1557 and 1563, Ligorio combined his antiquarian knowledge and drawing abilities to create several maps of Rome. Most notably, in 1561 he published his “Antiquae urbis imago” (Image of Ancient Rome), a topographical map of ancient Rome. This was considered the pinnacle of his cartographical endeavors.
== Career at the Vatican ==
=== Pope Paul IV (1555–1559) ===
When Paul IV became Pope, he was interested in hiring a fellow Neapolitan as the Vatican Architect. Three years into his papacy, in 1558, he hired Ligorio as the Architetto Fabricae Palatinae, meaning Architect of the Vatican Palace. His assistant was Sallustio Peruzzi.
His first and most prominent work was on the chapel in the newly built Papal apartment. Construction of the residential areas had been prioritized, allowing Paul to move in by October 1556. The chapel, however, remained unfinished and was tasked to Ligorio. He designed two large angel paintings for the space, and finished the project in about ten months. Around the same time, he received the commission to create a casino for the pope near Belvedere Court. This project was stalled due to financial concerns, but would later become one of Ligorio's cornerstone projects under the patronage of Pope Pius IV.
Paul IV also pursued major renovations to the papal palace in this time period. In particular, Paul aimed to increase the flow of light in the Hall of Constantine. Ligorio, as his most trusted architect, was chosen to remedy the darkness problem. They chose to destroy the old papal apartment and incorporate a rooftop garden into the space, allowing more light to enter the Hall of Constantine.
Towards the end of Paul IV's tenure, he asked Ligorio to design a monstrance, or tabernacle, to be used for special papal trips. It was to be stored in the newly designed chapel. Unfortunately, Paul died while the project was still in its early stages. The following pope, however, greatly valued continuation of unfinished projects, and ordered that Ligorio finish the monstrance. Upon completion, it was sent to Milan as a gift to the Duomo.
=== Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) ===
Pius IV rose to the papacy in 1559, already holding a reputation as a strong patron of the arts—architecture especially. In fact, within the first three years of his pontificate, he spent a million and a half gold scudi on building projects. His approach was unique in that he prioritized finishing incomplete projects, rather than starting new ones. This aligned well with Ligorio's values, specifically his desire to restore fragmented artifacts and preserve classical antiquities.
Under Pius IV, Ligorio was once again paired with his assistant, Sallustio Peruzzi. Their first major project was remodeling the Vatican Library in 1560. Some records suggest plans to create an entirely new library, but due to lack of funding, these updates likely involved smaller-scale woodworking and masonry by Ligorio. He was also tasked with smaller projects in this time, such as masonry work and apartment building throughout the palace.
In May 1560, Ligorio received a commission of great significance: the continuation of Paul's plans for the papal casino. Located in the woods behind the Belvedere court, Pius' revamped plans for the space included a second story, large fountain, and oval courtyard with arched entryways. The decorations matched Ligorio's preferred Raphaelesqu style. It was named the Casino of Pius IV in honor of the pope who supported its construction. Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt called it "the most beautiful afternoon retreat that modern architecture has created."
On 2 December 1560, Ligorio was awarded with honorary Roman citizenship for his contributions to the culture and architecture of the city. This was a major honor, awarded to only three other people during the sixteenth century: Michaelangelo, Titian, and Fra Guglielmo della Porta. For the remainder of his life, Ligorio identified as both a Neapolitan citizen by birth and a Roman citizen. This recognition also increased the commissions and projects for which Ligorio was pursued, and made the papacy of Pius IV one of Ligorio's busiest times.
This period also marked one of Ligorio's most prominent ventures into engineering. Papal duties included protecting the cities in its territory, which involved repairing fortifications in those cities. The duties of a Renaissance architect included consideration of engineering concerns, so Ligorio engaged in these renovations during his time as the Architect of the Vatican. He is particularly remembered for his role in the restoration of the Acqua Vergine, an ancient Roman aqueduct. Its malfunction was forcing Roman citizens to use the unsanitary water of the Tiber River. Ligorio demanded its reconstruction, which began in April 1561 and took approximately five years to complete.
In the early 1560s, the pope turned his attention toward the completion of several projects in the Belvedere Court. Ligorio in particular focused on the Nicchione built by Bramante in the northern end of the Belvedere Court. He added a semicircular loggia, which ended up being used in many of Rome's festivals as a fireworks site. Ligorio's other contribution to the Belvedere Court was an open-air theater on the southern end, which was completed in May 1565. Unfortunately this theater was torn down in the eighteenth century and replaced by a wall. The Belvedere Court itself was used for a large tournament in March 1565 in honor of the marriage of the pope's nephew. The Nicchione space was designed to be viewed specifically from a window in the pope's apartment, framed like a painting.
Another project requested by Pius IV in 1565 was the organization of Vatican archives. Ligorio was tasked with designing a structure to hold these records. Although little remains of this Archivio today, its architectural design suggests a brief departure from Ligorio's typical style (as exemplified by, for example, the extravagant Casino). Normally his facades were beautifully and intricately decorated in the mannerist tradition. This building, however, was notably utilitarian and modest. Ligorio was staying true to the purpose of the building and Pius' wishes by matching its design to its no-frills function.
After the death of Michelangelo, Ligorio was appointed as the architect of the San Pietro church in May 1564. This greatly annoyed Giorgio Vasari, an admirer of Michelangelo and enemy of Ligorio. The second architect on the project was Giacomo Vignola. Together they accomplished little progress on the church, and were eventually released from their duties under the new pope.
=== Imprisonment ===
Ligorio's employment at the Vatican was briefly interrupted in the summer of 1565 when he was imprisoned for one week. Allegedly, he had committed fraud by stealing building materials during several of his papal architectural projects. He was investigated extensively and had his writings removed. He was released with little incident, aside from having medallions worth six thousand scudi removed from his possession. Accusations like these, however, did not help Ligorio's already controversial fame and earlier allegations of forgery against him.
=== Pope Pius V (1566–1572) ===
Unlike his predecessor, Pius V had little to do with Ligorio; this was mostly due to the two popes' deep-rooted ideological differences. He tasked Ligorio with some minor woodworking and design projects; Ligorio held on to his title of Palace Architect until possibly as late as June 1567. During the final years of his tenure, he actually returned to Ferrara for work.
== Ferrara ==
=== Ippolito II d'Este ===
In September 1550, before his employment at the Vatican and during his study of classical antiquity, Ligorio was hired by the Cardinal of Ferrara (Ippolito II d'Este) to accompany him to Tivoli. There, while the Cardinal served as governor, Ligorio managed his antique collection and served as a top advisor. The area was rich with remains of old villas and temples, allowing Ligorio to further his research of Roman antiques and the governor to add to his own personal collection.
=== Villa d'Este ===
Upon arriving to Tivoli, Ippolito II d'Este decided to turn an old monastery into his own luxury villa. Building would be stalled for the majority of the decade due to changes in Ippolito's duties, but fully resumed in 1560. Giovanni Alberto Galvani served as the main architect, but Pirro Ligorio took charge of the villa's extensive and intricate gardens. These gardens included many waterworks and fountains (utilizing Ligorio's knowledge of aqueduct engineering), as well as a collection of ancient sculpture. Ligorio designed both a larger public garden and a smaller private garden. The latter can be accessed directly from the palace, and utilizes shaded walls to maintain a private retreat.
As described by David Coffin, Ligorio's most prominent biographer, Ligorio employed three major themes in these gardens. First and foremost was a focus on the relationship between nature and art—a concern indicative of the Renaissance period. Many of Ligorio's waterworks and sculptures incorporated flora and fauna, marrying the natural aspects of the garden with the man-made artistic elements. The second theme was geographic; Ligorio designed the fountains to represent the three rivers flowing into the Fountain of Rome in an ode to the cardinal's appreciation of the arts. Finally, Ligorio's use of mythological iconography, specifically the influence of the Garden of the Hesperides, was executed with special attentiveness. This incorporation of the imagery of Hercules and his struggle with virtue and vice showcases both Ligorio's knowledge of ancient Greek and Roman mythology, but also the cardinal's Christian faith and moral grounding.
=== Alfonso II d'Este ===
Much later, at the end of Ligorio's work for the Vatican, he returned to Ferrara yet again—this time in a more purely intellectual role. Beginning in December 1568, he served under Duke Alfonso II d'Este of Ferrara as the Ducal Antiquarian. He also acquired the title of Lector at the University of Ferrara. Ligorio's main duties involved preparing the ducal library and organizing an antique museum for Alfonso's court. He contributed numerous drawings and designs to these records, and continued to foster a reputation of antiquarian knowledge in Ferrara. In 1580, he was named an honorary citizen—adding a third layer to his identity as a Neopolitan and Roman.
On 16 November 1570, a major earthquake hit the city of Ferrara and inflicted heavy damage on its architecture. This sparked an interest in Ligorio, who decided to write a treatise on historical earthquakes. He detailed the effects of the Ferrara earthquake for several months, then began developing plans for an earthquake-resistant home. Ligorio diverted from the traditional view of earthquakes as supernatural phenomenon, and treated them as a natural occurrence around which man could reason. Many of the elements he incorporated, including thicker brick walls and stone piers, match modern anti-seismic practices. Again, this shows Ligorio's concern for not just the design, but also the engineering and structural integrity of his buildings.
== Legacy ==
Ligorio reportedly died in October 1583 after suffering a particularly rough fall in Ferrara.
Despite his major contributions to Renaissance Italian architecture, classical antiquity, and garden design, Pirro Ligorio maintains surprisingly little presence in accounts of that time period. Giovanni Baglioni published the first biography of Ligorio in 1642, which was later replicated in other biographies by Milizia and Nagler, except with numerous factual errors. This may be due, in part, to the lack of documentation regarding Pirro Ligorio's life. The first thirty years of his life, for example, remain almost entirely a mystery. Additionally, many of Ligorio's designs, drawings, and buildings were destroyed over the years, making documentation of his work even more difficult. In the twentieth century, historian David Coffin wrote his dissertation on the life of Ligorio and quickly became the world's foremost expert on the architect. Coffin's book, Pirro Ligorio: The Renaissance Artist, Architect, and Antiquarian, remains the most valuable and complete account of Ligorio's life and works.
In the Epilogue of his book, Coffin describes Ligorio's personality as having three main traits: curiosity, imagination, and ambition. His curiosity led him to pursue a multitude of projects and interests, including painting, garden design, engineering, gardening, cartography, and archaeology. His imagination can be seen in the groundbreaking marriage of botany, sculpture, waterworks, and mythology found in the gardens at Tivoli. Finally, his ambition: Ligorio pursued his chosen fields with great focus and fervor, gaining admirers as well as detractors along the way. In particular, Ligorio found an enemy in fellow Renaissance architect Giorgio Vasari, who refused to include a biography of Ligorio in his Vite. This had a significant impact on the immortalization of Ligorio's legacy, and left his life much less documented compared to his contemporaries.
== Notes ==
== References ==
Coffin, David R. Pirro Ligorio: The Renaissance Artist, Architect, and Antiquarian. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004.
Coffin, David R. Gardens and Gardening in Papal Rome. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.
David R. Coffin. "Ligorio, Pirro." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed February 12, 2016, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T051048. MORTII MA-TII
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Pirro Ligorio." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Accessed February 12, 2016. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Pirro-Ligorio.
Sherer, Daniel. "Error or Invention? Critical Receptions of Michelangelo's Architecture from Pirro Ligorio to Teofilo Gallaccini," Perspecta 46 (2013), 76-121.
Vasari, Giorgio, and De Vere Gaston Du C. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects. Vol. 2. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
== External links ==
Pirro Ligorio – a biography from the landscape architecture and gardens guide
"LIGORIO, Pirro". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 65: Levis–Lorenzetti. Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. 2005. ISBN 978-88-12-00032-6. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_India | 2022 in India | The following is a list of events for the year 2022 in India.
== Incumbents ==
=== National government ===
=== State governments ===
== Events ==
=== January ===
1 Jan – Vaishno Devi Temple stampede, Around 2:15 AM in near the Gate No. 3 of Vaishno Devi Temple, due to a scuffle between two groups of pilgrims the place becomes congested and people started suffocating. Due to the melee, 12 people were crushed to death and 16 others injured.
4 Jan –
Chief ministers of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Netizens trolled him on Social Media as he is not wearing mask in his political rallies in Chandigarh and Patiala.
Vishal Kumar Jha (in Bengaluru) and Shweta Singh (in Uttarakhand) are arrested by the Mumbai Police, in connection with the Bulli Bai app, which targeted women of Muslim Community by putting their doctored images in an online auction.
5 Jan – Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi's convoy stuck in a flyover in Firozpur district following security breach and protests by farmers.
6 Jan – Delhi Police arrests a 21 year old Engineering graduate named Neeraj Bishnoi from Jorhat, Assam. He is alleged as the master mind behind creation of an online application called "Bulli Bai" where Muslim women were kept for auction.
8 Jan – The Election Commission of India announces the dates for 2022 Legislative Assembly Elections for 5 states. In Uttar Pradesh it will begin on '10 February', in the states of Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab it will start on 14 February and in Manipur the polling starts 27 February.
13 Jan – Maynaguri train accident - A train derailed between New Maynaguri Railway Station and New Domohani Railway Station due to some glitch in locomotive engine, around 5:00 PM in Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal. At least nine people are killed.
Tableau's of non Bharatiya Janata Party ruling states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Odisha gets rejected by Ministry of Defence from taking part in Republic Day parade sparking controversy.
21 Jan – Amar Jawan Jyoti which was continuously burning since last fifty years at India Gate in commemoration of Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was mergered with the eternal flame at the National War Memorial as part of ongoing Central Vista Redevelopment Project. On 21 January 2022, the older flame was merged with the newer one at National War Memorial.
=== February ===
7 February - Central Bureau of Investigation booked a case against ABG Shipyard, a Gujarat based company for carrying out the biggest loan frauds in history of the country. The company defrauded nearly 28 banks for loans that's worth more than 22,000 crores.
14 February - 2022 Karnataka hijab row The high court's interim order was implemented in all schools and colleges across Karnataka, with students, and in some cases teachers, being asked to remove hijabs and burqas outside the school gates.
4–20 February - India at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Arif Khan was the flag bearer in the opening ceremony.
=== March ===
6 March - 2022 Srinagar bombing
9 March - India accidentally fired a BrahMos missile originating from Sirsa, Haryana that crashed into Mian Channu, Khanewal District, Punjab, Pakistan. - India–Pakistan missile incident
10 March - The legislative assembly elections held in five states - BJP won by beating the incumbency in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur. Where as in Punjab AAP registered a decisive victory over ruling Indian National Congress.
11 March - Movie based on Persecution of Hindus in Kashmir Valley - The Kashmir Files released, declared tax free by several state governments.
15 March - The Karnataka High Court upheld the Ban on hijabs in schools in the state of Karnataka (following the 2022 Karnataka hijab row) stating that the hijab is not an essential religious practice.
21 March - Eight people burned to death in Birbhum district, West Bengal following the murder of a Trinamool Congress politician.
=== April ===
10 April
Trikut cable car accident
April 2022 Indian communal violence
20 April - Assam Police arrests Jignesh Mevani a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Gujarat at Banaskantha district following Defamatory Tweet posted by him against Narendra Modi.
27 April - Nearly eleven people died of high voltage electrocution at Kallimedu, Thanjavur district when a temple chariot came in contact with Overhead power line.
=== May ===
13 May - 2022 Delhi fire
16 May - Kapil Sibal quits Indian National Congress following differences that he and other G -23 members had with party leadership.
19 May - Nikhat Zareen won the gold medal in the 52 kg category at the 2022 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships defeating Thailand's Jitpong Jutamas in the flyweight final in Istanbul, Turkey. She became the fifth Indian women's boxer to win a gold medal at the World Championships, joining Mary Kom, Laishram Sarita Devi, Jenny R. L., and Lekha K. C.
25 May - 2022 Assam floods.
27 May - 2022 Muhammad remarks controversy
28 May - 2022 Hyderabad gang rape
29 May - Popular Punjabi Singer Sidhu Moosewala shot dead in Jawaharke, Punjab.
=== June ===
4 June - Hapur chemical plant explosion
10 June - Chairman of Ceylon Electricity Board made revelations that Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi pressurized Sri Lanka for handing over a 500 MW Wind power project in Mannar District to Adani Green Energy.
13 June - Enforcement Directorate summons and questioned Rahul Gandhi on National Herald corruption case. Protests by Indian National Congress in Delhi around 400 workers detained.
14 June - India's first private train under the Bharat Gaurav scheme is launched at Southern Railway zone between Coimbatore and Shirdi. This train is operated by South Star Rail based in Tamil Nadu.
16 June - Protests across the country against Agnipath Scheme announced by Government of India.
21 June -
Maharashtra in political crisis with rebel MLA's under leadership of Eknath Shinde challenged to leave the Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Yashwant Sinha announced as presidential candidate by opposition parties.
Murder of Umesh Kohle
24 June - Supreme Court of India rejects plea filed by Ehsan Jafri's wife against Special Investigation Team report which acquitted Narendra Modi and 63 others in Gulbarg Society massacre.
25 June - Former Indian Police Service officer R. B. Sreekumar and social activist Teesta Setalvad arrested by Gujarat Police in connection with 2002 Gujarat riots.
27 June - Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair arrested by Delhi Police for a post made by him on Twitter in 2018 which allegedly hurts religious sentiments. The arrest was following a complaint made by an anonymous Twitter user named Hanuman Bhakth.
28 June
2022 Mumbai building collapse
Kanhaiya Lal is beheaded by Muslims in Udaipur, Rajasthan, for supporting Nupur Sharma in the controversy about Sharma's remarks about Muhammad on social media.
2022 Assam floods
30 June
2022 Manipur landslide
Neeraj Chopra breaks his own national record with 89.94m throw at Stockholm Diamond League
Uddhav Thackeray resigns as Chief minister of Maharashtra following Supreme Court of India not admitting the stay petition of Shiv Sena against the Motion of no confidence.
=== July ===
5 July - The Bharatiya Janata Party led coalition under the leadership of Eknath Shinde (Shiv Sena defected faction) won the floor test with the support of 164 Members of the Legislative Assembly.
13 July - Controversy erupts around a booklet issued by Parliamentary Secretariat that list even commonly used words as Unparliamentary language.
23 July - Senior TMC leader and minister in Government of West Bengal, Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee were arrested by ED from Kolkata in the SSC Scam.
25 July -
Droupadi Murmu is sworn in as the 15th President of India
Nearly 42 killed in Botad district of Gujarat by consuming illicit liquor.
=== August ===
9 August - Nitish Kumar resigns as Chief minister of Bihar following Janata Dal (United) leaving the Bharatiya Janata Party led National Democratic Alliance.
10 August - Nitish Kumar sworn in as Chief minister of Bihar with the support of Rashtriya Janata Dal and Indian National Congress.
11 August - Jagdeep Dhankhar, former governor of West Bengal and politician from Rajasthan sworn in as 14th Vice President of India.
13 August - A nine year old Dalit boy from Jalore district who was beaten by upper caste teacher on 20 July, for drinking water from earthen pots reserved for higher castes succumbs to death.
22 August - R Praggnanandhaa, a seventeen year chess player from Tamil Nadu beats world champion Magnus Carlsen on three straight games at FTX Crypto Cup 2022, held at Miami.
25 August - FIR and arrest of Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, of Murugha Mutt on alleged continuous sexual assault on two minor girls.
26 August - Ghulam Nabi Azad quits from Indian National Congress after his five decade long association with the party.
27 August - Uday Umesh Lalit took oath as the 49th Chief Justice of India.
28 August - Noida Supertech Twin Towers demolished, being India's biggest building demolition.
29 August - 17 year old girl set on fire and succumbed death, by a youth due to turning down his proposal in Jharkhand's Dumka.
31 August - Death of Paolo Maino due to prolonged illness, mother of Sonia Gandhi in Italy.
=== September ===
1 September - India reports 13.5% Annual GDP growth in Q1 FY2023.
2 September - Prime Minister Narendra Modi commissioned India's first indigenous aircraft lifter IINS Vikrant in Kochi.
4 September - Indian business tycoon, former Tata Sons Chairman Cyrus Mistry, passes away in a car crash in Palghar.
5 September - Hemant Soren wins floor test in Jharkhand Legislative Assembly following allegations of corruption and poaching of MLA's by opposition.
6 September - ED and CBI raid on Manish Sisodia residence and 40 other locations on basis of Delhi liquor scam.
7 September - Rahul Gandhi commences his 3751 kms long 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanyakumari.
8 September - Rajpath renamed as Kartavya Path and inaugurated with Subhash Chandra Bose's statue at Central Vista by Narendra Modi.
16 September - 8 Cheetahs transported to Kuno National Park of India's Madhya Pradesh through a specially designated flight from Namibia, on account of Narendra Modi's birthday.
18 September - Murder of Ankita Bhandari.
22 September - National Investigation Agency conducts a raid on Popular Front of India in 13 states and arrests around 106 people for their alleged involvement in terrorism.
26 September - President of India appoints senior advocate R. Venkataramani as the next Attorney-General for India.
28 September - Ministry of Home Affairs bans radical Islamic organisation Popular Front of India and its eight connected organisations across the nation for five years.
29 September
Lt General Anil Chauhan appointed as the new Chief of Defence Staff.
The Supreme Court rules that all women are entitled to an abortion for up to 24 weeks after initial pregnancy as per the women's choice.
=== October ===
1 October - 5G telecom services launched in India, primarily in selected 13 cities of the country.
2 October - Tractor-Trolley returning from a temple falls into a pond in Kanpur, kills 27 people.
2022 Bhadohi fire: Fourteen people died and more than 75 people were injured in the incident.
4 October - Avalanche in Uttarakashi kills nearly 30 mountaineers, from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering.
5 October - An accident happened in Mal river in Malbazar, Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal during immersion of idols during Durga Puja, where 8 people died and many were seriously injured.
6 October - Congress president Sonia Gandhi joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which resumed its journey in Pandavapura in Karnataka's Mandya district on Thursday after a two-day Dasara break.
11 October - Chief Justice of India Uday Lalit, nominates DY Chandrachud as his successor, prior his retirement on 8 November.
13 October - Two bench Supreme Court Panel provided a split decision over the Hijab row, and would be further transferred to a larger CJI led bench.
14 October - Allahabad High Court, rejects the plea to carry out carbon-dating process on the alleged Shivaling, found in the surroundings of Gyanvyapi mosque.
17 October - Elections for the president of All India National Congress carried out. Former president Rahul Gandhi votes from Bellary, Karnataka.
19 October - Mallikarjun Kharge elected as the national President of Indian National Congress, thereby becoming the first Non-Gandhi president after 24 years by defeating his poll rival Shashi Tharoor.
25 October - ISIS terror plot; suicide bomber blasts a car in Coimbatore of Tamil Nadu with no casualties.
27 October - BCCI announces equal match fees to both men and women cricketers across all the formats of the game.
30 October - 2022 Morbi bridge collapse
=== November ===
1 November - The Air quality Index plunges to 'severe' category in Noida, remains 'very poor' in New Delhi, creation of thick smog in the city.
2 November - Global Investors Meet 2022 held in Bengaluru, with delegates and investors present from various countries.
6 November - Bhavya Bishnoi is elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly for the Adampur, Haryana Assembly constituency in a by-election.
7 November - In Janhit Abhiyan vs Union of India case, Supreme Court upheld the validity of the 103rd constitutional amendment which provides 10% reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections by a 3-2 majority.
9 November - Logo with lotus launched, for the G-20 Summit hosted in India.
10 November - D. Y. Chandrachud takes oath as the 50th Chief Justice of India, succeeding Uday Lalit.
11 November -
Bangalore welcomes 2nd International airport terminal T2, with 108 ft statue of Kempe Gowda, the architect of Bangalore called 'The Statue of Prosperity', inaugurated by Narendra Modi.
All the 6 assassins of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi released from prison, as per the orders of the Supreme Court of India.
12 November - 2022 Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly Elections, underway for 68 seats of the state.
14 November - Horrific Incident in Delhi; Man named Aftab kills girlfriend Shraddha Walker by strangling, chops the body into 35 pieces for dispose. Caught by the police department during the act.
18 November -
Vikram-S rocket, India's first rocket launch partnered with private space organisation with ISRO launched from Sriharikota.
BCCI sacks entire selection committee of the cricket board, led by Chetan Sharma.
" 3rd - No Money for Terror" - Counter Terrorism conference held under the presidency of Narendra Modi in New Delhi in the presence of International delegates.
20 November - Blast in an auto-rickshaw in Mangalore street, by accused Mohammed Shafiq using a pressure-cooker bomb.
=== December ===
1 December - Phase 1 of 2022 Gujarat Legislative Assembly Elections held.
2 December - Marriage of Dr Abhinav khare with Dr Palak Khare, NAVPAL
5 December - Phase 2 of 2022 Gujarat Legislative Assembly Elections carried out.
8 December - Result of 2022 Gujarat Legislative Assembly Elections and 2022 Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly election declared. Bharatiya Janata Party won a seventh consecutive term in Gujarat with a landslide victory (156 out of total 182 seats) and Indian National Congress toppled incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government in Himachal Pradesh by bagging 40 out of 68 seats.
9 December - Indian soldiers clash with Chinese soldiers at the Tawang border of Arunachal Pradesh. No casualties, several injured.
12 December - Congress Leader Raja Pateria arrested for comments "Kill Prime Minister Modi to save constitution" in Madhya Pradesh.
13 December - 3 students die by suicide in Kota, Rajasthan.
20 December — India enacted its first domestic anti-piracy legislation as the Maritime Anti-Piracy Act 2022, criminalizing maritime piracy and empowering Indian agencies with the authority to respond to threats.
24 December - Tunisha Sharma, a television actress, who was playing the role of Mariyam, in Indian sitcom Ali Baba, died by suicide on the set of Ali Baba at the age of 20 just 11 days before her 21st birthday.
30 December -
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mother, Heeraben Modi passes away at the age of 8 in Ahmedabad.
Cricketer Rishabh Pant meet with a major accident, his car (Mercedes-AMG GLE 43 4MATIC Coupe) collided with a road divider on the Delhi-Dehradun highway. He was admitted to AIIMS, Delhi
== Deaths ==
=== January ===
4 – Sindhutai Sapkal, 73, social worker; cardiac arrest
8 – Ramesh Babu, 56, film actor
17 – Birju Maharaj, 83, dancer
18 – Narayan Debnath, 97, cartoonist
22 – Jaswant Singh, 90, field hockey player
=== February ===
6 – Lata Mangeshkar, 92, singer; multiple organ dysfunction syndrome
15 – Bappi Lahiri, 69, music composer obstructive sleep apnea
15 – Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, 90, legendary Bengali singer, cardiac arrest
12 – Rahul Bajaj, 83, billionaire businessman and CEO of Bajaj Group
21 – Mekapati Goutham Reddy, 50, politician; heart attack
=== March ===
4 - Sunith Francis Rodrigues, 88, army officer
14 – Sandeep Nangal Ambian, 38, kabaddi player; shot dead
23 - Ramesh Chandra Lahoti, 81, 35th Chief Justice of India
24 - Abhishek Chatterjee, 57, actor
=== May ===
10 – Shivkumar Sharma, 84, classical musician and santoor player, Cardiac arrest
11 - Sukh Ram, 94, politician
14 - Urvashi Vaid, 63, activist, lawyer, and writer
29 – Sidhu Moose Wala, 28, entertainer; shot dead
31 – KK, 54, Singer, Cardiac arrest
31 - Bhim Singh, 80, politician, activist, lawyer and author
=== June ===
13 – Hari Chand, 69, long-distance runner Olympian
15 - Gopi Chand Narang, 91, theorist, literary critic, and scholar
26 - V. Krishnamurthy, 97, civil servant
28 - Varinder Singh, 75, field hockey player
28 - Pallonji Mistry, 93, billionaire construction tycoon
=== July ===
3 - E.N. Sudhir, 74, footballer
4 - Tarun Majumdar, 91, film director
5 - P. Gopinathan Nair, 99, social worker
9 - B. K. Syngal, 82, Father of Internet & Data Services in India
12 - T. R. Prasad, 80, bureaucrat
15 - Pratap Pothen, 69, actor and filmmaker
18 - Bhupinder Singh, 82, musician
25 - Ashok Jagdale, 76, cricketer
26 - Sushovan Banerjee, 84, physician and politician
29 - Rasik Dave, 65, actor
=== August ===
3 - Mithilesh Chaturvedi, 67, actor
5 - Debi Ghosal, 87, politician
8 - Sharad Hazare, 77, cricketer
9 - Pradeep Patwardhan, 65, actor and comedian
11 - Shimoga Subbanna, 83, singer
12 - Anshu Jain, 59, business executive
14 - Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, 62, stock trader and investor
14 - Vinayak Mete, 52, politician
16 - Subhash Singh, 59, politician
20 - Samar Banerjee, 92, footballer
20 - Syed Sibtey Razi, 83, politician
25 - Saawan Kumar Tak, 86, director, producer, and lyricist
25 - Devidhan Besra, 77, politician
26 - Jalaluddin Umri, 87, scholar and writer
29 - Pradip Mukherjee, 76, actor and dramatist
29 - Abhijit Sen, 71, economist
=== September ===
1 - Mary Roy, 89, educator and activist
1 - Bamba Bakya, 49, singer and musician
2 - T. V. Sankaranarayanan, 77, singer
2 - Ramveer Upadhyay, 65, politician
4 - Cyrus Mistry, 54, businessman
6 - Umesh Katti, 61, Karnataka politician
7 - Ramchandra Manjhi, 97, Bhojpuri folk dancer
8 - Kamal Narain Singh, 95, 22nd Chief Justice of India
10 - B. B. Lal, 101, archaeologist
11 - Krishnam Raju, 82, actor and politician
11 - Swaroopanand Saraswati, 98, religious leader
13 - N. M. Joseph, 78, politician
13 - Faisal Saif, 46, film director
14 - Naresh Kumar, 93, tennis player
17 - Manikrao Hodlya Gavit, 87, politician
19 - Bishnu Sethi, 61, politician
21 - Raju Srivastav, 58, comedian
=== October ===
1 - Tulsi Tanti, 64, businessman
1 - Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, 68, kerala politician
4 - Shekhar Joshi, 90, author.
7 - Arun Bali, 79, actor
9 - Temsüla Ao, 76, poet and writer
9 - Bhanwar Lal Sharma, 77, rajasthan politician
10 - Mulayam Singh Yadav, 82, politician
10 - Subbu Arumugam, 94, writer and storyteller.
11 - A. Gopalakrishnan, 85, nuclear engineer.
14 - Kedar Singh Phonia, 92, uttarakhand politician
15 - K. Murari, 78, film producer
16 - Vaishali Takkar, 30, actress
16 - Dilip Mahalanabis, 87, pediatrician
22 - Anand Mamani, 56, deputy speaker of Karnataka LA.
26 - Esmayeel Shroff, 62, film director
=== November ===
1 - Vijayakumar Menon, 76, art critic and writer
2 - Ela Bhatt, 89, social activist
2 - T. P. Rajeevan, 63, novelist
2 - Jambey Tashi, 44, politician
3 - G. S. Varadachary, 90, film critic and journalist
5 - Hyder Ali, 79, cricketer
8 - Lohithaswa, 80, actor
10 - Rajni Kumar, 99, English-born educationalist, founder of the Springdales Schools
11 - Siddhaanth Vir Surryavanshi, 47, actor
12 - Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, 91, economist
15 - Krishna, 79, actor
18 - Tabassum, 78, actress
19 - Babu Mani, 59, footballer
20 - Aaroor Dass, 91, screenwriter
20 - Aindrila Sharma, 24, actress
21 - Avvai Natarajan, 86, academic administrator,
26 - Vikram Gokhale, 77, actor
30 - Vikram Kirloskar, 64, businessman
30 - Kumble Sundara Rao, 88, Yakshagana artist and politician
30 - Nagnath Lalujirao Kottapalle, 74, writer and academic administrator
=== December ===
1 - Vasu Pisharody, 79, Kathakali actor
1 - Samresh Singh, 81, Indian politician
2 - Tukaram Gangadhar Gadakh, 69, politician
2 - Jharana Das, 82, actress
5 - Ahmad Ali Barqi Azmi, 67, poet
6 - Yoginder K Alagh, 83, economist
7 - Manohar Devadoss, 86, visual artist and writer
9 - Sulochana Chavan, 89, Marathi singer
10 - Kenneth Powell, 82, Olympic sprinter
12 - Mohan Jena, 65, politician
13 - Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, 85, politician
24 - Tunisha Sharma, 20, actress
== See also ==
2022 in Manipur
=== Country overviews ===
History of India
History of modern India
Outline of India
Government of India
Politics of India
Timeline of Indian history
Years in India
=== Related timelines for current period ===
2020s in political history
2020s
21st century
== References ==
== External links ==
Important events of 2022: India – Business Insider |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_Control | Line of Control | The Line of Control (LoC) is a military control line between the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir—a line which does not constitute a legally recognized international boundary, but serves as the de facto border. It was established as part of the Simla Agreement at the end of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Both nations agreed to rename the ceasefire line as the "Line of Control" and pledged to respect it without prejudice to their respective positions. Apart from minor details, the line is roughly the same as the original 1949 cease-fire line.
The part of the former princely state under Indian control is divided into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The Pakistani-controlled section is divided into Azad Kashmir and Gilgit–Baltistan. The northernmost point of the Line of Control is known as NJ9842, beyond which lies the Siachen Glacier, which became a bone of contention with Indian and Pakistani armed forces clashing there from 1984. To the south of the Line of Control, (Sangam, Chenab River, Akhnoor), lies the border between Pakistani Punjab and the Jammu province, which has an ambiguous status: India regards it as an "international boundary", and Pakistan calls it a "working border".
Another ceasefire line separates the Indian-controlled state of Jammu and Kashmir from the Chinese-controlled area known as Aksai Chin. Lying further to the east, it is known as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
== Background ==
After the partition of India, present-day India and Pakistan contested the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir – India because of the ruler's accession to the country, and Pakistan by virtue of the state's Muslim-majority population. The First Kashmir War in 1947 lasted more than a year until a ceasefire was arranged through UN mediation. Both sides agreed on a ceasefire line.
After another Kashmir War in 1965, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 (which saw Bangladesh become independent), only minor modifications had been effected in the original ceasefire line. In the ensuing Simla Agreement in 1972, both countries agreed to convert the ceasefire line into a "Line of Control" (LoC) and observe it as a de facto border that armed action should not violate. The agreement declared that "neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of mutual differences and legal interpretations". The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) had the role of investigating ceasefire violations (CFVs), however their role decreased after 1971. In 2000, US President Bill Clinton referred to the Indian subcontinent and the Kashmir Line of Control, in particular, as one of the most dangerous places in the world.
== Characteristics ==
=== Terrain ===
The LoC from Kargil to Gurez comprises mountain passes and valleys with small streams and rivers. The area up to around 14,000 feet (4,300 m) is wooded while the peaks rise higher. Winter is snowy while summers are mild. From Gurez to Akhnoor, the area is mountainous and hilly respectively and is generally forested. There are tracks and minor roads connecting settlements. The mix of flora and elevation affects visibility and line of sight significantly.
=== Ceasefire violations ===
In 2018, two corps and a number of battalions of the Border Security Force manned the Indian side of the LoC. The Rawalpindi Corps manned the Pakistani side. Ceasefire violations (CFV's) are initiated and committed by both sides and show a symmetry. The response to a CFV at one location can lead to shooting at an entirely different area. Weapons used on the LoC include small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, recoilless rifles, mortars, automatic grenade launchers, rocket launchers and a number of other direct and indirect weaponry. Military personnel on both sides risk being shot by snipers in moving vehicles, through bunker peepholes and during meals.
The civilian population at the LoC, at some points ahead of the forward most post, has complicated the situation. Shelling and firing by both sides along the LoC has resulted in civilian deaths. Bunkers have been constructed for these civilian populations for protection during periods of CFV's. India and Pakistan usually report only casualties on their own sides of the LoC, with the media blaming the other side for the firing and each side claiming an adequate retaliation.
According to Happymon Jacob, the reasons for CFVs along the LoC include operational reasons (defence construction like observation facilities, the rule of the gun, lack of bilateral mechanisms for border management, personality traits and the emotional state of soldiers and commanders), politico-strategic reasons, proportional response (land grab, sniping triggered, "I am better than you", revenge firing), accidental CFVs (civilian related, lack of clarity where the line is) and other reasons (like testing the new boys, honour, prestige and humiliation, fun, gamesmanship). Jacob ranks operational reasons as the main cause for CFVs, followed by retributive and politico-strategic reasons .
=== Landmines and IEDs ===
Mines have been laid across the India–Pakistan border and the LoC in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 2001. The small stretch of land between the rows of fencing is mined with thousands of landmines. During the 2001–2002 India–Pakistan standoff thousands of acres of land along the LoC were mined. Both civilians and military personnel on both sides have died in mine and improvised explosive device (IED)-related blasts, and many more have been injured. Between January 2000 to April 2002, 138 military personnel were killed on the Indian side.
=== Posts and bunkers ===
Reinforced sandbagged and concrete posts and bunkers are among the first line of defence along the LoC. Armed soldiers man these positions with enough supplies for at least a week. The posts and bunkers allow soldiers to sleep, cook, and keep a watch on enemy positions round the clock. Some posts are located in remote locations. Animals are sometimes used to help transport loads, and at some posts animals are reared. The living quarters and the forward facing bunker are located at some distance apart. The locations of some posts do not follow any pre-ordained plan, rather they are in locations used during the First Kashmir War and the following cease-fire line, with minor adjustments made in 1972.
=== Indian LoC fencing ===
India constructed a 550-kilometre (340 mi) barrier along the 740 kilometres (460 mi)–776 kilometres (482 mi) LoC by 2004. The fence generally remains about 150 yards (140 m) on the Indian-controlled side. Its stated purpose is to exclude arms smuggling and infiltration by Pakistani-based separatist militants. The barrier, referred to as an Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System (AIOS), consists of double-row of fencing and concertina wire 8–12 feet (2.4–3.7 m) in height, and is electrified and connected to a network of motion sensors, thermal imaging devices, lighting systems and alarms. They act as "fast alert signals" for the Indian troops, who can be alerted and ambush the infiltrators trying to sneak in.
The barrier's construction began in the 1990s but slowed in the early 2000s as hostilities between India and Pakistan increased. After a November 2003 ceasefire agreement, building resumed and was completed in late 2004. LoC fencing was completed in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region on 30 September 2004. According to Indian military sources, the fence has reduced the numbers of militants who routinely cross into the Indian side of the disputed region by 80%. In 2017, a proposal for an upgraded smart fence on the Indian side was accepted.
=== Border villages ===
A number of villages lie between the Indian fence and the zero line. Pakistan has not constructed a border fence, however a number of villages lie near the zero line. In the Tithwal area, 13 villages are in front of the Indian fence. The total number between the fence and zero line on the Indian side is estimated to be 60 villages and at least one million people are spread over the districts adjacent to the LoC from Rajouri to Bandipora.
=== Infiltration and military cross-LoC movement ===
According to the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, 1,504 "terrorists" attempted to infiltrate India in 2002. Infiltration was one of India's main issues during the 2001–2002 India–Pakistan standoff. There has been a decrease in infiltration over the years. Only a select number of individuals are successful; in 2016, the Ministry reported 105 successful infiltrations. The Indian LoC fence has been constructed with a defensive mindset to counter infiltration. The reduction in infiltration also points to a reduction in support of such activities within Pakistan. During the 2019 Balakot airstrike, Indian planes crossed the LoC for the first time in 48 years.
=== Crossing points ===
Pakistan and India officially designated five crossing points following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake—Nauseri-Tithwal; Chakoti-Uri; Hajipur-Uri; Rawalakot-Poonch and Tattapani-Mendhar.
According to Azad Jammu and the Kashmir Cross LoC Travel and Trade Authority Act, 2016, the following crossing points are listed:
Rawalakot–Poonch
Chakothi–Uri
Chaliana–Tithwal
Tatta Pani–Mendher
Haji Peer–Silli Kot
Trade points include: Chakothi – Salamabad and Rawalakot (Titrinote) – Poonch (Chakkan-da-Bagh). The ordinance passed in 2011.
Between 2005 and 2017, and according to Travel and Trade Authority figures, Muzaffarabad, Indian Kashmiris crossing over into Pakistan was about 14,000, while about 22,000 have crossed over to the Indian side. Crossing legally for civilians is not easy. A number of documents are required and verified by both countries, including proof of family on the other side. Even a short-term, temporary crossing invites interrogation by government agencies. The Indian and Pakistani military use these crossing points for flag meetings and to exchange sweets during special occasions and festivals. On 21 October 2008, for the first time in 61 years, cross-LoC trade was conducted between the two sides. Trade across the LoC is barter trade. In ten years, trade worth nearly PKR 11,446 crore or ₹5,000 crore (equivalent to ₹67 billion or US$790 million in 2023) has passed through the Chakothi – Salamabad crossing.
==== Chilliana – Teetwal ====
The Teetwal crossing is across the Neelum River between Muzaffarabad and Kupwara. It is usually open only during the summer months, and unlike the other two crossings is open only for the movement of people, not for trade. The Tithwal bridge, first built in 1931, has been rebuilt twice.
==== Chakothi – Salamabad ====
The Salamabad crossing point, or the Kamran Post, is on the road between Chakothi and Uri in the Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir along the LoC. It is a major route for cross LoC trade and travel. Banking facilities and a trade facilitation centre are being planned on the Indian side. The English name for the bridge in Uri translates as "bridge of peace". The Indian Army rebuilt it after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake when a mountain on the Pakistani side caved in. This route was opened for trade in 2008 after being closed for 61 years. The Srinagar–Muzaffarabad Bus crosses this bridge on the LoC.
==== Tetrinote – Chakan Da Bagh ====
A road connects Kotli and Tatrinote on the Pakistan side of the LoC to the Indian Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir through the Chakan Da Bagh crossing point. It is a major route for cross LoC trade and travel. Banking facilities and a trade facilitation centre are being planned on the Indian side for the benefit of traders.
Most of the flag meetings between Indian and Pakistani security forces are held here.
==== Tattapani – Mendhar ====
The fourth border crossing between Tattapani and Mendhar was opened on 14 November 2005.
== Impact on civilians ==
The Line of Control divided the Kashmir into two and closed the Jhelum valley route, the only way in and out of the Kashmir Valley from Pakistani Punjab. This ongoing territorial division severed many villages and separated family members. Some families could see each other along the LoC in locations such as the Neelum River, but were unable to meet. In certain locations, women on the Pakistan side on the LoC have been instrumental in influencing infiltration and ceasefire violations; they have approached nearby Pakistani Army camps directly and insisted infiltration stop, which reduces India's cross LoC firing.
== In popular culture ==
Documentaries covering the LoC and related events include A journey through River Vitasta, Raja Shabir Khan's Line of Control and HistoryTV18's Kargil: Valour & Victory. A number of Bollywood films on the 1999 Kargil conflict have involved depictions and scenes of the line of control including LOC: Kargil (2003), Lakshya (2004) and Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (2020). Other Bollywood films include Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015), and streaming television shows such as Avrodh (2020).
== See also ==
India–Pakistan relations
Transport between India and Pakistan
Actual Ground Position Line – the line of separation near the Siachen Glacier
United Nations Military Observer Group in Kashmir
== References ==
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Wirsing, Robert G. (1998), "War or Peace on the Line of Control?", in Clive Schofield (ed.), Boundary and Territory Briefing, Volume 2, Number 5, ISBN 1-897643-31-4 (Page numbers cited per the e-document)
Bharat, Meenakshi; Kumar, Nirmal, eds. (2012). Filming the Line of Control: The Indo–Pak Relationship through the Cinematic Lens. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-51606-1.
— Budha, Kishore (2012), "1", Genre Development in the Age of Markets and Nationalism: The War Film
Jacob, Happymon (2018). The Line of Control: Travelling with the Indian and Pakistani Armies. Penguin Random House India. ISBN 978-93-5305-352-9. (print version)
— Jacob, Happymon (2018). Line on Fire: Ceasefire Violations and India–Pakistan Escalation Dynamics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-909547-6. (e-book version)
Zakaria, Anam (2018). Between the Great Divide: A Journey into Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. India: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-93-5277-947-5.
Hafeez, Mahwish (2014). "The Line of Control (LoC) Trade: A Ray of Hope". Strategic Studies. 34 (1). Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad: 74–93. ISSN 1029-0990. JSTOR 48527555.
Arora, RK; Kumar, Manoj (November 2016), Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System: Implementation Challenges (PDF), Occasional Paper No. 100, Observer Research Foundation
Durrani, Major General (Retd) Mahmud Ali (July 2001), Enhancing Security through a Cooperative Border Monitoring Experiment: A Proposal for India and Pakistan, Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy, Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, doi:10.2172/783991, OSTI 783991
== Further reading ==
Akhtar, Shaheen (2017). "Living on the frontlines: Perspective from Poonch and Kotli region of AJK" (PDF). Journal of Political Studies. 24 (2).
— Akhtar, Shaheen (2017). "Living on the Frontlines: Perspective from the Neelum Valley" (PDF). Margalla Papers. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2020.
Bali, Pawan; Akhtar, Shaheen (31 July 2017), Kashmir Line of Control and Grassroots Peacebuilding (PDF), United States Institute of Peace, archived from the original (PDF) on 6 September 2017
Jacob, Happymon (2017), Ceasefire violations in Jammu and Kashmir (PDF), United States Institute of Peace, ISBN 978-1-60127-672-8, archived from the original (PDF) on 10 March 2018
Kira, Altaf Hussain (September 2011), Cross-LoC trade in Kashmir: From Line of Control to Line of Commerce (PDF), IGIDR, Mumbai
—Kira, Altaf Hussain (2011). "From Line of Control to Line of Commerce". Economic and Political Weekly. 46 (40): 16–18. ISSN 0012-9976. JSTOR 23047415.
Padder, Sajad A. (2015). "Cross-Line of Control Trade: Problem and Prospects". Journal of South Asian Studies. 3 (1): 37–48.
Ranjan Kumar Singh (2007), Sarhad: Zero Mile (in Hindi), Parijat Prakashan, ISBN 81-903561-0-0
"Relevance of Simla Agreement". Editorial Series. Khan Study Group. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2013.
Reports
Smart border management: An Indian perspective (PDF), FICCI, PwC India, September 2016
Smart border management: Contributing to a US$5 trillion economy (PDF), FICCI, Ernst & Young India, 2019, archived from the original (PDF) on 3 December 2021, retrieved 7 September 2021
Photographs
"LoC: Line of Control" (Photo Gallery). Outlook India. Retrieved on 3 September 2021.
— Photos 1 to 100
— Photos 101 to 176 |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Fanti#:~:text=Fanti%20was%20elected%20city%20councilor,economic%20and%20social%20recovery%20started. | Guido Fanti | Guido Fanti (27 May 1925 – 11 February 2012) was an Italian politician. From 1979 to 1989, he served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He was a member of the Italian Communist Party.
== Biography ==
Fanti was born in 1925. He enrolled at the university but was forced to leave it during the Second World War. He was called to arms in 1943 but soon joined the partisan resistance. In 1945, after the liberation of Bologna, he joined the Italian Communist Party. He became provincial secretary of the PCI fifteen years later. In 1960 he also entered the central committee of the party, where he was reconfirmed in the following two congresses, and in 1965, at the XI congress, a member of the national directorate.
Fanti was elected city councilor of Bologna in 1957; on 2 April 1966 he was elected mayor of the city, when Giuseppe Dozza resigned for health reasons, after having brought the semi-destroyed city from war to reconstruction, and the economic and social recovery started. During his mandate, the PEEP public housing plan and the construction of the "Fiera District" (based on a project by architect Kenzō Tange) were approved.
On 29 July 1970, Guido Fanti resigned from office because he was elected the first president of the Emilia-Romagna Region. He then renounced his regional mandate as he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1976 to 1983. In 1983, he was elected senator of the IX legislature and remained in office until 1987. From 1979 until 1989, he was a member of the European Parliament, of which he became vice president in 1984.
Guido Fanti died in the night between 10 and 11 February 2012.
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryam_Mirzakhani#Awards_and_honors | Maryam Mirzakhani | Maryam Mirzakhani (Persian: مریم میرزاخانی, pronounced [mæɾˈjæm miːɾzɑːxɑːˈniː]; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry. On 13 August 2014, Mirzakhani was honored with the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, becoming the first woman to win the prize, as well as the first Iranian. The award committee cited her work in "the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces". Mirzakhani was considered a leading force in the fields of hyperbolic geometry, topology and dynamics.
Throughout her career, she achieved milestones that cemented her reputation as one of the greatest mathematicians of her time, such as the "magic wand theorem", which tied together fields such as dynamical systems, geometry, and topology. After completing her PhD at Harvard University in 2004, Mirzakhani became a research fellow at the Clay Mathematics Institute and later joined Princeton University as a professor. In 2009, she moved to Stanford University, where she continued her pioneering research until her death. Her work focused on the intricate and complex dynamics of geometric structures, with particular emphasis on moduli spaces and Riemann surfaces. Her approaches and profound insights significantly advanced the field, earning her widespread acclaim and recognition, leading her to win the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics.
Born and raised in Tehran, Mirzakhani's passion for mathematics began at a young age. She earned her undergraduate degree from Sharif University of Technology and went on to pursue her PhD at Harvard University under the mentorship of Fields Medalist Curtis T. McMullen. Her academic journey led her to positions at Princeton University and Stanford University, where she became a full professor in 2009. Despite her death at the age of 40 due to breast cancer, her legacy endures through numerous accolades in her honor, including the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize and the 12 May Initiative, both dedicated to promoting women in mathematics.
== Early life and education ==
Mirzakhani was born on 12 May 1977 in Tehran, Iran. As a child, she attended Tehran Farzanegan School, part of the National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET). In her junior and senior years of high school, she won the gold medal for mathematics in the Iranian National Olympiad, thus allowing her to bypass the national college entrance exam. In 1994, Mirzakhani became the first Iranian woman to win a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong, scoring 41 out of 42 points. The following year, in Toronto, she became the first Iranian to achieve the full score and to win two gold medals in the International Mathematical Olympiad. Later in her life, she collaborated with friend, colleague, and Olympiad silver medalist Roya Beheshti Zavareh (Persian: رؤیا بهشتی زواره) on their book Elementary Number Theory, Challenging Problems (in Persian), which was published in 1999. Mirzakhani and Zavareh together were the first women to compete in the Iranian National Mathematical Olympiad and won gold and silver medals in 1995, respectively.
On 17 March 1998, after attending a conference consisting of gifted individuals and former Olympiad competitors, Mirzakhani and Zavareh, along with other attendees, boarded a bus in Ahvaz en route to Tehran. The bus fell off a cliff, killing seven of the passengers, all Sharif University students, in what is remembered as a national tragedy in Iran. Mirzakhani and Zavareh were two of the few survivors.
In 1999, she obtained a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the Sharif University of Technology. During her time there, she developed a simpler proof of a theorem of Schur. She then went to the United States for graduate work, earning a PhD in 2004 from Harvard University, where she worked under the supervision of the Fields Medalist, Curtis T. McMullen. At Harvard, she is said to have been "distinguished by determination and relentless questioning". She used to take her class notes in her native language Persian.
== Career ==
Mirzakhani was a 2004 research fellow of the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University. In 2009, she became a professor at Stanford University.
=== Research work ===
Mirzakhani made several contributions to the theory of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces. Mirzakhani's early work solved the problem of counting simple closed geodesics on hyperbolic Riemann surfaces by finding a relationship to volume calculations on moduli space. Geodesics are the natural generalization of the idea of a "straight line" to "curved spaces". Slightly more formally, a curve is a geodesic if no slight deformation can make it shorter. Closed geodesics are geodesics which are also closed curves—that is, they are curves that close up into loops. A closed geodesic is simple if it does not cross itself.
A previous result, known as the "prime number theorem for geodesics", established that the number of closed geodesics of length less than
L
{\displaystyle L}
grows exponentially with
L
{\displaystyle L}
– it is asymptotic to
e
L
/
L
{\displaystyle e^{L}/L}
. However, the analogous counting problem for simple closed geodesics remained open, despite being "the key object to unlocking the structure and geometry of the whole surface," according to University of Chicago topologist Benson Farb. Mirzakhani's 2004 PhD thesis solved this problem, showing that the number of simple closed geodesics of length less than
L
{\displaystyle L}
is polynomial in
L
{\displaystyle L}
. Explicitly, it is asymptotic to
c
L
6
g
−
6
{\displaystyle cL^{6g-6}}
, where
g
{\displaystyle g}
is the genus (roughly, the number of "holes") and
c
{\displaystyle c}
is a constant depending on the hyperbolic structure. This result can be seen as a generalization of the theorem of the three geodesics for spherical surfaces.
Mirzakhani solved this counting problem by relating it to the problem of computing volumes in moduli space—a space whose points correspond to different complex structures on a surface genus
g
{\displaystyle g}
. In her thesis, Mirzakhani found a volume formula for the moduli space of bordered Riemann surfaces of genus
g
{\displaystyle g}
with
n
{\displaystyle n}
geodesic boundary components. From this formula followed the counting for simple closed geodesics mentioned above, as well as a number of other results. This led her to obtain a new proof for the formula discovered by Edward Witten and Maxim Kontsevich on the intersection numbers of tautological classes on moduli space.
Her subsequent work focused on Teichmüller dynamics of moduli space. In particular, she was able to prove the long-standing conjecture that William Thurston's earthquake flow on Teichmüller space is ergodic. One can construct a simple earthquake map by cutting a surface along a finite number of disjoint simple closed geodesics, sliding the edges of each of these cut past each other by some amount, and closing the surface back up. One can imagine the surface being cut by strike-slip faults. An earthquake is a sort of limit of simple earthquakes, where one has an infinite number of geodesics, and instead of attaching a positive real number to each geodesic, one puts a measure on them.
In 2014, with Alex Eskin and with input from Amir Mohammadi, Mirzakhani proved that complex geodesics and their closures in moduli space are surprisingly regular, rather than irregular or fractal. The closures of complex geodesics are algebraic objects defined in terms of polynomials and therefore, they have certain rigidity properties, which is analogous to a celebrated result that Marina Ratner arrived at during the 1990s. The International Mathematical Union said in its press release that "It is astounding to find that the rigidity in homogeneous spaces has an echo in the inhomogeneous world of moduli space."
=== Awarding of Fields Medal ===
Mirzakhani was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014 for "her outstanding contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces". The award was made in Seoul at the International Congress of Mathematicians on 13 August. At the time of the award, Jordan Ellenberg explained her research to a popular audience:
[Her] work expertly blends dynamics with geometry. Among other things, she studies billiards. But now, in a move very characteristic of modern mathematics, it gets kind of meta: She considers not just one billiard table, but the universe of all possible billiard tables. And the kind of dynamics she studies doesn't directly concern the motion of the billiards on the table, but instead a transformation of the billiard table itself, which is changing its shape in a rule-governed way; if you like, the table itself moves like a strange planet around the universe of all possible tables ... This isn't the kind of thing you do to win at pool, but it's the kind of thing you do to win a Fields Medal. And it's what you need to do in order to expose the dynamics at the heart of geometry; for there's no question that they're there.
In 2014, President Hassan Rouhani of Iran congratulated her for winning the award.
== Personal life ==
In 2008, Mirzakhani married Jan Vondrák, a Czech theoretical computer scientist and applied mathematician who currently is a professor at Stanford University. They had a daughter. Mirzakhani lived in Palo Alto, California.
Mirzakhani described herself as a "slow" mathematician, saying that "you have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty of math." To solve problems, Mirzakhani would draw doodles on sheets of paper and write mathematical formulas around the drawings. Her daughter described her mother's work as "painting".
She declared:
I don't have any particular recipe [for developing new proofs] ... It is like being lost in a jungle and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks, and with some luck, you might find a way out.
== Death and legacy ==
Mirzakhani was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013. In 2016, the cancer spread to her bones and liver, and she died on 14 July 2017 at the age of 40 at Stanford Hospital in Stanford, California.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and other officials offered their condolences and praised Mirzakhani's scientific achievements. Rouhani said in his message that "the unprecedented brilliance of this creative scientist and modest human being, who made Iran's name resonate in the world's scientific forums, was a turning point in showing the great will of Iranian women and young people on the path towards reaching the peaks of glory and in various international arenas."
Upon her death, several Iranian newspapers, along with President Hassan Rouhani, broke taboo and published photographs of Mirzakhani with her hair uncovered. Although most newspapers used photographs with a dark background, digital manipulation, and even paintings to "hide" her hair, this gesture was widely noted in the western press and on social media.
Mirzakhani's death has also renewed debates within Iran regarding matrilineal citizenship for children of mixed-nationality parentage; Fars News Agency reported that, subsequent to Mirzakhani's death, 60 Iranian MPs urged the speeding up of an amendment to a law that would allow children of Iranian mothers married to foreigners to be given Iranian nationality, in order to make it easier for Mirzakhani's daughter to visit Iran.
Numerous obituaries and tributes were published in the days following Mirzakhani's death. As a result of advocacy carried out by the Women's Committee within the Iranian Mathematical Society (Persian: کمیته بانوان انجمن ریاضی ایران), the International Council for Science agreed to declare Mirzakhani's birthday, 12 May, as International Women in Mathematics Day in respect of her memory.
Various establishments have also been named after Mirzakhani to honor her life and achievements. In 2017, Farzanegan High School – the high school Mirzakhani formerly attended – named their amphitheater and library after her. Additionally, Sharif University of Technology, the institute wherein Mirzakhani obtained her bachelor's, has since named their main library in the College of Mathematics after her. Further, the House of Mathematics in Isfahan, in collaboration with the mayor, named a conference hall in the city after her.
In 2014, students at the University of Oxford founded the Mirzakhani Society, a society for women and non-binary students studying mathematics at the University of Oxford. Mirzakhani met the society in September 2015, when she visited Oxford.
In 2016, Mirzakhani was made a member of the National Academy of Sciences (of the United States), making her the first Iranian woman to be officially accepted as a member of the academy.
On 2 February 2018, Satellogic, a high-resolution Earth observation imaging and analytics company, launched a ÑuSat type micro-satellite named in honor of Mirzakhani.
On 4 November 2019, The Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced that the Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prize has been created to be awarded to outstanding women in the field of mathematics each year. The $50,000 award will be presented to early-career mathematicians who have completed their PhDs within the past two years.
In February 2020, on International Day of Women and Girls in STEM, Mirzakhani was honored by UN Women as one of seven female scientists dead or alive who have shaped the world.
In 2020, George Csicsery featured her in the documentary film Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani.
The 12 May Initiative was created in Mirzakhani's honor to celebrate women in mathematics. The Initiative is coordinated by the European Women in Mathematics, Association for Women in Mathematics, African Women in Mathematics Association, Colectivo de Mujeres Matemáticas de Chile, and the Women's Committee of the Iranian Mathematical Society. In 2020, 152 events were held.
In 2022, following a £2.48m donation from XTX Markets, the University of Oxford launched the Maryam Mirzakhani Scholarships, which provide support for female mathematicians pursuing doctoral studies at the university.
On 8 March 2022, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne named one of its streets in honor of Mirzakhani.
== Awards and honors ==
Gold medal. International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong 1994)
Gold medal. International Mathematical Olympiad (Canada 1995)
IPM Fellowship, Tehran, Iran, 1995–1999
Merit fellowship Harvard University, 2003
Harvard Junior Fellowship Harvard University, 2003
Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow 2004
Popular Science's 2005 "Brilliant 10", one of the top 10 young minds who have pushed their fields in innovative directions.
AMS Blumenthal Award 2009
Invited to talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, on the topic of "Topology and Dynamical Systems & ODE"
The 2013 AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics.
Simons Investigator Award 2013
Named one of Nature magazine's ten "people who mattered" of 2014
Clay Research Award 2014
Fields Medal 2014
Elected foreign associate to the French Academy of Sciences in 2015
Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2015
National Academy of Sciences 2016
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017
Asteroid 321357 Mirzakhani was named in her memory. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC 108698).
In 2024 the International Astronomical Union named the lunar crater Mirzakhani in her honor.
Mirzakhani has an Erdős number of 3.
== See also ==
McShane's identity
== References ==
== External links ==
Maryam Mirzakhani at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
Maryam Mirzakhani publications indexed by Google Scholar
Official Website of Maryam Mirzakhani (in Persian)
"Maryam Mirzakhani's work on Riemann surfaces explained in simple terms". Matific. 14 August 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
McMullen, Curtis (14 August 2014). "The work of Maryam Mirzakhani" (PDF). Harvard University. Retrieved 18 August 2017. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women%27s_firsts#:~:text=2012%3A%20Anna%20Wardley%2C%20from%20England%2C%20became%20the%20first%20person%20to%20complete%20a%20solo%20swim%20around%20Portsea%20Island%20recognized%20by%20the%20British%20Long%20Distance%20Swimming%20Association.%5B123%5D | List of women's firsts | This is a list of women's firsts noting the first time that a woman or women achieved a given historical feat. A shorthand phrase for this development is "breaking the gender barrier" or "breaking the glass ceiling." Other terms related to the glass ceiling can be used for specific fields related to those terms, such as "breaking the brass ceiling" for women in the military and "breaking the stained glass ceiling" for women clergy.
Inclusion on the list is reserved for achievements by women that have significant historical impact.
== Aviation and aerospace ==
== Bureaucrat ==
Asha Attri - First women bureaucrat in Punjab.
== Computing ==
== Dentistry ==
== Education ==
== Exploration ==
== General business ==
1500s: Philippine Welser, first European female billionaire.
1889: Anna Bissell, first female CEO in the United States of America.
1903: Maggie L. Walker, first African-American woman to charter a bank.
1908: Clara Hammerl, first woman to lead a Spanish financial institution.
1915: Helena Rubinstein, first woman to found a cosmetics company.
1945: Ruth Handler, first female president of a major toy company.
1961: Katherine Graham, first female to lead a Fortune 500 company.
1992: Alice Walton, first female decabillionaire.
1999: Andrea Jung, first female CEO of a MLM company.
1999: Carly Fiorina, first female head of a Fortune 20 company.
2000: Martha Stewart, first self-made female American billionaire.
2003: Oprah Winfrey, first female African-American billionaire.
2013: Mary Barra, first female CEO of a major car manufacturer.
2019: Kylie Jenner, first female billionaire under 30.
2020: Rania Llewellyn, first female bank CEO in Canada.
2021: Kathryn Farmer, first female CEO of a major railroad.
== Healthcare ==
Gertrude Stanton - first woman licensed to practice optometry in the U.S.
== History ==
1st century AD: Ban Zhao and Pamphile of Epidaurus – first female historians in Han China and the Roman Empire respectively.
María del Pilar Fernández Vega – first female museum curator in Spain, National Archaeological Museum (Madrid).
== International bodies ==
1950: Geronima Pecson – first Filipino and first woman elected to the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
1981: Jeane Kirkpatrick – First woman to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations.
2021: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first female Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
== Journalism ==
1918: Minna Lewinson – first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in any category.
1936: Anne O'Hare McCormick – first woman appointed to the editorial board of the Times.
1946: Katharine Graham – first female publisher of a major newspaper in the United States, The Washington Post.
1962: Ellene Mocria – first female radio newscaster and producer in Ethiopia.
1973: Linda Carter Brinson – first female assistant national editor at The Baltimore Sun.
2002: Linda Carter Brinson – first female editorial page editor at the Winston-Salem Journal.
2004: Catherine Pepinster – first woman to be editor of British newspaper The Tablet in its 175-year history.
== Law ==
== Library science ==
== Mathematics ==
== Military ==
== Nobel Prizes ==
1903: Marie Sklodowska-Curie, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics; she shared the prize with Antoine Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie. First woman to win a Nobel Prize.
1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
1909: Selma Lagerlöf, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1911: Marie Sklodowska-Curie, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. First person (and only woman to date) to win two Nobel Prizes. Only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.
1947: Gerty Cori, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; she shared the prize with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Bernardo Alberto Houssay. Although born in Prague, Gerty Cori is considered the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in medicine. She had become a U.S. citizen in 1928.
1983: Barbara McClintock, first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
2009: Elinor Ostrom, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the first American woman to do so; she shared the prize with Oliver E. Williamson.
== Politics ==
Historic firsts for women as heads of state or government:
Yevgenia Bosch, Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1918), sometimes considered the first modern female leader of a national government. She held the position of Minister of Interior and Acting Leader of the People's Secretariat of Ukraine, one of a number of competing ruling bodies in the Ukrainian People's Republic, the predecessor of Soviet Ukraine.
Khertek Anchimaa-Toka, Tuvan People's Republic (1940–1944): The first female head of state (Chairperson of the Presidium of the Little Khural) of a partially recognized country.
Sukhbaataryn Yanjmaa, Mongolia (1953–1954): The first female acting head of state (Chairperson of the Presidium of the State Great Khural).
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka (1960–1965): The first elected female prime minister (head of government) of a sovereign country. She served again 1970–77 and 1994–2000; in total she served for 17 years.
Indira Gandhi, India (1966–1977): The first female prime minister of a present-day G20 country. She served again 1980–1984.
Soong Ching-ling, China (1968–1972): The first female acting co-head of state (Co-Chairperson). She later served as Honorary President for 12 days in 1981.
Golda Meir, Israel (1969–1974): The first female prime minister in the Middle East.
Isabel Perón, Argentina (1974–1976): The first (appointed) female president, head of state and head of government.
Elisabeth Domitien, Central African Republic (1975–1976): The first (appointed) female prime minister of an African country.
Margaret Thatcher, United Kingdom (1979–1990): The first female prime minister of a G7/P5 country and the first female prime minister of a sovereign European country.
Eugenia Charles, Dominica (1980–1995): The longest continuously serving female prime minister.
Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, Iceland (1980–1996): The first democratically directly elected female president. With a presidency of exactly sixteen years, she also remains the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date.
Jeanne Sauvé, Canada (1984–1990): The first female head of state in North America.
Corazon Aquino, Philippines (1986–1992): The first female president in Southeast Asia.
Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan (1988–1990): The first female prime minister of any Muslim majority country. She served again 1993–96.
Kim Campbell, Canada (1993): The first female head of government in North America.
Tansu Çiller, Turkey (1993–1996): The first elected Muslim female prime minister in Europe.
Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka (1994–2000): The first time that a nation possessed a female president (Chandrika Kumaratunga) and a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) simultaneously. This also marked the first time that a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) directly succeeded another female prime minister (Chandrika Kumaratunga).
Ruth Perry, Liberia (1996–1997): The first (appointed) female head of state in Africa. Carmen Pereira of Guinea-Bissau and Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi had previously acted as head of state for 2 days and 101 days respectively.
Mary McAleese, Ireland (1997–2011): The first time that a female president directly succeeded another female president, Mary Robinson.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia (2006–2018): Africa's first elected female head of state.
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Iceland (2009–2013): As prime minister, she was the world's first openly lesbian world leader, first female world leader to wed a same-sex partner while in office.
Elizabeth II, United Kingdom (1952–2022): In 2015, she became the longest-reigning queen regnant and female head of state in world history. In 2016, she became the longest currently serving head of state and longest currently reigning monarch.
Ursula von der Leyen, European Union (2019–present): The first woman to be appointed President of the European Commission.
Kamala Harris, United States (2021–2025): The first woman to be inaugurated as Vice President of the United States in American history.
Sandra Mason, Barbados (2021–present): The first time that a country's first president was female (Barbados has not had a male president to date).
Giorgia Meloni, Italy (2022–present): The first woman to be elected in Italy as head of government.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico (2024–present): The first woman to be elected president.
Sanae Takaichi became the first female president of the LDP on 4 October 2025 (and is therefore likely to become Japan's first woman prime minister).
Sanae Takaichi (2025–present) elected Prime Minister of Japan.
== Racing ==
1949: Sara Christian became the first woman to race in NASCAR.
1976: Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify and compete in the Indianapolis 500
1977: Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify and compete in the Daytona 500
1989: Shawna Robinson became the first woman to win a NASCAR-sanctioned stock car race, winning in the Charlotte/Daytona Dash Series at New Asheville Speedway.
2005: Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500
2008: Danica Patrick became the first woman to win an Indy Car Series race.
2013: Danica Patrick became the first woman to race a complete full-time NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series schedule.
2013: Danica Patrick became the first woman to win a pole position for NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series in the 2013 Daytona 500.
2013: Danica Patrick became the first woman to lead the Daytona 500.
== Religion ==
1935: Regina Jonas first woman to be ordained as a rabbi.
1980: Marjorie Matthews, first woman to become a bishop of the United Methodist Church.
1989: Barbara Harris, first woman ordained a bishop in the Anglican Communion.
1992: First women ordained as priests in the Anglican Church of Australia.
March 12, 1994: The first women were ordained as Church of England priests; 32 women were ordained together.
1996: On 21 December 1996 Gloria Shipp was the first Aboriginal woman ordained as priest in the Anglican Church of Australia
2000: Denise Wyss, first woman to be ordained as a priest in the Old Catholic Church.
2003: Alison Elliot was elected the first female moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. She chaired the General Assembly the following year.
2006: Katharine Jefferts Schori, first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
2008: Kay Goldsworthy, first female consecrated bishop in Australia; she was made a bishop of the Anglican Church of Australia.
2014: Libby Lane, first female consecrated bishop in the Church of England.
2021: Sister Nathalie Becquart, first woman appointed as undersecretary to the Synod of Bishops.
2023: Maria Kubin, first female consecrated bishop in the Old Catholic Church in Austria.
2025: Sarah Mullally named the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to become the spiritual leader of the Church of England.
2025: Katrina Foster, first woman bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
== Science and Technology ==
== Sports ==
August 6, 1926: Gertrude Ederle, first woman to swim across the English Channel.
1937: Grace Hudowalski was the ninth person and first woman to climb all 46 of the Adirondack High Peaks.
1940s: Lois Fegan Farrell became the first female reporter to cover a professional hockey team in America.
1960: Mary McGee becomes the first official female motorcycle racer in the United States by earning a license from the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme. She is also the first woman to compete in the Baja 500 off-road race.
1960: Wilma Rudolph, track and field champion, became the first American woman to win three gold medals in the Rome Olympics. She elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States. As a member of the black community, she is also regarded as a civil rights and women's rights pioneer. Along with other 1960 Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay (who later became Muhammad Ali), Rudolph became an international star due to the first international television coverage of the Olympics that year.
1967: Drahşan Arda (born 1945) is a Turkish former association football referee. She was confirmed as the world's first female football referee by FIFA cockart.
November 27, 1968: Penny Ann Early, first woman to play major professional basketball, in an ABA game (Kentucky Colonels vs. Los Angeles Stars).
August 15, 1970: Patricia Palinkas, first woman to play professionally in an American football game.
January 1, 1972 – Women were officially welcomed into the United States Polo Association with Sue Sally Hale becoming the first female member.
May 16, 1975: Junko Tabei, first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1993: Lynn Hill does the first free ascent (FFA) of the 3,000-foot Nose Route on El Capitan (5.14a/b); one of the biggest prizes in big wall climbing.
1993: Halli Reid became the first woman to swim across Lake Erie, swimming from Long Point, Ontario, to North East, Pennsylvania, in 17 hours.
1994: Catherine Destivelle becomes the first woman to complete the winter free solo of the "north face trilogy of the Eiger, the Grandes Jorasses, and the Matterhorn.
October 18, 1997: Liz Heaston, first female to play and score in a college football game, kicking two extra points in the 1997 Linfield vs. Willamette football game.
December 26, 2008: Sarah Thomas, first woman to officiate an NCAA football bowl game.
2009: Kei Taniguchi becomes the first woman to win the Piolet d'Or (Golden Ice Axe), the "Oscar" of Mountaineering.
September 4, 2009: Carolynn Sells became the first woman to win a solo motorcycle race on the Snaefell Mountain Course in the Isle of Man when she won the Ultra Lightweight race at the 2009 Manx Grand Prix.
May 17, 2010, Edurne Pasaban became the first woman to climb all of the fourteen eight-thousander peaks in the World.
May 4, 2012: Rosie Napravnik became the first woman jockey to win the Kentucky Oaks, riding Believe You Can.
August 9, 2012: Shannon Eastin becomes the first woman to officiate a National Football League game in a pre-season matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the San Diego Chargers.
2012: Anna Wardley, from England, became the first person to complete a solo swim around Portsea Island recognized by the British Long Distance Swimming Association.
May 31, 2013: Lydia Nsekera became the first female FIFA Executive Committee member.
May 18, 2013: Rosie Napravnik places third in the Preakness Stakes on Mylute, making her the first woman to have ridden in all three Triple Crown races. On June 8, 2013, she rode the filly Unlimited Budget to a 6th-place finish in the 2013 Belmont, becoming the first woman to ride all three Triple Crown races in the same year.
June 2013: Ashley Freiberg became the first woman to claim an overall GT3 Cup Challenge victory in North America, winning the Porsche IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge.
September 23, 2013: Sarah Outen arrived in a small harbor on the Aleutian island of Adak, and thus became the first person to row solo from Japan to Alaska, as well as the first woman to complete a mid-Pacific row from West to East.
2013: Davie Jane Gilmour became the first woman to lead the board of directors for Little League.
2013: UFC 157, which took place in February, featured not only the first women's fight in UFC history but also the first UFC event to be headlined by two female fighters (Ronda Rousey and Liz Carmouche).
2013: On her fifth attempt and at the age of 64, Diana Nyad became the first person confirmed to swim from Cuba to Florida without the protection of a shark cage, swimming from Havana to Key West.
2013: Scotland's solicitor general, Lesley Thomson, became the first woman to be appointed to Scottish Rugby's board.
2013: Anna Wardley, from England, became the first woman to swim non-stop around the Isle of Wight.
2013: Peggy O'Neal, an American-born lawyer, became the first woman in the Australian Football League to hold the position of club president, being chosen as the president of the Richmond Football Club.
2013: Tracey Gaudry became the first woman appointed as vice president of the Union Cycliste Internationale.
2013: Adel Weir, former world number 53 from South Africa, became the first ever female squash coach hire at the Qatar Squash Federation.
2013: Maria Toor, a squash player from South Waziristan, became the winner of the first ever women's event in the Nash Cup in Canada by beating Milou van der Heijden of the Netherlands 13–11, 11–3, 11–9.
2013: Tatyana McFadden became the first athlete to win six gold medals at a championships during the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon. She claimed gold in every event from the 100 meters through to the 5,000 meters.
2013: Tatyana McFadden won the Boston, Chicago, London, and New York marathons in 2013. This makes her the first person – able-bodied or otherwise – to win the four major marathons in the same year. She also set a new course record for the Chicago Marathon (1 hour, 42 minutes, 35 seconds).
2013: Denise Fejtek became the first woman to complete the "Peak to Heat Double" – the combination of summiting Mount Everest and finishing the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. She reached the Everest Summit on May 23, 2010, and finished the Hawaii Ironman in October 2013.
2013: Sonya Baumstein became the first person to stand-up paddleboard across the Bering Strait.
2013: Meredith Novack became the fastest person, and first woman, to pull a double crossing of the Auau Channel in Hawaii. Her time was 11 hours and one minute.
2013: Rosie Napravnik won 17 races to become the first woman to capture the leading rider title at Keeneland.
2013: Olivia Prokopova became the first woman to win the World Crazy Golf Championship.
2013: Mia Hamm became the first woman inducted into the World Football Hall of Fame in Pachuca, Mexico.
2013: Emily Bell became the first woman to kayak the length of Britain.
2013: Casey Stoney became the first female member of the Professional Footballers' Association's management committee.
2013: Jodi Eller became the first woman to complete the 1,515-mile Florida Circumnavigational Saltwater Paddling Trail.
2013: On March 1, 2013, Privateers owner and president Nicole Kirnan served as the team's coach for the first time, making her the first woman to coach a professional hockey team in the United States.
2014: Torah Bright became the first woman to qualify for three snowboard disciplines at a Winter Olympics, specifically snowboard cross, halfpipe and slopestyle.
2014: Ashley Freiberg became the first woman to win an overall race in Continental Tire Challenge History when she won the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. Her co-driver was Shelby Blackstock.
2014: The first women competed in ski jumping at the Olympics.
2014: Jennifer Welter became the first female non-kicker or placekick-holder to play in a men's pro football game; she played running back for the Texas Revolution.
2014: Abbey Holmes became the first woman to kick 100 goals in one regular season of Australian Rules football.
2014: Annabel Anderson, from New Zealand, became the first woman to cross Cook Strait standing on a paddleboard.
2014: Peta Searle became the first woman appointed as a development coach in the Australian Football League when she was chosen by St Kilda as a development coach.
2014: 16-year-old Katie Ormerod, from Britain, became the first female snowboarder to land a backside double cork 1080.
2014: Shelby Osborne became the first female defensive back in American football when she was drafted by Campbellsville University in Kentucky.
2014: Amélie Mauresmo became the first woman to coach a top male tennis player (specifically, Andy Murray).
2014: Corinne Diacre became the first woman to coach a men's professional soccer team (Clermont Foot) in a competitive match in France on August 4, 2014, her 40th birthday.
2014: Cecilia Brækhus, from Norway, became the first Norwegian and the first woman to hold all major world championship titles in her weight division (welterweight) in boxing.
2014: On August 15, 2014, Mo'ne Davis was the first girl in Little League World Series history to pitch a winning game for the Taney Dragons and earned the win, and she was also the first girl to pitch a shutout in Little League postseason history.
2014: Amy Hughes, from England, ran 53 marathons in 53 days, thus setting the record for the most marathons run on consecutive days by any person, male or female.
2015: Jennifer Welter became the first woman hired to coach in men's pro football when the Texas Revolution of the Champions Indoor Football league announced that Welter was hired to coach linebackers and special teams.
2019: G. S. Lakshmi, former Indian cricketer, becomes the first female ICC match referee
2021: First African-American female full-time NFL coach (Washington Football Team); Jennifer King.
== See also ==
(History Portal is a "main page" linking to broader history topics.)
Aerial Nurse Corps of America - composed entirely of women pilots, ANCOA is regarded as the beginning of flight nurses and Air Ambulances.
Early Australian female aviators
List of American women's firsts - women's firsts specific to the U.S.
List of inventions and discoveries by women - inventions and discoveries in which women played a primary role
Timeline of women in photography - includes historic firsts for women in photography (as an art and in journalism)
Women in India §Timeline of women's achievements in India - section includes historic firsts for women in India
Women's history – Study of women's role in history
First woman (disambiguation link?)
== Further reading ==
Timeline of Women in World History, britannica.com, 2015 (archived January 18, 2015).
Nine things you didn't know were invented by women BBC, 4 September 2017
== References == |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Palmolive_Hour | The Palmolive Hour | The Palmolive Hour was an American radio concert-variety program, sponsored by Palmolive Soap and broadcast on NBC from December 1927, to July 29, 1931. The Palmolive Musical Stock Company (a.k.a. the Palmolivers) offered a mix of jazz, show tunes and opera selections.
== Format and performers ==
The program usually opened with a duet by Frank Munn and soprano Virginia Rea. To call attention to the sponsor's product, they did not appear on the program under their own names but instead were introduced each week as Paul Oliver and Olive Palmer. Contralto Elizabeth Lennox was featured in duets with Rea. Gus Haenschen led the orchestra, with Frank Black at the piano. Other regular members of the cast were Wilfred Glenn, Lewis James, James Melton, Elliot Shaw, and the Revelers Quartet.
== Guest appearances ==
Fanny Brice was a guest on the program, and other broadcasts featured such guests as Vaughn De Leath, Gene Tunney, the Duncan Sisters, Cliff Edwards (a.k.a. Ukulele Ike), Cecil Lean, Cleo Mayfield, The Revelers and international operatic sopranos Claudia Muzio, of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and Edith Mason, of the Chicago Civic Opera Company. The announcers were Phillips Carlin and Alois Havrilla.
When the series came to an end during mid-summer 1931, only a few months lapsed before many associated with The Palmolive Hour were reunited on a new series that fall. Munn, Rea, Lennox, The Revelers and Haenschen all continued in the similar format of The American Album of Familiar Music. Munn stayed with that series until his retirement in 1945.
== See also ==
Palmolive Beauty Box Theater (1934-1937)
== References ==
== External links ==
Echo (Fall 2003): "Music and Advertising in Early Radio" by Timothy D. Taylor |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_cuckoo-dove | Brown cuckoo-dove | The brown cuckoo-dove (Macropygia phasianella) is a dove in the genus Macropygia found in Australia from Weipa and Aurukun in the north to Bega in the south, and most inland at Atherton and Toowoomba. It is sometimes called the "brown pigeon" or "pheasant pigeon", but both terms are best avoided, as they can lead to confusion with the brown doves and the true pheasant pigeon. It was one of three new species defined when the slender-billed cuckoo-dove was split in 2016.
== Taxonomy ==
The brown cuckoo-dove was formally described in 1821 by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck from a specimen collected near Port Jackson in New South Wales, Australia. He coined the binomial name Columba phasianella. The specific name is a diminutive of the Latin phasianus, meaning "pheasant". The brown cuckoo-dove is now placed in the genus Macropygia, which was introduced by the English naturalist William Swainson in 1837.
Three subspecies are recognised:
M. p. quinkan Schodde, 1989 - Cape York Peninsula
M. p. robinsoni Mathews, 1912 - Queensland
M. p. phasianella (Temminck, 1821) - East and Southeast Australia
== Description ==
The brown cuckoo-dove is from 40 to 43 centimetres (16 to 17 in) in length. The feathers are a rich rusty-brown colour, and the short wings, long tail and back are darker. The males tend to have a slight rose/green colouration on their nape and neck.
The call of this dove is a very loud "whoop-a whoop" with some differences depending on the subspecies involved.
The brown cuckoo-dove inhabits rainforest, woodland, scrubland and rainforest regrowth areas.
The doves can often be seen in pairs or groups. Its diet consists of berries from both native plants and introduced weed species. They can be nomadic, depending on the supplies of food. They tend to fly short distances and low to the ground with great strength.
Breeding occurs in spring and summer. The nest is a flat platform of sticks and vines, either in a fork of a tree or on top of a low tree. One, creamy white, egg is laid.
== References ==
Lamington National Park - Brown Cuckoo-Dove
North Queensland Bird Watching - Brown Cuckoo-Dove
Pizzey and Knight, "Field Guide to the Birds of Australia", Angus & Robertson, ISBN 0-207-19691-5 |
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